Against Abstractions: On Geopolitics, Humanness, Virus, and Death

This article focuses on different iterations of virality to explore the racial logic of death and the crisis of our time during the coronavirus pandemic. By examining the war on the coronavirus, the sanctions on Iran, and the rise of white supremacy in the United States, this article argues that the optimistic analyses of virus and virality are predicated upon the abstraction of the human, thus overlooking race and geopolitics.