On the 14^th and 15^th April 2022, Dr Bryan Brazeau (Associate Professor, Liberal Arts) participated in Processing the Pandemic I: Loss at the Newberry Library in Chicago, Illinois. Bryan was one of the three co-organisers of the conference, along with Dr Rose Miron (Director of the D'Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies at the Newberry Library) and Dr Christopher Fletcher (Assistant Director of the Newberry Library's Center for Renaissance Studies).

This hybrid event—the first in a series of in-person and online events culminating in an event on Hope at Warwick in Spring 2023—explored what we can learn from responses to loss and trauma before 1800 across various communities. It also interrogated how such experiences can help us grapple with the loss we are experiencing following the COVID-19 pandemic, which has further highlighted the inequalities in our society and the ongoing legacies of settler colonialism and white supremacy. The broader series aims to explore the journey from Loss to Hope, fostering transformative transdisciplinary dialogue combining perspectives from the history of emotions, Native American and Indigenous Studies, Medieval and Renaissance Studies, and Critical Race Studies, along with the frontline experiences of practitioners working in the community. Keynote speakers at the symposium included Dolores Bigfoot (University of Oklahoma), Frieda Ekotto (University of Michigan), and Cathy Caruth (Cornell University). The symposium also included the participation of Alexa James (CEO of NAMI Chicago), and several other distinguished speakers.

Bryan provided some welcoming and concluding comments, drawing attention to the possibilities of transdisciplinarity in fostering meaningful dialogue across these disciplines. He also highlighted how many of the discussions that took place over these two days focused on the importance of narrative identity (both individual and community-based), and on storytelling as a path to recovery. In addition, he participated in the collection presentation, where he discussed Lucrezia Marinella’s Enrico ovvero bisanzio acquistato, a 1635 epic poem on the fourth crusade written in the wake of the devastating 1630-1 plague in Venice, noting how Marinella was attempting to consolidate and re-establish a new sense of Venetian identity in a changing world following the experience of significant loss in her community.

Bryan is now working with Rose and Christopher on the next stages of the series, including a series of online workshops in summer and autumn 2022, followed by the culminating event at Warwick in Spring 2023.

^{Lucrezia Marinella, Enrico overo Bisanzio Acquistato (Venice: Ghirardo Imberti, 1635). The Newberry Library, Wing Collection, Y712 M353.}