# After Lockdown
Very Short Stories about Enduring a Global Pandemic
Call for Contributions
The Tunisia Office of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University, in collaboration with the Center for Hellenic Studies at Harvard, is collecting oral testimonials from around the world about how it looks, sounds and feels to be living and coping through the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. We invite those who wish to participate to share a short recording (less than 2:30 minutes in length) in which they recount their experience undergoing the peculiar circumstances that the pandemic has imposed on them.
Selected stories will be assembled into a curated podcast and premiered as part of an online event organized under the aegis of Harvard University’s Office of the Vice Provost for International Affairs to celebrate Harvard’s tight connections with the world at a time when borders between countries have become more difficult to cross than they were in the past.
Please read the following instructions and submit your recording before August 3, 2020, Midnight Eastern Time. Should you have any questions please direct them to cmes_tunisia@fas.harvard.edu
What kind of story can I tell?
This project is about collecting and presenting candid personal short stories about living through a pandemic told from any given place in the world. We seek testimonies encompassing levels of affect that cannot be found in news reports, for example. A story may simply be a description of the narrator’s everyday life. It may relate exceptional achievements or challenges, tell happy or sad events, convey emotions, impressions, moments of hope or despair, resilience or vulnerability. All forms of narratives are welcome as long as they are genuine. We are hoping that these contributions will be heard as an invitation to voyage through the narrator’s subjectivity and keep the bond strong with the distant places to which travel has become restricted or limited.
Who can participate?
Students, scholars, artists, writers and others are encouraged to participate, regardless of their age and affiliation. This call for contributions is open to all those who wish to tell their story and see it featured on a Harvard platform, along with other stories shared by others from within and outside the Harvard community in different places of the world.
How can I participate to this project?
Please send an audio recording that does not exceed 2:30 minutes in length as an audio file (e.g. mp3, wav, wma). Your story should be in English. Please allocate the very beginning of your podcast to introducing yourself. Providing your full identity is not compulsory, however we invite you kindly mention your age, professional activity and where you lived during the pandemic. Selected candidates will be contacted no later than August 7.
Your audio track does not have to be professionally processed. Sound should be intelligible and the narration comprehensible. We encourage participants to keep the background sounds from their surrounding environment when they record their story. Narrators can choose to have their identity and/or personal information displayed on the final podcast or to keep it hidden and contribute anonymously.
Send us your stories before August 3, 2020, Midnight EST to cmes_Tunisia@fas.harvard.edu
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By submitting their personal information, individuals consent to the processing of the information provided in their communications to CMES-Tunisia and CMES at Harvard University, in compliance with the Decree 63-2004 of July 27, 2004, the Tunisian law relative to the protection of personal data. The individuals keep their right to oppose the processing of the data in question.