Paperback
978-1-77212-625-9Size: 6" x 9"
Pages: 184
epub
978-1-77212-660-0Pages: 176
Pages: 176
Downloadable audio file
978-1-77212-736-2Size: " x "
Pages: 184
Until Further Notice
A Year in Pandemic Time
By Amy Kaler
In Until Further Notice, Amy Kaler records a personal account of the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in real time. She documents a series of jolts to her thoughts, perceptions, emotions, and habits—an internal seismograph of living through a global emergency. Kaler’s introspection underlines the universal experience of dissonance brought on by COVID-19 and invites readers to ponder its ambiguities. At the same time, the pandemic lets Kaler put down roots, as she rediscovers her neighbourhood and her city’s natural spaces. Reflexive and relatable, Until Further Notice captures fine-grained, everyday experiences from an extraordinary year.
Book details
Publication date: August 2022Keywords: lockdown; COVID-19; contemplation; crises; Edmonton, Alberta; literary nonfiction; philosophical; memoir; ambiguity; cognition; imagination; botany; poetry; music; nature; musings; meditative; writing; comfort; cognitive dissonance; defining time
Subject(s): BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs, Creative Writing, Creative Writing / Auto/biography & Memoir, Creative Writing, Creative Writing / Literary Nonfiction, Urban Studies, Urban Studies / Edmonton, HISTORY / Social History, LITERARY COLLECTIONS / General, Diaries, letters and journals, History: plagues, diseases etc, Social and cultural history, Literary Nonfiction, Canadian History, Health and Medicine, lockdown; COVID-19; contemplation; crises; Edmonton, Alberta; literary nonfiction; philosophical; memoir; ambiguity; cognition; imagination; botany; poetry; music; nature; musings; meditative; writing; comfort; cognitive dissonance; defining time, Literary Nonfiction / Pandemic Diary, Literature
Publisher(s): The University of Alberta Press
Book details
Publication date: August 2022Keywords: lockdown; COVID-19; contemplation; crises; Edmonton, Alberta; literary nonfiction; philosophical; memoir; ambiguity; cognition; imagination; botany; poetry; music; nature; musings; meditative; writing; comfort; cognitive dissonance; defining time
Subject(s): BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs, Creative Writing, Creative Writing / Auto/biography & Memoir, Creative Writing, Creative Writing / Literary Nonfiction, Urban Studies, Urban Studies / Edmonton, HISTORY / Social History, LITERARY COLLECTIONS / General, Diaries, letters and journals, History: plagues, diseases etc, Social and cultural history, Literary Nonfiction, Canadian History, Health and Medicine, lockdown; COVID-19; contemplation; crises; Edmonton, Alberta; literary nonfiction; philosophical; memoir; ambiguity; cognition; imagination; botany; poetry; music; nature; musings; meditative; writing; comfort; cognitive dissonance; defining time, Literary Nonfiction / Pandemic Diary, Literature
Publisher(s): The University of Alberta Press
Amy Kaler. Amy Kaler is Professor of Sociology at the University of Alberta. She is a Killam Annual Professor and the recipient of awards for research and for narrative writing. She is part of the leadership team for Stories of Change, a Faculty of Arts signature area, and headed the Stories of the Pandemic project.
"Amy Kaler puts a personal touch on her pandemic experience in Until Further Notice: A Year in Pandemic Time. Thoughts, emotions, habits: they all fall under the microscope and are fodder for observation. She also talks about how the pandemic forced her to be more engaged with her community and her city’s natural spaces, two positives in an otherwise horrendous mess." Justin Bell, Edmonton Journal, August 11, 2022
“[Kaler] offers thoughtful company along the path to a post-pandemic future that none of us can yet quite fathom.” Jenna Butler, Alberta Views, January 3, 2023 [Full review at https://albertaviews.ca/until-further-notice/]
“Like Thoreau in his Walden woods, Amy Kaler is studying the natural and social environment around her and observing her own responses.” Alice Major, writer and poet
“Amy Kaler doesn’t pretend to provide answers or counsel the uncertain, but instead offers a record of in-betweenness–including crucial questions about work, identity, safety and health–in a time of change.” Tanis MacDonald, author of Straggle: Adventures in Walking While Female
