Contagion

The volume rests on the assumption that by showing intricate relations between infectious diseases and various socio-political and environmental crises the COVID-19 pandemic has put into question the epidemiological discourse of contagion. Through readings of cultural and artistic practices, the volume proposes a new approach to contagion beyond epidemiology by articulating the key role of contagion and its embodied experiences in building human and more-than-human communities. Part 1 explores the relationship between embodied experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic and the activity of sense-making in the context of living after the lockdowns. Part 2 moves outside the human realm to investigate how contagion is contingent upon various ecosocial and ecopolitical processes and phenomena rooted in the violent legacy of European colonialisms. Part 3 searches for new models of community by redefining immunity and tracing manifold entanglements of bodies, institutions, and viruses that foster practices of care and healing that go beyond the modern Western conception of health. Thus, the volume may become important source of knowledge and inspiration for academics and PhD students interested in theorizing contagion in the wake of COVID-19.