A Cultural Studies Approach to the Communicative Praxis of Talking to Covidiots
Cultural Studies Graduate Program - Virtual Salon
Event Details
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Thursday, November 18, 2021
7:30 PM - 9:00 PM
The Covidiot (a portmanteau of Covid and idiot) is clearly a figure of our contemporary moment. But does this figure have its genesis solely in the COVID-19 pandemic, or does it emerge from other moments, or from pre-existing social and cultural conditions? In this talk I will ask who (are Covidiots), where (are they found), when (do they emerge), and finally why (talk to them) in order to explore what the Covidiot might tell us about how we apprehend concepts like health and illness; individuality and collectivity; freedom and restriction; safety and risk; and public and private. The figure of the Covidiot is embodied in bodies that are raced, classed, gendered, and positioned in relation to a host of subject positions including religion, settler-colonialism, and education. The Covidiot, I argue, emerges as a symptom of a dis-ease with subjectivity in a time of extruded civic responsibilities. Tracing the circulation of the Covidiot tells us about the cultural work it performs in a contemporary moment structured by a history of tension between dispersed civic-mindedness and pop culture individuality.
Alexandra Boutros is an associate professor in Communication Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University. She is a graduate of McGill University’s Communication Studies and Art History department. Her research generally explores the intersection of identity, media, and technology in the context of religious, cultural and social movements. Recently publications fall in the fields of religion and media, critical race theory. She served as chair of the Canadian Association of Cultural Studies, and sits on the editorial board of Topia: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies.