The COVID-19 pandemic has quickly spread around the globe and put almost all countries under immense pressure. The book project ‘The impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Arab World and Europe’ aims at analysing the various impacts the pandemic has on different aspects of social, political, economic, cultural, academic and individual life in countries of the Arab region as well as in Europe. The edited volume, for which the three AGYA members mentioned below equally share editorial tasks and responsibilities, shall be published by an internationally renowned academic publishing house.

Reaching out for contributions from the whole variety of academic disciplines, the edited volume shall become a multi-disciplinary collection of articles that tackle questions relating to the following three main sections, all with regard to Arab and European countries (either as single case studies or in comparative perspective):
 

• The general situation of public health and the overall crisis preparedness in Arab and European countries;
• Actual impacts of COVID-19 on governance (whether democratic or authoritarian), and societal responses to the pandemic;
• Regional implications of the COVID-19 pandemic (political, economic, cultural, academic, etc.).

Abstracts are welcome from any academic discipline and shall not comprise more than 250 words. Interested contributors should send their proposal in English language together with their full contact details and a short bio of not more than 100 words to jan.voelkel[at]abi.uni-freiburg.de until 31 August 2020. The editors will evaluate all incoming proposals based on criteria of academic rigorousness, innovation of research and overall suitability into the book project. Notifications of acceptance and rejection will be sent out by 15 September 2020.

An intermediate one-day authors’ workshop will be held online in late October 2020, the full chapters of approx. 7,500 words (the exact word count will depend on the eventual publishing house’s authors’ guidelines) will be due for submission until 1 December 2020. An internal review will follow, the revisions of chapters by each author are scheduled for February/March 2021. The eventual submission of the whole book manuscript is planned for May 2021 after a thorough language editing process by professional language editors.

Co-authorships are possible and welcome. Further questions and inquiries about the book before abstract submission can be addressed to jan.voelkel[at]abi.uni-freiburg.de.

This is a project of the AGYA Working Group Transformation.