1 of 16 THE PASSIONS IN THE PLATONIC TRADITION, PATRISTICS AND LATE ANTIQUITY 19-20 April 2021 [Virtual] PRESENTATION The effects of the pandemic this past year have given rise to a plethora of emotions: fear, anxiety, frustration, despair, pain, surprise, sadness. What are we to make of these intense emotions? What do these emotions make of us as individuals and communities? How are we to deal with them moving forward? Do we ignore them, reject them, accept them, transform them? How do they affect religious life and the experience of God? This interdisciplinary virtual symposium aims to explore how the treatment of the passions in the Platonic Tradition, Patristics and Late Antiquity can help provide answers to these questions. The symposium will be organized around the study of any emotion arising in the corresponding stages of the pandemic: (1) undergoing forceful SEPARATION at the outbreak of the pandemic, (2) experiencing LOSS during the pandemic and (3) embracing CHANGE as we reimagine a life after the pandemic. How do emotions in these stages affect corporeality, community, lived experience, identity and religious practice? Organizers Pablo Irizar (School of Religious Studies, McGill University) Anthony Dupont (Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven) Mateusz Stróżyński (Institute of Classical Philology, Adam Mickiewicz University) Contact Pablo Irizar (pablo.irizar@mcgill.ca)