The Humanities and Social Sciences and Covid-19: Pros and Cons

Abstract

For the past two years, research groups and universities have been exposed to the novel and unpredictable conditions of life during the viral pandemic, and to the constantly shifting restrictions on normal academic activities that have accompanied it. In particular, personal contacts — between teachers and students and between colleagues — have to a large extent been difficult or impossible. For some, the social restrictions have been a disaster, while others have found them to be an insignificant nuisance, or even welcome. Participants of the “Forum” discuss, how the pandemic has affected their own (work) situation and the situation at their home institution, whether the enforced (self-)isolation has created any new types of working practices or social relations that are desirable to persist in the future, and whether the humanities and social sciences have evolved any new research questions and topics that directly derive from the pandemic, the social restrictions associated with it, and efforts to fight its effects.