Cultures of the Crisis. Corona and Beyond - Problems, Practices, Perspectives

A series of video lectures with Q&A

The worldwide Covid-19 health crisis that developed from early 2020 onwards was also a crisis of social structures and cultural values. New national and cultural divides arose, debates on solidarity and economic inequality were omnipresent, fake news were spreading, and isolation led to unprecedented social hardships.

In this lecture series that was broadcast live during the first peaks of the crisis in spring and summer 2020, experts from Cultural Studies and related fields presented analyses of these and other aspects of the “Corona Crisis”, provided broader perspectives on various cultures of crisis, and offered insights into cultural practices of coping with them.

Organization and contact: Dr Florian Lippert

Free access to the lectures

	Title of the lecture	Speaker(s)
1	Cultural Narratives of Crisis and COVID-19: Metaphors, (Un)Solidarity and Political Profiteering Read the abstract Watch the recording This lecture is presented in association with the Harvard John A. Paulson School Of Engineering and Applied Sciences.	Prof Dr Pablo Valdivia, Judith Jansma, MA and James Leigh, MA
2	Stranger Things: Defamiliarization in the Time of COVID-19 Read the abstract Watch the recording	Dr Alberto Godioli
3	Lockdown: Living in Microtopoi Read the abstract Watch the recording	Dr Christian Kirchmeier
4	Back to the Roots: Corona and the Crisis of Connection Read the abstract Watch the recording	Dr Vera Alexander
5	Exclusion versus Solidarity: Online Narratives of the Crisis in Latin America Read the abstract Watch the recording	Elizabeth Pinilla Duarte, MA
6	Lockup vs. Lockdown: COVID-19 in Latin American Prisons and the cultural narratives of biopolitics and confinement Read the abstract Watch the recording	Dr Konstantin Mierau, in collaboration with Gonzalo Albornoz, MA
7	Washing Hands during Corona Lockdown: The Politics of Soap in South Africa Read the abstract Watch the recording	Prof Dr Margriet van der Waal
8	COVID-19 and Feminism Read the abstract Watch the recording	Dr Ksenia Robbe, Dr Jeanette den Toonder, and Dr Ester Jiresch
9	Social Crisis in Capitalist Chile: The October 2019 Protests and the COVID-19 Health Crisis Read the abstract Watch the recording	Juan del Valle Rojas, MA
10	So What's the New Normal? Covid-19 and the Quest for a Global Community. Retrospective and Outlook Read the abstract Watch the recording	Dr Florian Lippert

Last modified:

10 June 2025 10.28 a.m.