<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font face="arial, sans-serif">HI everyone - thanks to Renate for the opportunity and thanks to everyone else for their contributions. Lots of exciting issues to pick up on, but I'll offer just a couple things.</font></span></div><div dir="ltr"><font color="#000000" face="arial, sans-serif"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br></span></font></div><div dir="ltr"><font color="#000000" face="arial, sans-serif"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Jumping off of the discussion on models and simulations (esp what Paul said about challenges exceeding our models), I tend to see modelling and simulation in these contexts as extensions of a broader concern over methods of apprehending unknowable events. For me, models and simulations function in such fascinating ways in cultures of risk; among other things, they are both icons of knowledge and radical contingency, and perform all sorts of other weird kind of epistemological work. In 2016, I wrote an article called "99.9% Effective: calculating credibility and consuming trust in the antibacterial promise" where I talk about how the phrase "99.9% effective" (the antibacterial claim) functions like models and simulations. For anyone who for whom this would be helpful, the link to the full article is <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10253866.2015.1085135">here</a>. </span></font></div><div dir="ltr"><font color="#000000" face="arial, sans-serif"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br></span></font></div><div><font color="#000000" face="arial, sans-serif"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">On an other note entirely: I'm part of a working group on embodied experiences of time and absence in quarantine and self-isolation. One thing that has surfaced in our discussions is that we all had expressed experiencing brief moments of alarm when, while watching TV/movies; we would see scenes of crowds/people not social distancing and watch in amazement and shock (before reminding ourselves that "our" time is not "that" time). For me, the first time I noticed this was about three weeks ago when I was watching the beginning of Sirk's Imitation of Life, which opens with a scene on a crowded coney island. I think I audibly gasped. Phenomenoloigcally, self-isolation.quarantine has been all so weird. Actually, M Fisher descires the weird as "the presence of something where there should be absence." he describes the "eerie" as "an absence where there should be presence." So a better description of quarantine/ self-iso. would be "eerie."One of the most notable parts of quarantine/self-iso. is the loss/fear of touch. And the absence of touch for prolonged periods make the body an eerie place. About week 2 or three into quarantine (I'm by myself) I was watching Gerwig's little women again. </span></font><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font face="arial, sans-serif"> I physically registered the scenes of</font></span><font color="#000000" face="arial, sans-serif"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> the sisters' carelessly and boisterously physical manner of being-together. Watching the unthinking contact of bodies in this movie sent waves of what i can only best describe as phantom sensations through my body. I'm thinking of theories of haunting as a way of understanding of our embodied experiences of this moment.</span></font></div><div><font color="#000000" face="arial, sans-serif"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br></span></font></div><div><font color="#000000" face="arial, sans-serif"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Gloria</span></font></div><div><font color="#000000" face="arial, sans-serif"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br></span></font></div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><div style="font-size:13px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;padding-bottom:5px"><div dir="ltr"><span><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">Gloria Chan-Sook Kim</span><font color="#000000"><br></font></div><div><font color="#000000">Assistant Professor of Media and Culture</font></div><div><font color="#000000">Department of Media and Culture</font></div><div><font color="#000000">3137 INST CHASS </font><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">South Building</span></div><div><font color="#000000">University of California-Riverside</font></div><div><font color="#000000">900 University Avenue</font></div><div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">Riverside, CA 92521</span></div></div><div style="color:rgb(136,136,136)"><div><br></div><div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></span></div><div></div></div><div style="font-size:13px"></div></div><div><div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br></div></div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Apr 11, 2020 at 11:55 AM Cengiz Salman <<a href="mailto:csalman@umich.edu">csalman@umich.edu</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------<div style="word-wrap:break-word;line-break:after-white-space">Hey all,<div><br></div><div>Just wanted to comment on Elizabeth and Paul’s respective posts as they seem very related to the work that Anna and I did in that quick op-ed for Medium. </div><div><br></div><div>I think you are absolutely correct in pointing out that what we suggested about the invisibility of structures of oppression might actually be more about our inability to ignore these structures given the current crisis. I have always been a little skeptical about the term invisibility, particularly when we are talking bout the kinds of systemic racism that seem so incredibly tied to the hyper-visibility of flesh. Like Paul mentioned, and like Anna and I discuss in our piece, the disproportionate affects of covid-19 on communities of color and already precarious lives in the US actually is very continuous with previous environmental and public health catastrophes. Katrina and Maria are the examples Paul points to, but we could also add to this list examples that are more close to home for me, e.g. the Flint water crisis and water shutoffs in Detroit. </div><div><br></div><div>Really interesting conversation so far. I need to read about your conversations about porous borders and viruses a little more closely before I can comment. I am really interested in Jonathan’s discussion about viruses being a sort of mediator or liminal point between life and non-life, Sorelle’s discussion of Derrida an autoimmunity, and Paul’s discussion of how viruses like covid-19 and HIV challenges the very ontological models that we have used to draw distinctions between what life is and is not.</div><div><br></div><div>Cheers and hope you are all staying well. Looking forward to more discussion.</div><div><br></div><div>Cengiz</div><div><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div>On Apr 10, 2020, at 2:06 PM, Elizabeth Wijaya <<a href="mailto:elizabeth.wijaya@gmail.com" target="_blank">elizabeth.wijaya@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br><div>----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Thank you,
Cengiz for sharing your op-ed on lean production with Anna Watkins Fisher. I'm particularly struck by this line: "This
crisis is making visible the fragile social relations that have until now
invisibly underwritten the new American way of life." I have been thinking
about how the invisibility to the eye of the virus, and the uncertainty of its
mechanism since it is novel, has the effect of rendering hyper-visible, or magnifying,
existing structural contradictions that have held together capitalist regimes.
As Sorelle writes of the "vast inequalities between people that have come
to light"— it is perhaps not so much that these inequalities were hidden
in the first place but it is harder now to avert our collective eyes from these
inequalities. In the Singapore example Sorelle gave, the predatory treatment and
othering of the mostly South Asian laborers in the construction and shipping industries
have been both omnipresent, criticized for decades, and larger ignored but now
that the status quo is threatening the health and economic wellbeing of its
internal others, and the optics of Singapore's attempt to be a model example of
handling the virus, temporary measures have been put in place, such as shifting
workers out of perennially overcrowded dorms, etc. It remains to be seen, after
the end of this long pandemic moment, what of the temporary and emergency
measures that are being enacted within different states will remain permanent,
at whose benefit. In Jonathan's formulation, "what makes us vulnerable to
the worst is also what grants us the possibility of the best." If this global
viral situation reveals us as intertwined lives that cannot be enclosed by borders,
I wonder what renewed, hopeful logics can emerge in this crisis and its
aftermath. </span></div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"></div></div>
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