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As people adjust to their altered lives and routines amid the COVID-19 pandemic as well as ongoing war, increasingly frequent natural disasters, worldwide political upheaval, and other unsettling disruptions, a popular term has emerged: the new normal. But what is “normal”?

This event "Returning to Normal? Life After A Pandemic" is part of an international, interdisciplinary research project that will examine this question and related ones in an investigation of the norms of life, their impact, and origins.

Scholars including Veena Das (Johns Hopkins), Estelle Ferrarese (Picardie-Jules-Verne), Clara Han (Johns Hopkins), Amber Jamilla Musser (CUNY Graduate Center), and Perig Pitrou (CNRS, Maison Française d’Oxford) will address why people express wanting to return to so-called normal life after recent disruptions, such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, war, ecological and other disasters, sexual and racial violence, and forms of authoritarian populism. Specifically, participants will examine the roots of this aspiration, to what extent it’s generative or regressive, and whether there are better ways to conceive of restoration and repair. Join us for this conversation which will be introduced and moderated by discussants Alyson Cole (Queens College & CUNY Graduate Center), Glenn Burger, (Queens College & CUNY Graduate Center), and Be Stone (CUNY Graduate Center). This event is organized and sponsored by the “Norms of Life” International Network of Research (GDRI), National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). Click here to read more about CNRS support of the "Norms of Life" international project and research with Graduate Center faculty. This event is co-sponsored by the Center for the Humanities, Office of the Provost, the Ph.D. Program in Political Science, the Ph.D. Program in English, the Ph.D. Program in Philosophy, the Ph.D. Program in Sociology, the Ph.D. Program in Anthropology, the Ph.D. Program in Urban Education, and PublicsLab at the CUNY Graduate Center. Click here for more information about this event and research project, including registration and speaker bios.