Writing in the time of coronavirus

Even though my book launch was just over a year ago, right now it feels like an eternity has passed. Reading everyone’s contributions in this moment makes me at once nostalgic, for a pre-pandemic time that is tempting to romanticise as ‘carefree’, and grateful. It takes only a fraction of a second to remember we were always already in crisis even if it had a different intensity. Still, I am grateful to be part of such an incredible community of scholars, and humans, whose work and friendship (dare I say comradeship) has sustained me over the past years and, in some cases, the past decade or more. It is that connection, that comradeship, and that willingness and ability to engage, critically if must be, with each other’s work, lives and projects that will carry us through beyond the present crisis, and to a world which in some (many) areas, needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. I am intensely grateful for the time, energy and care given to my book by the five scholars in this symposium— Susan Marks, Dan Danielsen, Emily Jones, Maı̈a Pal, Honor Brabazon—and I know that even though we may disagree on certain issues (such as the utility of law) it is clear to me that we are ultimately working on a common project. Research and writing, and academic work more generally, is a collective effort and we complement each other’s work, generate synergies and push each other to go beyond. For example, I am happy to accept Pal’s challenge to my generalising, and at times flattening, description of the early modern state form. I look forward to her own book on this topic (Jurisdictional Accumulation: An Early Modern History of Law, Empires, and Capital), due to be published soon. I am likewise looking forward to Jones’ Posthuman International Law,