Anna Weerasinghe

Anna Weerasinghe

Editor

Anna Weerasinghe earned her PhD from Johns Hopkins University in 2022. Her dissertation, “Stuck Knowledge: Medicine and Immobility in Portuguese Goa, 1500–1750,” investigates how the patterns through which colonial medical knowledge traveled – or did not travel – were structured by gender, ethnicity, social status, and religion. She currently works in healthcare communications in Washington, DC.

History

Have Leprosy, Will Travel: A Case of Early Modern Medical Tourism

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On the tropical beach of a remote island, a group of ailing Europeans was spread across the white sands. Some lay soaking in medicinal baths assisted by local attendants; others dined on a special healing diet prepared from rare, locally-sourced ingredients. These exclusive treatments were not available in Europe, and sufferers were willing to pay… Read more →

History

Sister Mariana’s Spyglass: The Unreliable Ghost of Female Desire in a Convent Archive

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In 1731, Sister Mariana de Jesus, a young nun at the Augustinian Convent of Santa Monica in Portuguese Goa, was caught using a spyglass to ogle the monks at the convent’s brother monastery across the street.[1] Under other circumstances, Sister Mariana’s spyglass might not have attracted much attention. Spyglasses were popular among the sisters of… Read more →

History

The Rejected Ones: Indian Foundlings in Colonial Portuguese Goa

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In September of 1747, Rosa de Menezes went into labor in her home in the poorest quarter of Goa, the capital of Portuguese India.[1] Menezes, an Indian Christian widow, had fallen pregnant, in her own words, “due to the weakness of the human condition” (pela fragilidade de humana) – a euphemism for sex outside of… Read more →