Description
Book SynopsisThis unique book considers COVID-19 as one pandemic amongst many, forming an episodic era of ebbing and flowing crises: the Virocene. Investigating COVID-19 in the context of the phenomenology of the crisis, it offers critical exploration of key theses in the study of mobility and futures, travel and citizenship. Through thought-provoking and insightful analysis Rodanthi Tzanelli suggests that COVID-19, and any highly infectious virus that follows, evolves into the new self-governing principle of various forms of movement, acting as an ontological magnet: as mobilities become reshaped by remote technologies, the very order of reality changes.
Examining how one viral crisis can trigger more crises, prompting radical self-assessment in the new orders of life, Tzanelli suggests that the Virocene and the Anthropocene interact in ways that may lead to multiple ecological failures or produce the key to better futures. This interdisciplinary book analyses contemporary events from a range of perspectives, providing a large-scale qualitative assessment of recent phenomena.
It will be a key resource for students and scholars of cultural sociology, sociological theory, geography, anthropology, environmental humanities and communication studies, while also benefiting practitioners in crisis management and policymaking interested in alternative approaches to pandemics and social change.
Trade Review‘Cultural (Im)mobilities and the Virocene: Mutating the Crisis
deftly transcends both the myopic obsession with the crisis at hand and the optimistic platitudes about its aftermath that have circulated in popular pandemic commentary. In their place, Tzanelli offers a fresh perspective on the pandemic, arguing that it is not merely a momentary reordering of our daily (im)mobilities, but rather symptomatic of a new epoch in which recurring crises have become a hallmark of human life on earth. Tzanelli’s diagnosis shifts the conversation into an altogether different register, inviting readers to question our deeply held assumptions about the nature of reality and pointing us toward the real hopes we might harbor for our future world.’ -- Jennie Germann Molz, College of the Holy Cross, US
Table of ContentsContents: PART I RE-INTRODUCING THE COENIC : OVERLAPPING ERAS = OVERLAPPING IMAGINARIES? Introduction to Cultural (Im)mobilities and the Virocene PART II VIROPOLITICS 1. Virocene imaginaries: colonising the ontic sphere 2. Virocene emplotments: masking cultural politics as biomedical events PART III FABRICA MUNDI (DIGITALIS) : THE RADICAL SHIFT 3. Work and the new (im)mobilities of the Virocene 4. Virocene pilgrimage in micro-spheres PART IV TOURISM, TRAVEL, ALTERMOBILITIES 5. Post-viral tourism’s antagonistic tourist imaginaries 6. Beyond technophilia: from alternative modernities to alternative realities PART V BEFORE THE REVOLUTION (IS THE DAY WE ALWAYS COME HOME Conclusion: pluritopia and pluriworlds that travel (with) us Bibliography Index
