THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
Andrej Božič / 1. 5. 2021
Esteemed Colleagues:
We would hereby like to kindly inform you of the publication of a special issue of the Slovenian journal of phenomenology and hermeneutics Phainomena, which is in its entirety dedicated to the pandemic of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.
Lahkim Bennani Azelarabe / 11. 6. 2020
Normative Gründe zur Bekämpfung des Coronavirus aus dem religiös-kulturellen marokkanischen Hintergrund
Azelarabe Lahkim Bennani
Université Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah
Abteilung für Philosophie Fès Marokko
Babette Babich / 11. 6. 2020
Video on the topic which was recorded for a conference on the current global crisis.
Keynote for the May 2020 Conference organized by the American University of Paris
Babette Babich: Pseudo-Science and ‘Fake’ News: ‘Inventing Epidemics’ and the Police State
Frane Adam / 8. 6. 2020
On 11 March, the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced that the new corona virus had become a pandemic, namely an epidemic that started in Wuhan, China, had grown into dimensions that threaten most of the world. After 3 months, one can take stock of how individual countries and regions have coped with the pandemic.
Florian Kührer-Wielach / 4. 6. 2020
A virus is first of all a virus, an entity with which we have always lived together in this world and which can occasionally become an acute problem. What is new and malignant is not only this corona virus, but also the quality of the supposed powerlessness, the acute lack of alternatives, which causes us to shift all aspects of a regained ability to act into the world of tomorrow.
Erhard Busek / 28. 5. 2020
Many thanks for the first contribution to the Forum for the Humanities. What are you intending to do to make it a real instrument of exchange of ideas?
Babette Babich / 25. 5. 2020
There is tremendous disquiet all around — enough for a lifetime and a half, lived and unlived. But in this time of crisis, scholars otherwise keen to pick through Heidegger’s Nazi enabling complicity, attuned to what he said or wrote — or failed to say or failed to write — find themselves repeating currently standard government edicts.
Peter Hanenberg / 26. 5. 2020
It is not uncommon for politics and the media to refer to crises as wars. It helps frame the situation and concentrate efforts on fighting a cause, the more so as this cause is a living organism with an identity: Sars-CoV 2.
Werner Wintersteiner / 25. 5. 2020
Times of crisis are moments of learning. They are therefore also times of political dispute: What is the significance of the events? Which measures have proven effective? How should things continue after the crisis?
Jean Grondin / 25. 5. 2020
For intellectuals and academics, at least those blessed with relatively good health, the lockdown is not necessarily a major inconvenience, nor all that unusual. Descartes conducted his meditations isolated, or alone with God, by his fireplace. Our own secular age is now rediscovering the virtues of monasticism.
Bernhard Waldenfels / 14. 5. 2020
Ein überraschend auftretender Virus ist etwas, das uns widerfährt, bevor das Für und Wider einsetzt. Wie kann man davon reden, ohne es wegzureden? Was kann ein Philosoph dazu beisteuern?
Erhard Busek / 12. 5. 2020
I think the first step should be to analyze, which right and wrong directions we are within the discussion of the corona crises. I would say, there were a lot of wrong comparisons for example to compare it with the results of the World War II.
Letter of invitation for a humanistic discussion
Esteemed colleagues:
Today, we are confronted with the epidemic of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), which has engulfed the entire world. The COVID-19 pandemic does not discriminate by countries, cultures, identities, or political regimes. The countries are dealing with it to the best of abilities proving, thus, their maturity within the entire spectrum of politics, culture, and economy. This, in turn, discloses the relation towards values that give civilizational and ethical meaning to the individual as well as to a society.
What does solidarity mean? Are we attentive and sensitive enough to recognize, to see and to hear different vulnerable groups? What is the value of human life? These are the questions that require addressing in light of the COVID-19 crisis.
Whenever a crisis revealing our vulnerability arises, the need resurfaces for a humanistic articulation of the discussion regarding the quality not only of the present, but also of the future mode of existence. Scholars, researchers, and other stakeholders within various fields of the humanities are being summoned to re-consider and to call into common awareness the values, which we have, before the crisis, often and readily egoistically pushed into the background, and which form the necessary fundament for a conscious and conscientious relation towards ourselves and our world.
We would, therefore, hereby like to cordially invite you to contribute your thoughts, opinions, and observations regarding different aspects of the circumstances of COVID-19 crisis to be published on the website of the Forum for the Humanities (FORhUM).
Please send your texts to the following address: andrej.bozic@institut-nr.si.
We would namely like to establish a forum for a humanistic discussion, which could be of a cultural as well as of a civilizational value today and in the future.
We are looking forward to hearing from you.
Kind regards,
Tomaž Zalaznik
Institute Nova Revija for the Humanities
Vodovodna cesta 101
1000 Ljubljana
Slovenia
Telephone:
+386 12444560
+386 12444587 (Andrej Božič)
Forum for the Humanities (FORhUM) operates under the auspices of Institute Nova Revija for the Humanities (INR; Ljubljana, Slovenia), the activities of which are financially supported by the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency (ARIS; Ljubljana, Slovenia) within the research program P6-0341, the research project J7-4631, and infrastructure program I0-0036.
