Contagion Discourses

Contagion Discourses

"What's true of all the evils in the world is true of plague as well. It helps men to rise above themselves."— Albert Camus

In the wake of 2020, as the world was reeling under the clutches of the COVID-19/nCoV2 pandemic, Steven Soderberg's 2011 film, Contagion shot to fame globally. The film depicted much of what was happening in the early months of the surging pandemic and the struggle to control the spread of this new contagion. The movie reflected the reality of a society afflicted by an unknown virus, the destabilization of social order that follows, and human vulnerability in the face of diseases, and evoked discourses of fear, social inequality, economic distress, and the collapse of medical facilities. While several pestilences such as Great Plague of London, the Spanish Flu, the Bubonic plague, AIDS/HIV, SARS, MERS-CoV, Ebola and Zika pandemics have historically preceded the Covid-19 pandemic, the world was still unprepared to grapple with it. This pandemic once again brought to light the staggering discrepancies in our socio-cultural relations and the lack of awareness in dealing with a contagion. While fictional and non-fictional accounts of contagion have the power to preconfigure how people see and respond to a crisis, the world still seemed unprepared for a public health emergency.
Growing environmental destruction and global capitalism have resulted in unsustainable lifestyles, making the emergences of pandemics and epidemics frequent. Ever since the spread of COVID-19, stories of the lack of medical supplies, health system failure, and mass causalities plague newspaper headlines almost daily. Ironically, many of the countries that have sustained severe loss of life to date have not been the most economically weak. Instead, they were countries that prided themselves on extensive medical and healthcare support. This unforeseen circumstance makes us rethink our notion of development itself. The spread of contagion brings to light the urgent need to rethink and re-evaluate the current economic and social systems in place and urges the world to consider more sustainable lifestyles.
Most epidemics are 'zoonotic' diseases and are passed on from animals to humans. The relationships that humans have with their environment, including other living creatures, become crucial in the context of disease control and prevention. The unsustainable development prompted by a growing anthropocentric worldview alongside the exploitation of natural resources for economic gain accentuates the need for a renewed discussion on contagion and infectious diseases. The global south has been the epicentre for many contagious disease outbreaks in the recent past, with epidemics and pandemics increasing in frequency. Climate change also poses reasons for public health concerns of this kind predominantly because it creates habitat losses among animals necessitating them to move, bringing them into contact with humans and creating avenues for pathogens to get into new hosts.
In this context, it becomes imperative to closely examine all facets of human thought including literature, films, other art forms and non-fiction material that provide a space to understand the predicament of living amidst chaos and crumbling social order caused by pandemic diseases. This book attempts to bring together thoughts on contagion literature from several perspectives. It will explore intersections between contagious diseases and human beings' relationships with environments and fellow living creatures, the threat of climate change, and attitudes on existentialism and spirituality to name a few. We invite abstracts on the range of these topics.

Topics may include but are not limited to:
• Environmental vandalism and contagion literature
• The relationship between humans and animals in literature
• Climate change and urbanization in contagion narratives
• Religion in contagion literature
• Technology and contagion narratives
• Gender and sexuality in contagion literature
• Globalisation and capitalism in contagion narratives
• Perspectives on death and life in contagion literature
• Resilience in contagion narratives
• Contagion literature and literary history
• Contagion, dystopia and horror in science fiction
• Existentialism and contagion fiction
• Time and narrative in contagion fiction
• Racial justice and environmental damage in contagion narratives
• Human migration and environmental refugees in contagion narratives
• Economic justice and contagion
• Indigenous knowledge and medical practice in contagion narratives
• Health Policy and contagion
• Ethics and contagion
• Epidemiology and contagion

Editors:
Dr. Aparna N, Assistant Professor in English, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Ropar, Punjab, INDIA
Dr. Pankaj Sarup Bhatnagar, Scientist E and Head of Office at the Western Regional Centre, Zoological Survey of India (Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change, Govt of India), Pune 411 04, Maharashtra, INDIA

Please send an abstract of 250 words and a brief bio-note to the editors at aparna-book-contagionfiction@iitrpr.ac.in by 15 June 2021. On accepting your abstract, you may send in original, unpublished essays of 4000-6000 words (including notes and references) on the above and related topics. You may contact us with any queries you might have at aparna-book-contagionfiction@iitrpr.ac.in. This proposal will be submitted to Bloomsbury's book series on Explorations in Science and Literature.
Publication timeline:
Submission of abstracts: 15 June 2021
Intimation of acceptance of abstracts: 30 June 2021
Submission of full paper: 30 November 2021