Abstract

HOFMEYR, Isabel. There's a Bug in my Media: Insects, Colonial Archives and Book History. Kronos [online]. 2025, vol.51, n.1, pp.1-11. ISSN 2309-9585.  https://doi.org/10.17159/2309-9585/2025/v51a2.

Traditionally a 'dry' discipline little concerned with ecocritical themes, book history has started to engage with environmental humanities in a more sustained way. This paper joins this trend by considering insects in colonial archives. Starting with the insects themselves, the paper considers state responses of fumigation, and what this means for definitions of books and literary genres. Situated at the intersection of insect, paper and chemicals, the article raises larger questions of entomo-politics, chemical legacies in museums and archives, and the intertwined histories of empire, war, insecticide and genocide.

Keywords : Bookworms; insects in archives; insects and book history; Herman Charles Bosman; Westminster Hall.

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