Perhaps it is not a coincidence that March 27, the second day of the conference, is also the World Theatre Day since the relation between theatre and pandemics has a long history dating back to ancient times. In a paper investigating the link between the two, Ristani argues that it “goes as far back as Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex” (2020: 1), a play created under the influence of the devastating Athenian plague from 430 BCE. Moreover, Artaud famously compares the theatre with the plague in the sense that “the theatre, like the plague, is a delirium and is communicative” (1958: 27). However, the call for papers was addressed to scholars working on all literary genres, and there was an equilibrium in the distribution of papers discussing short stories, novellas, novels, poems and those having as starting point dramatic texts and theatrical performances.

Perhaps it is not a coincidence that March 27, the second day of the conference, is also the World Theatre Day since the relation between theatre and pandemics has a long history dating back to ancient times. In a paper investigating the link between the two, Ristani argues that it “goes as far back as Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex” (2020: 1), a play created under the influence of the devastating Athenian plague from 430 BCE. Moreover, Artaud famously compares the theatre with the plague in the sense that “the theatre, like the plague, is a delirium and is communicative” (1958: 27). However, the call for papers was addressed to scholars working on all literary genres, and there was an equilibrium in the distribution of papers discussing short stories, novellas, novels, poems and those having as starting point dramatic texts and theatrical performances.