Collage: Instead

by Nathalie Karagiannis

Hospital staff, deserted cities, the return of animals. The contemporary unfolding of the pandemic through collage.

Covid-19 and the future of sovereignty in South Africa

by Jonny Steinberg

A decade hence, when we look back at the way South Africans responded to the coming of Covid-19, the irony will surely be as sad as it is stark. In the face of a global threat long imagined, people took shelter under the cover of the Leviathan, notwithstanding its many glaring imperfections.

Health, Harm, Habitus: Techniques of the Body in COVID-19

By Sophie Chao

COVID-19 has prompted a renewed awareness of how we use our bodies under “normal” circumstances. For instance, some of us have noticed when and how often we wash our hands or touch our faces. We become conscious of the everyday tactile contact we make with human others. The close ones we embrace or kiss, or the colleagues and peers we shake hands with.

Opus Magnum: How the Pandemic is Changing the World

by Göran Therborn

The pandemic has been, and is, an experience of suffering and loss for millions of people around the planet. For us, privileged survivors, it has been a life-engraving learning experience. It has shown us the historical impact of contingency, the planetary commons and its eradicable divisions, a sharpening of social and political alternatives, and an acceleration of the current dynamic of the world, towards inegalitarian deglobalization, and possibly to a geopolitical US-China war.