Description
The Centre for the Study of the Renaissance at the University of Warwick, along with the Center for Renaissance Studies and the D’Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies at the Newberry Library are pleased to announce that abstracts are now being accepted for the final phase of Processing the Pandemic: a multi-year series of seminars and symposia that explore how the experiences of the past may guide society’s emotional and social responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. How can we—as an open community of scholars, teachers, archivists, social workers, and practitioners—learn from these experiences and from each other in transformative, inspiring, transdisciplinary ways? How can such dialogues reframe existing discussions around the history of emotions, our responses to trauma, and how we navigate from loss to hope? Moreover, how can the study of peoples’ responses to traumatic events in the past and present help guide our own experience of the pandemic and its unfolding future?
Following our first in-person symposium on Loss at the Newberry Library in April 2022, and an ongoing series of virtual seminars, we are now inviting proposals for the final event in the series: a transdisciplinary symposium around the theme of Hope to be held at the University of Warwick on April 13-14, 2023.
Processing the Pandemic III: Hope will conclude our discussions as we attempt to trace new pathways to answer the question of how communities in both the past and present move from Loss to Hope, navigating the complex constellations of emotions that result from such crises.
Call for Proposals
We welcome proposals for roundtable discussions that seek to foster open and transformative conversations on these topics between scholars, artists, and professionals in a variety of humanities fields: Native American and Indigenous studies, anti-racism and postcolonial studies, medieval studies, early modern studies, theology, creative arts, and more.
In all proposals, we encourage scholars and artists to not only present their material, but also to engage in a reflective turn, exploring how their own experiences of the pandemic have come to inform their work (and vice versa).
These proposals can be of several types:
10-15 minute presentations for roundtable discussions on responses to past traumatic events from any period.
20-30 minute pedagogic mini-workshops - where participants both teach something and reflect/explore how such an approach articulates a “pedagogy of hope” (broadly defined).
20-30 minute creative presentations imagining post-pandemic futures, alternate futures, and new ways forward informed by responses to traumatic events. Such presentations should also include a brief discussion by the artist on the thought that animated their creative output.
Co-proposals are warmly welcomed for such seminars.
Please send your proposal and a brief bio to b.brazeau@warwick.ac.uk by Monday, December 5, 2022.
Full Call for Proposals