Talk by Avantika Tewari (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)

Abstract

The paper explores the suddenness of the loss of sociality imposed by the preventive protocols that mandate physical distancing along with a certain “asociality,” which exacerbates the grief and anxiety induced by the near-total absence of state intervention to mitigate the crisis. A suspended animation grafts the individual responses to the pandemic which is compounded by the systemic collapse. Many have voiced their fears about what lies in store on the other side of the pandemic, with scores of people ailing, scrambling for resources and succumbing to the virus. The policy-centric approaches of the State have privileged techno-capitalist intervention as an apparent solution for the crisis that we face. There have been echoes of an emergent surveillance society as the logical culmination of capitalism’s efforts at overcoming its own crisis. True to Fedric Jameson's observation, it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. Given the current state of the world, what are the political stakes of pessimism and revolutionary defeatism? Maybe the way forward is much less clear than we would like to acknowledge in our desire for radical change.

This lecture will take place on Zoom and be followed by an inclusive discussion. This is the fifth talk in the Pandemic Perspectives Autumn Seminar series 2021-22. For more information about this series and the Pandemic Perspectives group, please see our website: https://pandemic-perspectives-uk.com/ and Twitter @Pandemic_Persp