Spanish Flu times: the 1918 pandemic and the case of Porto Alegre

Abstract

How to define 1918 pandemic times, that interrupted the rhythm of the beginning of the 20 century and introduced the death temporality? Maybe it was an intermission in the radical notion of progress - a real myth in the Western Culture of that time. For three months the calendar, almost stopped to move. This was the death time, in a society that was not prepared to deal with it. The present time that prevents to think about the past and the future. The waiting time, the doubt time, the trauma time that are frequently silenced, but also the learning experience time. This article intends, therefore, to explore the pandemic temporality as a social marker, and to stablish parallels with the contemporary context of Covid 19. Porto Alegre appears as a case study. (This article was originally a talk to the Anthropology Department of UFRGS, that is why it keeps an essay genre.)

Keywords:
Spanish Flu; pandemic temporality; Porto Alegre; imaginary depictions