Pandemic as portal; no event this week
Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan on the radical possibilities of the Covid pandemic
Dear all,
No event this week, but back next Monday (28th April) with Renée DiResta discussing “Algorithms and Propaganda” as part of Audrey Borowski’s “AI and the Digital” series. You can register here.
As we find ourselves just over five years after the global outbreak of the Covid pandemic, Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan has written some reflections on the radical possibilities opened up in the early days of the pandemic - and their subsequent betrayal. Ragini’s pandemic memoir (co-written with Chi Rainer Bornfree) is a wonderful read, as is this essay.
Your Sunday Read
“The Pandemic Was A Portal”
Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan
In this week’s essay, Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan reminisces about the radical possibilities that the Covid pandemic presented us with. It was a time when nothing was normal and so everything was possible. It was an opening, a portal through which we could have, collectively, walked into another world, a better world. As it shattered the illusions of independence and autonomy, it made possible imaginations of interdependent living and collective caring. But this was not to last. Slowly, but steadily, the radical potential of the pandemic was eroded and we returned to the “normal”, to business as usual, except that things were much worse. But does this the mean portal is closed once and for all? What do we need to remember to make that impossible world possible again? You can read Ragini’s essay here.
No event this week
Sorry about that. Back next week as normal.
Recording of last week’s event
If you missed Nicholas Carr and Audrey Borowski discussing “Why Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart”, here is the recording:
Ending
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Wishing you all a lovely Sunday, wherever you are.
Anthony Morgan
Managing Editor