Democracy and the Pandemic - New Podcast and Curriculum
Free online curriculum explores themes from ‘Rethinking Democracy in an Age of Pandemic’, a six part seminar series looking at how a public health crisis exposed fault lines throughout our societies, from marginalised groups and inequality to nations and borders.
In spring 2020, as billions of people worldwide went into lockdown as a result of Covid-19, a six-part series to explore how democracies were being impacted was organised by the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute in partnership with the Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University.
The series went beyond the academy, with writers, journalists and artists featuring on panels, and civil society representatives and policymakers as invited participants. While centred on the US and Ireland, the series applied a global comparative lens to compare and contrast the experiences and responses of different countries. This includes a detailed discussion of the Indian experience, and reflection on the situation in Brazil and South Africa. Participants in the Zoom room were drawn from 18 different countries (five continents) and the rich discussions of the seminar series have now been incorporated into a curriculum with recommendations for additional reading (download curriculum now). To mark the launch of the curriculum, we’re also revisiting these conversations in a special new podcast release.
These new podcast episodes allow listeners to re-engage with questions around the pandemic and democracy, find out what has happened since the series ended and, as we come to the end of 2020 and witness the first inoculations against Covid-19, ask where we might be going next.
‘Rethinking Democracy’ is a series of three audio podcasts between Dr Elspeth Payne, Beate Schuler Research Fellow at the Trinity Long Room Hub, and a number of key panellists from the ‘Rethinking Democracy in an Age of Pandemic’ series.
You can read more and listen to the podcast series using the button below.
The Rethinking Democracy Podcast is produced by the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute in partnership with the Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University.