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November 16-17, 2022
Since December 2019, and more particularly since the WHO announced the pandemic status of COVID-19 on 11 March 2020, the daily life of humanity has been punctuated by the circulation of a virus whose emergence has profoundly altered our ways of being in the world. Whether from a spatial, temporal, material or ideal point of view, the certainty of being confronted with a global health emergency has brought our ‘ordinary’ relationships and activities to a standstill in the face of the uncertainty of the long-term effects of SARS COV 2.
Some say that this is an “unprecedented” event. But what kind of event are we talking about? On what scale and in what timeframe? How is it likely to change the way we perceive and understand our interactions with the world of viruses and, beyond that, the way we live our daily lives?
On 16 and 17 November 2021, the Laboratoire d’anthropologie des enjeux contemporains (Anthropology of Contemporary Issues Laboratory), with the support of the Université Lumière Lyon 2, organised a conference to enable researchers from the life and earth sciences and the humanities and social sciences to share their perspectives.
In order to perpetuate these exchanges, the Covid-19 Ad Memoriam Institute, whose president was the coordinator of one of the symposium’s interfaces, has offered to continue this work by supporting the organisation of a second edition to be held on 16 and 17 November 2022. In an ongoing dialogue between the humanities and social sciences and the life and earth sciences, this event will examine the theme of the “Memory(s) of viruses”, looking in particular at its plural dimension. It will be structured around four interfaces, respectively entitled “Viral persistence: from traces to memories, history in perspective”, “Memories in construction: individual and collective forms”, “Immunities: anticipation, preparation and crisis management” and “Uncertain frontiers: viruses and the living”.
July 11-12, 2022
On 11 and 12 July 2022, the Agence nationale de la recherche (ANR) and the Festival d’Avignon are organising the 9th edition of the “Rencontres Recherche et Création” on the theme of “Tales, worlds and narratives”. The Rencontres are a unique opportunity for researchers, artists, representatives of the performing arts industry and the Festival public to exchange ideas, with the aim of bringing together the thinking behind the works and the most recent research. This event will be followed by a Forum: “Working in the performing arts! Meaning, commitment, experience” organised on 13 July with Thalie Santé, AFDAS and the Maison des publics et des professionnels du Festival d’Avignon. Two key moments to remind us of the link between scientific research, creation and society.
Exploring “Tales, worlds and narratives” for the 9th Rencontres Recherche et Création! Following on from “Corps en scène”, “Mise en intrigues”, “Violence et passion”, “Le désordre du monde!”, “Le jeu et la règle!”, “Traversées des mondes” and “La mémoire du futur”, the ANR and the Festival d’Avignon will be exploring tales, worlds and narratives on 11 and 12 July.
On the programme for this 9th edition are 2 days where artists and scientists will exchange their views on the narratives that nourish the imaginations of individuals and societies alike, and make a shared world possible.
June 8-10, 2022
The Sociétés & Humanités Faculty organised its first colloquium on a theme that is close to its heart: interdisciplinarity. The event took place from 8 to 10 June 2022, in person at the Odéon and Grands Moulins sites.
The initiative for this symposium stems from one observation: interdisciplinarity is both a fashionable subject, an injunction that we must comply with in order to obtain funding for our research, a roadmap for the overhaul of our training offer, but also for many of our colleagues an effective scientific practice and potentially a major asset for Université Paris Cité, whose components bring together almost all the disciplines in the French academic landscape.
All these dimensions need to be considered simultaneously and approached from different angles: institutional, epistemological and praxeological.
Laëtitia Atlani-Duault, President of the Institut Covid-19 Ad Memoriam, took part in the colloquium to talk about her experience of working with religious communities in the social sciences.
June 8-9, 2022
The health crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic was an exceptional event that had a direct impact on research and society as a whole. Rarely has the link between science and society, and the need for the former to serve the latter, been so highlighted and called into question. Faced with the complexity inherent in a crisis of this magnitude, the conference “Ethics and international governance of research: the lessons of the CVID-19 pandemic” aims to explain how the constraints and opportunities generated by the pandemic have been articulated, and to build a common reflection on the ethical and legal standards – both national and international – that can, in such a context, make our world more equitable and “common”.
Laëtitia Atlani-Duault and Jean-François Delfraissy, President and Honorary President of the Institut Covid-19 Ad Memoriam, took part in the discussions.
March 17, 2022
On 17 March 2022, two years after the start of the Covid crisis, the Fédération Hospitalière de France in association with the Institut Covid-19 Ad Memoriam and Sciences Po Lille are organising a day of tribute to healthcare professionals and a Grand Oral for the presidential candidates on health and autonomy, with the support of 55 organisations in the sector.
