Affective Economies of Tuberculosis and the Circulation of Knowledge: Insights from the Memoirs of Will Ross

ABSTRACT: Bridging affect theory and history of science scholarship, this paper illustrates how discursive practices around tuberculosis in the early twentieth century established an affective economy in which the circulation of shame and fear served to establish “responsible” and “irresponsible” patient collectives, which in turn shaped the production of biomedical knowledge. I analyze the circulation of these affects through a rhetorical analysis of two patient narratives about tuberculosis by Will Ross, the first nonphysician president of the Wisconsin Anti-Tuberculosis Association. Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s scholarship on the cultural politics of fear, Berlant’s critique of cruel optimism, and scholarship on the social history of tuberculosis, I place Ross’s texts within the affective history of tuberculosis. While Ross’s memoirs are cited in Rothman’s key text on the social history of tuberculosis, scholars have yet to situate his writings within the context of twentieth-century policy discourses and the affective economy that informed them. Through in-depth engagement with a previously overlooked primary source, I contribute to the historical literatures on tuberculosis and patient advocacy.