It is not new to anyone at this point in the course of the Covid-19 pandemic the impact the virus and lockdown have had in our lives and lifestyles. From working from home to Zoom or Teams video calls, working was reinvented. Companies have decided to adopt changes that, with time, might represent long-term transformations in the work environment. Employees were asked to work from home for the foreseeable future; and the need for a physical office has been considered. Some meetings that before only sounded possible with long trips, expensive accommodation costs, and high-end dinner bills, now seem to be achievable with just the click of a button (and a notice for you to wait for the host to let you in the room, of course).
Academia was not safe from these changes either. Apart from the most obvious transition of lectures from the classroom to the online environment, every single academic event that would take place in person had to also be translated to this metaphysical realm of the digital world. Seminars, conferences, workshops and reading groups, just to name a few. All of a sudden, we were seeing our familiar department colleagues through a screen. So close, yet so far away. At the same time, the far-away did make itself closer. Unfamiliar faces started to pop up on the screen, from all across the world – sometimes even in the middle of the night or in the early hours of dawn, to make up for the different time zones. We remembered that our academic colleagues exist beyond our departments, countries, or even continents. The early modern scholarly community seemed bigger and each individual researcher, smaller. So, what do early modernists have to learn from the pandemic?
Experiencing academia online seems to be a hassle a lot of people cannot wait to get rid of. Meanwhile, the possibility of hybrid events in the future has been discussed as a way to be more inclusive. But will this plan actually come into place? And, if not, at what cost? The pandemic has given the opportunity for international students to take part in academic events that would logistically be unreachable before. Online (or hybrid) events, on the other hand, allow students to dialogue and to hear from people who, up until the Zoomvolution, had only seemed like far away, unattainable historiographical celebrities. At a high price, the pandemic has shown us that going back to our old academic traditions can be comfortable of course, yet depriving others of an opportunity. Let us not forget about the lessons we’ve learned through these challenging times and the hardships one has to face in order to be a part of an academic community.
On the other side of the before-unreachable screen, scholars have been faced (pun intended) with new, unknown, colleagues; and these people, scattered all across the globe, might have things to say too. As Carlo Ginzburg has argued, stepping away from an object might help us to see it more clearly – in comparison to the blurry sight behind extra closeness. There is a powerful and methodological element in exercising distance. This means that historians from different cultural, linguistic, and geopolitical backgrounds can offer insights into early modern studies that might be helpful, not to say unique. All of this while we decolonise academia. An incredible effort has been placed upon the beyond-fundamental post-colonial studies, and further changes should continue to be adopted in order to paint our field with more voices, approaches, and worldviews.
With that said, if we are to continue working towards easier and more inclusive access to knowledge and academia, we should learn from the pandemic and continue to invest (in the long run) in more accessible events. At the same time that students from remote parts of the globe have the opportunity to dialogue with historians they look up to and admire, everyone can benefit from a more decolonised, heterogeneous dialogue. Different ethnic backgrounds, identities, races and classes, can enrich the academic debate because they allow overlooked areas of the early modern period to be explored. Consequently, more voices can be heard, historically and contemporarily. That is the power of history: to transform the present through and from the lessons we learn from the past. As individuals who work to understand past societies, we should not forget what we can do to help our own. To be open to a wide range of voices represents self-awareness regarding our own societies and willingness to acknowledge one’s smallness. By coming to terms with the role we play in academia, we open space for the other. At the end of the day, slight alterations in some traditions can prove to be fruitful and to contribute to further knowledge not only on early modern people and the place they occupied in their historical context but also on the place we occupy within our societies and what we can do to change them.
The Northern Early Modern Network 
One thought on “‘What do early modernists have to learn with the pandemic?’ by Marcela Delia”