November 17, 2021
Topical seminar on corporate and organisational social responsibility based on the Institut Covid-19 Ad Memoriam initiative
Faced with the health crisis, what responses (political, societal and economic) and what sharing of roles? What are the responsibilities? What standards should be applied?
With a presentation by Laëtitia Atlani-Duault (director of research in anthropology at the IRD, president of the Institut Covid-19 Ad Memoriam)
Discussion: Xavier Philippe (Professor of Public Law, University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, ISJPS)
The debate was moderated by :
Kathia Martin-Chenut (Director of Research at the CNRS, University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, ISJPS)
Emmanuel Picavet (Professor of Philosophy, University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, ISJPS)
July 8-9, 2021
“The memory of the future” for the 8th edition of Rencontres Recherche et Création
From the first funerary rites 60,000 years ago to the dreams of futurologists, from polytheistic myths to economic forecasts
economic forecasts, apocalyptic fictions and political utopias… For individuals and societies alike, human action oscillates between the imprint of the past and dreamed futures. This new edition, on the theme of “the memory of the future”, will explore how societies invent and transform themselves, in order to think differently about the future.
to think differently about our present and keep the memory of the future alive, in four acts:
Escaping the past / The conditions of happiness / Love, conscience and destiny / When the past disappears or the need for the future
June 29-30, 2021
The objective of this scientific meeting, more than one year after the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in France, was to share and discuss the results of research in the humanities, social sciences, and public health on the subject of the pandemic and its effects. It focused on analysis of the French context.
Research in the humanities and social sciences has been mobilized in a sustained manner to understand the short-term effects of the pandemic, particularly in terms of social inequalities and vulnerabilities. It has also proposed frameworks of understanding and developed surveys to account for the forms of political management of the pandemic and the ways in which individuals, families and social groups have experienced and reacted to it. This analysis has taken into account very different scalar contexts – local, territorial and national.
A major question that runs through this reflection is whether the pandemic merely reinforces pre-existing situations, or whether it can be seen as an event that slows down, interrupts or, on the contrary, accelerates certain changes in progress, whether they concern ways of living, working, moving, socializing, learning, cultivating and entertaining oneself, producing and consuming, or being a citizen. We also know that there are new issues to highlight, including social ruptures and the imposition of exceptional health and political measures, which call for an exercise in reflexivity.
Presidente Laetitia Atlani-Duault, Director of the Covid-19 Ad Memoriam Institute, was highly involved in this conference, notably in the round table discussion “Traces of the pandemic”. This roundtable brought together historian George Vigarello, archaeologist Jean Paul Demoule, and philosopher of law Antoine Garapon, and was chaired by Prof. Atlani-Duault.
June 11, 2021
The Covid-19 pandemic is the first of the digital age. In this, it does not resemble the health crises of previous eras: since March 2020, economic and social activities have been partially maintained thanks to smartphones, computers and other digital tools. But the uses of these tools have also changed since Spring 2020. The speed of these evolutions has not yet allowed us to identify their implications for our society, nor to grasp their long-term effects. This symposium took a first step in that direction. What have we learned? What are the advances we would like to preserve after the end of the crisis? What are the limits to the accelerated digitalization of our daily lives?
May 28, 2021
The elderly have been very hard hit by the Covid-19 epidemic since the beginning of the first wave in 2020. The mortality rate observed in this population, especially among people residing in health care facilities, has led the authorities to put in place restrictive measures, up to and including confinement, to protect them. The restriction of freedoms and the altering of social links have led to a great deal of suffering for the elderly themselves and for their families. The concentration of frail people in one place has proven to be a multiplier of the risks inherent in an epidemic and has dramatically challenged these people, their families and their loved ones, with the questions regarding end-of-life and death.
These measures, which have privileged the absolute necessity of protection to the detriment of the personal and social well-being of people who are vulnerable because of their age and state of health, draw attention to ethical issues in public health, and call into question policies on support for ageing.
This symposium, organized by the Ad Memoriam Institute and the National Consultative Ethics Committee (CCNE) on May 28, 2021, reviewed the facts, highlighted testimonies, questioned ethical issues of public health, and attempted to lay the foundations for a reconstruction of support for the elderly. Its overall ambition: to rediscover humanity at the end of life.
Researchers from different disciplines, philosophers, doctors, and representatives of regional fora for ethical reflection spoke throughout the day, which was opened by Prof. Jean-François Delfraissy, President of the CCNE, and closed by Prof. Laetitia Atlani-Duault, Director of the Covid 19 Ad Memoriam Institute.