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Article published In:
Chronotopes and the COVID-19 Pandemic
Edited by Anna De Fina and Sabina M. Perrino
[Language, Culture and Society 4:2] 2022
► pp. 242–263

Chronotopes of war and dread in pandemic times

| Binghamton University (SUNY)

During the first months of 2020, our everyday life suddenly changed when the novel Coronavirus started to infect humans at a very fast rate, causing serious respiratory and other diseases, death, and fear of the unknown. Local friends and family members shared traumatic stories, images, and videoclips about death and dread in Northern Italy, where the first confirmed COVID-19 cases were discovered, just two months after the virus was first detected in Wuhan, China (Worobey, 2021). Inspired by Bakhtin’s (1981) notion of chronotope, by autoethnography and phenomenology, within a linguistic anthropological framework, this article examines how individuals have been embodying COVID-19 related uncertainties and fears in their everyday life. Through the analysis of (auto)ethnographic narratives, recontextualized images and videoclips, including the ones related to the 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, I show how regionalized chronotopes of war and more global chronotopes of dread have emerged and solidified across pandemic times.

Keywords: autoethnography, Bakhtin, chronotope, dread, narrative, pandemic, war
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Time and space across two pandemics: The Bakhtinian chronotope
  • 3.Two pandemics across time and space
  • 4.Recontextualized videoclips and images as narrative practices
  • 5.Embodying dread, death, and despair through chronotopes of war
    • 5.1Military trucks across Bergamo, Northern Italy
    • 5.2War stories in COVID-19 times
    • 5.3Chronotopes of dread in pre-pandemic times
  • 6.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 2 December 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lcs.22009.per
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