The International COVID-19 Pandemic Conference has been held at Nazarbayev University
Dr. Michael Ryan, Assistant Professor of the Sociology and Anthropology Department of the School of Sciences and Humanities, recently organized and hosted the three-day international conference entitled “The COVID-19 Pandemic Conference” sponsored by Routledge Publishers, the International Sociological Association, and Nazarbayev University. The conference was attended by more than 300 participants from more than 30 countries.
The conference highlighted the work of more than 40 leading scholars from across 5 continents who examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on individuals, communities, countries, and the larger global society from a social scientific perspective. Highlights included keynote addresses by Prof. Sari Hanafi (President, International Sociological Association), Prof. I. Glenn Cohen (Deputy Dean, Harvard Law School), and Prof. William Cockerham (Distinguished Professor of Sociology, University of Alabama).
The conference offered a timely and critical advance in knowledge related to social scientific understandings of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sessions provided critical insights into the ethics and ideologies, inequalities, and changing social understandings that lie at the heart of the ongoing pandemic with a focus on the ways in which it has impacted (most often disproportionately) individuals and societies, the successes and failures of means used to combat the virus, and considerations and future potential possibilities – both positive and negative – that lie ahead.
You can view recordings from the conference at: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFJD66Lx8uV9Rj40gaWgIzDjk1OthJXTO
