The (Critical) Left during Covid: What happened?

Kevin Bardosh sits down with Geoffrey Shullenberger, an American cultural theorist and editor at Compact magazine, to discuss his latest book (edited with Elena Lange), Covid-19 and the Left: The Tyranny of Fear. 

We discuss how the political left, in America and Europe, responded to the pandemic both early on and as it unfolded. Despite some significant contributions in critical analysis, the majority of left-leaning thinkers were silent about Covid authoritarian tendencies. Why was this? And what happened? 

We explore these questions, and situate them in the broader historical changes within leftist thinking and culture that shaped how people reacted to fear, tribal identity and scientific evidence. We end by discussing the legacy of Covid on our cultural landscape.

Listen to the full podcast on your favourite podcast app.

About Geoffrey Shullenberger

Geoff Shullenberger is managing editor at Compact and host of Blame Theory. @g_shullenberger (X) He is co-editor of Covid-19 and the Left: The Tyranny of Fear (Routledge, 2024).

About Kevin Bardosh

Kevin Bardosh is the Director of Collateral Global, a UK-based charity dedicated to researching the global impacts of Covid-19 policy responses and helping the world better balance societal trade-offs during future health emergencies. He has worked in more than 20 countries on infectious disease control programs (including Ebola and Zika), authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications and edited two books. He is currently an Affiliate Assistant Professor in the School of Public Health, University of Washington USA and an Honorary Lecturer at the Edinburgh Medical School, University of Edinburgh UK.

Follow Kevin Bardosh on X (formerly Twitter) @KevinBardosh

Follow Collateral Global on Twitter @collateralglbl

Why not subscribe to our YouTube channel to be the first to hear about the latest episode release.