‘Viral Politics’ – a virtual symposium on Viral Politics hosted by the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation
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Viruses are disrupting conventional political sensibilities. The force of these invisible agents has reverberated across scales–interrupting molecular processes within cells, the predictable functioning of organs and bodies, as well as political, economic, and cultural systems. Public health officials have tried to “combat” the novel coronavirus, mobilising rhetoric about warfare, as they brought everyday life to a standstill. As global health biosecurity programs have failed to achieve a final solution, experiments in living with the virus are underway around the world. Mass mortality events have been shaped by racism, capitalism and colonialism. Newly recognised essential workers are being propelled into dangerous and vulnerable situations.
Fake news and disinformation has gone viral. Scientific knowledge has taken on new political significance. As people protest lockdown restrictions, modes of knowing, being, and living are at stake. A global “anthro pause” took place, as relations among humans, animals, plants, and ecological systems were reconfigured on a planetary scale. Perhaps the figure of Gaia has intruded, interrupting modernist epistemologies and ontologies that separate nature from culture, the human from the non-human. If certain modes of human existence were tolerated by planetary ecologies in the before time, now might be the time to recognise that previous configurations are untenable.
This event will bring together speakers who have participated in three parallel initiatives that emerged in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Our title is inspired by one of these projects, “The Viral Politics of COVID-19: Nature, Home, and Planetary Health,” an edited book collection by Vanessa Lemm and Miguel Vatter. Participants are also drawn from the Coronavirus Multispecies Reading Group, a weekly discussion forum hosted by Eben Kirksey and organised by Rachael Vaughn.
Day 1 Virtual Plenary Panel – Wednesday 25th August, 7–8pm
Join via livestream
Panel: chaired by Eben Kirksey – 7–8pm
Presenters:
Sria Chatterjee (Critical Media Lab, Basel)
‘Visualising the Virus’
Rachel Vaughn (UCLA)
“On the Viral Politics of Wastewater Epidemiology”
Astrid Schrader (Exeter)
“The transformative potential of marine viruses and a hopeful viral politics”
Day 2 Symposium – Friday 27th August, 10am-3pm
Join via livestream
Welcome – 10–10.10am
Panel 1: chaired by Miguel Vatter – 10.10–11.10am
Presenters:
Vanessa Lemm (Deakin University)
“Contagion and Community of Life – Rethinking community in pandemic times”
Yasmeen Arif (Shiv Nadar University)
“Visceral publics and social power : Crowd Politics in the time of a Pandemic”
Eben Kirksey (Deakin University)
“Viral Politics and Microbiopolitics”
Changeover (coffee break) & Nyall Tour – 10 mins
Panel 2: chaired by Vanessa Lemm – 11.20am–12.20pm
Presenters:
Gay Hawkins (University of Western Sydney)
“Contagion and the Suggestive Realm: the micropolitics of social distancing”
Catherine Bennett (Deakin University)
“Public health in pandemic times and the hijacking of science.”
David Giles (Deakin University)
“Shelter in the Pandemic City: Home(lessness) and public space under lockdown”
Lunch & Nyall Tour – 12.20–1pm
Panel 3: chaired by Eben Kirksey – 1–2pm
Presenters:
S.S. Vasan (CSIRO Geelong & University of York)
“But Mouse, you are not alone: On some severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 variants infecting mice”
Lyle Fearnley (Singapore University of Technology and Design)
“From global to planetary health: two modes of zoonotic pandemic preparedness”
Gary Crameri (former CSIRO Geelong)
“Bats: their role in the emergence of SARS coronaviruses and other infectious diseases”
Panel 4: chaired by Eben Kirksey – 2–3pm
Presenters:
Mark Andrejevic (Monash University)
“Touchlessness and Mass-Customised Monitoring”
Vicki Kirby (UNSW Sydney)
“And what if Gaia intruded?”
Miguel Vatter (Deakin University)
“Covid passes, rights and biopower – embodiment, freedom of movement, and the policing of space after Covid”