Abstract
ABSTRACT All of a sudden, the world has changed. The Coronavirus has been infecting humans and causing serious respiratory and other diseases, death, and fear of the unknown. Spatiotemporal coordinates have been altered at an unprecedented speed through fast digital communication by sharing images and stories, many of which recount death and traumatic experiences. Since January 2020, COVID-19 related photographs and narratives have been populating our social media, computer and TV screens, and everyday conversations. How have our lives, ways of speaking, communicating, and interacting changed through the fast, spatiotemporal movement of images and stories related to this invisible, yet devastating, enemy? This article examines COVID-19 related images, videos, and narratives and their effects on individuals living in Italy and in the United States. Drawing on the Bakhtinian notion of chronotope [Bakhtin, Mikhail M. 1981. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Austin: University of Texas Press], I show how embodied understandings of dread and despair can travel a long way across time and space in pandemic times.
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