xiii Introduction
xvii The Beginning
Spring 2020
3 Before, After
4 Concentration
6 Returns
8 Breathe
9 Airport Security
10 Crossing New Thresholds
12 The Crash
Summer 2020
17 On Trails
18 What Are You Looking At?
21 Twice-Blooming Lilacs
23 Curiosity Cabinet
26 All the Futures
28 The Licence Plate
29 Bewildered
31 Covid Anxiety
33 Downward
34 Crime and Punishment/Everything Is Free
37 Objects
39 Where is Here and Where is There?
41 The End of Science World
43 Why I Can’t Think
Fall 2020
49 Medicine
50 Masks
52 The Places Where People Are Not
54 Emergencies and Disasters
55 In the Airport in October
56 Peak Personal Responsibility
59 Resignation and the Second Wave
61 The River is Alive
63 De-Escalation
65 Normalized/Panicked
66 It’s All Fucking Bullshit
67 Watching the Election
68 The Fresh Horrors Device
70 The Campsite
71 Pandemic Melancholy
Winter 2021
77 Time of Trial
78 Vacation Scandal
82 Schadenfreude
84 Hermits
86 Buffalo Bill’s Defunct
87 Be Kind
89 Like a Drug Deal
90 Hi Mom, It’s Me
91 Subtle Loss
92 Ice is Solid and Liquid
93 Rules and Vacations
95 Ice, Again
96 Who Are You Going to Believe?
98 No Time at the North Pole
99 Getting Better or Not?
101 Hard Freeze
102 Falls the Shadow
104 Jellyfish Time
105 Walking Into The Hill
107 Moon Illusion
109 Time-Dividend
112 Adolescent Bardo
113 Proprioception
115 Lost Places and the Annual Lockdown
Spring 2021
121 Two Futures
122 Brain Studies
125 Skiing
128 This is Your Brain on Covid
130 Ravine and Downtown
132 The Place Becomes Strange
135 Life on Mars
136 Leonard Cohen at the Whistle Stop Café
139 Desolation
Coda
147 Vaccine Theology
153 References
Amy Kaler. Amy Kaler is Professor of Sociology at the University of Alberta. She is a Killam Annual Professor and the recipient of awards for research and for narrative writing. She is part of the leadership team for Stories of Change, a Faculty of Arts signature area, and headed the Stories of the Pandemic project.
"Amy Kaler puts a personal touch on her pandemic experience in Until Further Notice: A Year in Pandemic Time. Thoughts, emotions, habits: they all fall under the microscope and are fodder for observation. She also talks about how the pandemic forced her to be more engaged with her community and her city’s natural spaces, two positives in an otherwise horrendous mess." Justin Bell, Edmonton Journal, August 11, 2022
“[Kaler] offers thoughtful company along the path to a post-pandemic future that none of us can yet quite fathom.” Jenna Butler, Alberta Views, January 3, 2023 [Full review at https://albertaviews.ca/until-further-notice/]
“Like Thoreau in his Walden woods, Amy Kaler is studying the natural and social environment around her and observing her own responses.” Alice Major, writer and poet
“Amy Kaler doesn’t pretend to provide answers or counsel the uncertain, but instead offers a record of in-betweenness–including crucial questions about work, identity, safety and health–in a time of change.” Tanis MacDonald, author of Straggle: Adventures in Walking While Female
xiii Introduction
xvii The Beginning
Spring 2020
3 Before, After
4 Concentration
6 Returns
8 Breathe
9 Airport Security
10 Crossing New Thresholds
12 The Crash
Summer 2020
17 On Trails
18 What Are You Looking At?
21 Twice-Blooming Lilacs
23 Curiosity Cabinet
26 All the Futures
28 The Licence Plate
29 Bewildered
31 Covid Anxiety
33 Downward
34 Crime and Punishment/Everything Is Free
37 Objects
39 Where is Here and Where is There?
41 The End of Science World
43 Why I Can’t Think
Fall 2020
49 Medicine
50 Masks
52 The Places Where People Are Not
54 Emergencies and Disasters
55 In the Airport in October
56 Peak Personal Responsibility
59 Resignation and the Second Wave
61 The River is Alive
63 De-Escalation
65 Normalized/Panicked
66 It’s All Fucking Bullshit
67 Watching the Election
68 The Fresh Horrors Device
70 The Campsite
71 Pandemic Melancholy
Winter 2021
77 Time of Trial
78 Vacation Scandal
82 Schadenfreude
84 Hermits
86 Buffalo Bill’s Defunct
87 Be Kind
89 Like a Drug Deal
90 Hi Mom, It’s Me
91 Subtle Loss
92 Ice is Solid and Liquid
93 Rules and Vacations
95 Ice, Again
96 Who Are You Going to Believe?
98 No Time at the North Pole
99 Getting Better or Not?
101 Hard Freeze
102 Falls the Shadow
104 Jellyfish Time
105 Walking Into The Hill
107 Moon Illusion
109 Time-Dividend
112 Adolescent Bardo
113 Proprioception
115 Lost Places and the Annual Lockdown
Spring 2021
121 Two Futures
122 Brain Studies
125 Skiing
128 This is Your Brain on Covid
130 Ravine and Downtown
132 The Place Becomes Strange
135 Life on Mars
136 Leonard Cohen at the Whistle Stop Café
139 Desolation
Coda
147 Vaccine Theology
153 References
