Discrimination stigmatization xenophobia heightened securitization - fear and blaming of
aliens within - characterize the world infected by COVID-19. Such fears have a long cultural
history however particularly in connecting pathology with race poverty and migration. This
volume explores theory and narratives of disease danger and displacement through the lenses
of cultural literary and film studies historical representation ethnics studies sociology
and cultural geography classics music and linguistics. Investigations range from for
example illness discourse in the ancient classics to images of perilous intruders in the Age
of Trump from the Haitian Revolution and subsequent zombie stereotypes to current problematic
refugee resettlement in the US South and Greek islands from the urban underworld in
nineteenth-century sensation novels to ethnic women on the stroll in coronavirus times. The
collection is organized into three thematically intertwined parts: Stigmatizing the Racialized
Underclass Pathologizing the Other Constructing and Countering Collapse. It examines changing
or recurrent aporias in tropes of belonging and exclusion as well as the birthing of new forms
of identity agency and countercultural expression.
