COVID-19 Volume I: Global Pandemic, Societal Responses, Ideological Solutions

The SARS-CoV-2 virus, and the associated COVID-19 pandemic, is perhaps the greatest threat to life, and lifestyles, the world has known in more than a century. The scholarship included here provides critical insights into the ethics and ideologies, inequalities, and changed social understandings that lie at the heart of this pandemic. This volume maps out the ways in which the pandemic has impacted (most often disproportionately) societies, the successes and failures of means used to combat the virus, and the considerations and future possibilities – both positive and negative – that lie ahead. While the pandemic has brought humanity together in some noteworthy ways, it has also laid bare many of the systemic inequalities that lie at the foundation of our global society. This volume is a significant step toward better understanding these impacts. The work presented here represents a remarkable diversity and quality of impassioned scholarship and is a timely and critical advance in knowledge related to the pandemic. This volume and its companion, COVID-19: Volume II: Social Consequences and Cultural Adaptations, are the result of the collaboration of more than50 of the leading social scientists from across five continents. The breadth and depth of the scholarship is matched only by the intellectual and global scope of the contributors themselves. The insights presented here have much to offer not just to an understanding of the ongoing world of COVID-19, but also to helping us (re-) build, and better shape, the world beyond.

Timeline of COVID-19 J. Michael Ryan 1. Introduction: COVID-19: Global pandemic, societal responses, ideological solutions J. Michael Ryan 2. The SARS Cov-2 Virus and the COVID-19 Pandemic J. Michael Ryan PART I: ETHICS AND IDEOLOGIES 3. McDonaldization in the Age of COVID-19 George Ritzer 4. Theocidies of the COVID-19 Catastrophe Bryan S. Turner 5. Necroethics in the Time of COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter Scott Schaffer 6. Ecology, Democracy, and COVID-19: Rereading and Radicalizing Karl Polanyi Eren Duzgun 7. Heterotopia in Melanesia: Reactions to COVID-19 in Papua New Guinea David Troolin 8. The Blessings of COVID-19 for Neoliberalism, Nationalism, and Neoconservative Ideologies J. Michael Ryan 9. The Rise of the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Decline of Global Citizenship Atefeh Ramsari PART II: EXACERBATING INEQUALITIES 10. Inequalities and COVID-19 Serena Nanda 11. Spotlighting Hidden Inequities: Post-secondary education in a pandemic Stacy L. Smith, Adam G. Sanford, Dinur Blum 12. Business as Usual: Poverty, education, and economic life amidst the pandemic Ryan Parsons 13. Inflection Points: The intersection of COVID-19, climate change, and systemic racism Jill Betz Bloom PART III: CHANGING SOCIAL UNDERSTANDINGS IN RESPOSE TO CRISIS 14. Blowing Bubbles: COVID-19, New Zealand’s bubble metaphor, and the limits of households as sites of responsibility and care Susanna Trnka and Sharyn Graham Davies 15. Making the Invisible Visible: Viral cloud moments in the SARS COV-2 pandemic Joseph A. Astorino and Anthony V. Nicola 16. Treating Loneliness in the Aftermath of a Pandemic: Threat or Opportunity? Kelly Rhea MacArthur 17. Managing Trauma Exposure and Developing Resilience in the Midst of COVID-19 Johanna Soet Buzolits, Ann Abbey, Kate Kittredge, and Ann E.C. Smith 18. The Costs of Care: A content analysis of female nurses’ media visibility and voices in the United States, China, and India during the COVID-19 pandemic Mari A. DeWees and Amy C. Miller 19. COVID-19, the Pand(m)emic: Social media explorations from the Arab World Noha Fikry, Nada M. Ahmed, Malin E. Almeland-Grøhn, Laila ElKoussy, Mostafa A. ElSharkawy, Farah Seifeldin, and Ahmed Ashraf Younis

J. Michael Ryan, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of sociology at Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan. He has previously held academic positions in Portugal, Egypt, Ecuador, and the United States of America. Before returning to academia, Dr. Ryan worked as a research methodologist at the National Center for Health Statistics in Washington, D.C. He is the editor of multiple volumes, includingTrans Lives in a Globalizing World: Rights, Identities, and Politics (Routledge 2020), Core Concepts in Sociology (Wiley 2019), and Gender in the Middle East and North Africa:Contemporary Issues and Challenges (Lynne-Rienner 2020).