Call for Contributors
Call for short contributions on Pandemic Leftovers: Life and Ritual in the 'New Normal.'
We are currently seeking contributions for a special section of CoronAsur that can add to the understanding of the mutual shaping of religion and society after the Covid-19 pandemic emergency. What are the ‘leftovers’ of the pandemic? What are the changes (including in terms of digital engagements, sensory and bodily practices, spatial and temporal dimensions) that have outlived the global health crisis? Have religious practices simply reverted to their pre-pandemic forms, or have there been changes that have had longer-lasting effects? What is really “new” about the new normal?
We welcome contributions of approximately 2,000 words. If you are interested in sending a contribution, please send your personal details (name, affiliation, email address) and a short abstract (150 words) describing the main focus of your contribution to Emily Hertzman (emily.hertzman@gmail.com) cc-ing Carola Lorea (carola.lorea@gmail.com) before 15th October 2024. Authors of successful proposals will be notified by 1st November 2024 and will be expected to submit their full contribution by 31 January 2025.
The CoronAsur blog has served as a basis for the phygital edited volume CoronAsur: Asian Religions in the Covidian Age as well as two special issues in the Journal of Asian Medicine and Religion. Based on the breadth and originality of the submissions in this call, these blog contributions will be developed into a collaborative academic publication for those who are interested.
We are looking for contributions that document and discuss the post-pandemic ‘new normal’ focusing on ritual communities and ethnographic contexts in Asia and beyond. Since the beginning of the spread of COVID-19, every religious tradition has undergone radical changes. With the implementation of safety measures, some religious lives have gone digital. The enforcement of hygienic and ‘social distancing’ practices has dramatically changed aesthetic, affective and material dimensions of ritual acts.
We are asking, what are the “leftovers” of the pandemic? By leftovers we do not merely mean the material debris, the residues and the medical waste that the pandemic has left behind, in the landfills and in our oceans. Besides leftover products like extra packs of face-masks and self-test kits that lay inertly in your closets at home, the Covid pandemic has had socially long-lasting impacts. What are the changes that have outlived the global health emergency period? These leftovers may be leading to more substantial changes in community organization, the position of minority religions and broader debates on ritual and social change in times of crisis.
Long Covid is a syndrome with biological and neuropsychiatric symptoms that is beginning to be understood not only in physical and psychological terms but also in relation to its social impact. For example, family and personal relationships, work environments, economic security and other aspects of daily life. Are long-lasting changes to religious practice a dimension of this syndrome? Could recognizing the social aspect of long Covid aid our healthcare systems to manage the endemic phase of the virus? How might these conditions alter religious and secular traditions, in different ritual communities and cultural regions?
General Call for Contributors
The Religion and Globalisation Cluster at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, is launching a research blog on religious responses to COVID-19. We are looking for reflections, analysis, opinion, commentary pieces, photographic essays and multimedia contributions at the interface of the COVID-19 pandemic and the life of religious communities and ritual practices.
Since the beginning of the spread of COVID-19 within and outside of China, every religious tradition has undergone radical changes. With the implementation of safety measures, some religious lives have gone digital. The enforcement of hygienic and ‘social distancing’ practices has dramatically changed aesthetic, affective and material dimensions of ritual acts. Religious leaders and congregations of followers have responded in innovative as well as controversial ways to the spread of COVID-19, producing new cultural phenomena that might be temporary, or long-lasting. This research blog aims to look at ritual innovations and religious responses at the time of coronavirus in Asia with a global and comparative outlook.
We are interested in critical reflections and multimodal contributions that can add to the understanding of the mutual shaping of religion and society during the COVID-19 pandemic, including and encompassing the following topics:
- The use of new media and the various meanings of the digitization, de-sensorialization and disembodiment of religious gatherings
- The new instances of visibility of religious and spiritual dimensions in the public sphere from a post-secular vantage point
- The use of religious identity politics to display conflicting ideologies of healing and socio-political tensions among communities occupying unequal positions of power
- Religious innovations that change ritual praxis and discourses around the protocols of accessibility, the authorization, legitimization or contestation of new practices
- Transformations of local as well as transnational religious events and the economic impact of religious change across borders, including pilgrimage economy as well as religious networks of aid
- Religious responses providing for rationalization, moral justification, divination, techniques of the mind-body complex that provide for comfort, healing and wellness in times of uncertainty and distress – and how these affect people’s choices and habits
We welcome contributions of about 1,000 words. If you are interested in sending a contribution, please send your personal details (name, affiliation, email address) and a short abstract describing the main theme and the format of your contribution to Carola Lorea at aricar@nus.edu.sg and Natalie Lang at natalie.lang@cemis-uni.goettingen.de