Remote Learning and Social Distancing: The Political Economy and Politics of Corona Pedagogy

(Third in a series of articles on the implications of the coronavirus for our times, for human history, and for the fate of the earth.)

The advent of COVID-19, or a novel coronavirus, has, it appears, virtually overnight altered the nature of university instruction and student learning.  Throughout the months of January and February 2020, while the virus created havoc in China before turning Italy into the new epicenter, life proceeded on American university campuses without any real thought to what was transpiring in that ‘distant’ country. By January 25, a cordon sanitaire had been placed around the entire province of Hubei Province, which with a population of 60 million has as many people as Italy, but this did not leave any real impression on Americans nor on universities.  As late as February 20, Italy had reported