Pandemic, Event, and the Immanence of Life

This volume reflects on different regional and national experiences of the Covid 19 pandemic, with contributions from India, Thailand, Singapore, Australia, Italy, United States, and Canada.

This book draws upon a number of approaches but especially the works of Deleuze and Guattari, Agamben, Derrida, Foucault, Habermas, Latour, and Serres. It looks at the methodological aspects of treating the pandemic, focuses on laying out the posthuman condition of the event largely problematizing the immanence of life which affirms the transversal Deleuzian ethic of life, and extends the politics of life to the domain of immunology. Together, the authors make it apparent that the pandemic is a multifaceted event, or many different kinds of events – virological, informational, phenomenological, social, and discursive. The authors skilfully develop these different dimensions of the pandemic event and show the relations between them. These essays will enrich the reader’s understanding of the pandemic and its effects, while demonstrating the depth and breadth of the resources that humanities scholarship can mobilize to help us understand such phenomena.

This volume will be useful to students of posthumanism, medical humanities, health communication, political communication, semiotics, literature, cultural theories, and major strains of thought from contemporary continental philosophy.