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The Labyrinth of COVID-19

  • Susan Visvanathan
Published/Copyright: January 18, 2022
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Paragrana
From the journal Paragrana Volume 30 Issue 2

Abstract

This essay looks at the way in which the end of the world syndrome manifests itself regularly as a form of human consciousness. It makes us alert to the possibility of our own instant expiry, causing us both to introspect, as well as to imagine the future of the species. Digitalization and digitization of trauma permits us to see the normality of death as an every present occurrence. Within this context, words have tremendous power, showing us that at each moment we are being ushered into a space not necessarily of our own making. While it frightens us, yet the choices we have are limited to the class and ethnic locations of our everyday survival. While we live, we dream. Negation does not end ambition, it only proves the ephemerality of individual existence and makes us seek to use time as best as our imagination and survival capabilities allow. Our sadness about corporeality is mitigated by the dream we have of species continuity.

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Published Online: 2022-01-18
Published in Print: 2021-12-20

© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Zur Einführung: Pandemien im Anthropozän
  3. Pandemics in the Anthropocene – Perspectives of Historical Anthropology
  4. I. COVID-19: Die Entstehung einer Pandemie
  5. Humanity and Rituals in the Age of Living with COVID-19
  6. Weltverhalten
  7. The COVID-19 Pandemic: A Reflection of the Human Adventure in the Anthropocene
  8. Pandemic and the Consequences of Social Vulnerability for the Transformation into a Syndemic in Brazil
  9. The Coronavirus and the Earth’s Thinking: An Anthropological Issue
  10. The Labyrinth of COVID-19
  11. China: Corona, „das landesweit einheitliche System“ und „der doppelte Wirtschaftskreislauf“
  12. „Als das kleine Virus tanzte ...“
  13. II. Historische, literarische und ästhetische Perspektiven
  14. Die Epidemie schreiben
  15. Erzählen gegen den Tod: Pandemie und Literatur
  16. Die Kultur der Einbildungskraft und der Urteilskraft in einer dürftigen Zeit
  17. Viral Mimesis: The Patho(-) Logies of the Coronavirus
  18. Fahren auf Sicht
  19. Der Staat als Klinik
  20. Mehr lebensnotwendig denn systemrelevant: Kulturpolitische Wirkungsweisen von Kultur- und Kunstschaffen in der Krise
  21. The Work of Art in the Age of its Sanitized Fruition
  22. III. Anthropologische, philosophische und soziale Erweiterungen
  23. Covid 19: informer n’est pas communiquer
  24. The Digital Virus Against Democracy
  25. Antisemitismus als Seuche
  26. Combating the Education Pandemic in Africa
  27. Doing Philosophy Virtually and the Amphibolic Body
  28. Virus sive Idea
  29. Ein Virus als Totem?
  30. Pandemie und Freiheit
https://doi.org/10.1515/para-2021-0025

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Zur Einführung: Pandemien im Anthropozän
  3. Pandemics in the Anthropocene – Perspectives of Historical Anthropology
  4. I. COVID-19: Die Entstehung einer Pandemie
  5. Humanity and Rituals in the Age of Living with COVID-19
  6. Weltverhalten
  7. The COVID-19 Pandemic: A Reflection of the Human Adventure in the Anthropocene
  8. Pandemic and the Consequences of Social Vulnerability for the Transformation into a Syndemic in Brazil
  9. The Coronavirus and the Earth’s Thinking: An Anthropological Issue
  10. The Labyrinth of COVID-19
  11. China: Corona, „das landesweit einheitliche System“ und „der doppelte Wirtschaftskreislauf“
  12. „Als das kleine Virus tanzte ...“
  13. II. Historische, literarische und ästhetische Perspektiven
  14. Die Epidemie schreiben
  15. Erzählen gegen den Tod: Pandemie und Literatur
  16. Die Kultur der Einbildungskraft und der Urteilskraft in einer dürftigen Zeit
  17. Viral Mimesis: The Patho(-) Logies of the Coronavirus
  18. Fahren auf Sicht
  19. Der Staat als Klinik
  20. Mehr lebensnotwendig denn systemrelevant: Kulturpolitische Wirkungsweisen von Kultur- und Kunstschaffen in der Krise
  21. The Work of Art in the Age of its Sanitized Fruition
  22. III. Anthropologische, philosophische und soziale Erweiterungen
  23. Covid 19: informer n’est pas communiquer
  24. The Digital Virus Against Democracy
  25. Antisemitismus als Seuche
  26. Combating the Education Pandemic in Africa
  27. Doing Philosophy Virtually and the Amphibolic Body
  28. Virus sive Idea
  29. Ein Virus als Totem?
  30. Pandemie und Freiheit
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