Open AccessCOVID-19 as a Badiouian event? A global insight into theoretical interrogation of Zizek’s pandemics
Author(s) -
Nikola Lero
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
glasnik etnografskog instituta/glasnik etnografskog instituta sanu
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2334-8259
pISSN - 0350-0861
DOI - 10.2298/gei2103561l
Subject(s) - pandemic , conceptualization , event (particle physics) , construct (python library) , covid-19 , order (exchange) , sociology , epistemology , history , political science , law and economics , philosophy , computer science , business , medicine , artificial intelligence , disease , physics , finance , pathology , quantum mechanics , infectious disease (medical specialty) , programming language
The rapidly burgeoning literature surrounding COVID-19 pandemic fetishistically and prematurely tried to catch the academic momentum, taking almost an a priori, non-debatable, starting point of the conceptualization of the pandemic as the ?new normal?. In Pandemic: COVID-19 Shakes the World and Pandemic! 2: Chronicles of a Time Lost, Slavoj Zizek frames the pandemic as multiple global crises, arguing it will aggressively and drastically rupture the global societal norms and dynamics creating a new order. However, did it? This essay debates this question through the theoretical lenses of Badiou?s Event. It starts by laying down the fundamental theoretical principles and mapping the necessary criteria needed to be fulfilled in order for a happening to be named an Event. Further, it navigates through ideas and arguments presented in Zizek?s publications localizing the pandemic?s global characteristics. Finally, it theoretically deconstructs them providing us with the fundamental answer to the question what COVID-19 pandemic is: a Badiouian event that has/is/will construct the global ?new normal?, multiple consequential crises, or just a temporary situation that reaffirms the existing societal normatives worldwide.