The School of Spiritual Science, with its headquarters at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, has eleven sections that are active worldwide in research, development, teaching and the practical implementation of research results. During the early stages of the Corona pandemic of 2020, the sections of the School made individual contributions to the crisis in the form of sixteen essays that offer insights, perspectives and approaches to tackling the challenges of Coronavirus through spiritual-scientific knowledge and practice.The work of each of the School's sections seeks to develop anthroposophy – as founded by Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) – in a contemporary context through the core disciplines of general anthroposophy, medicine, agriculture, pedagogy, natural science, mathematics and astronomy, literary and visual arts and humanities, performing arts and youth work.The featured essays include: Creating Spaces of Inner Freedom – Training Approaches in Times of Uncertainty and Fear; The Hidden Sun – Reality, Language and Artin Corona Times; Consequences of COVID-19 – Perspectives of Anthroposophic Medicine; Aspects of Epidemic Infectious Diseases in Rudolf Steiner's Work; Challenges and Perspectives of the Corona Crisis in the Agricultural and Food Industry; Corona and Biodynamic Agriculture; Our Relationship with Animals; The Part and the Whole –On the Cognitive Approach of Anthroposophical Natural Science; Comparing the Constellations of the Corona Pandemic and the Spanish Flu; Aspects of Dealing with the Corona Crisis for Youth; 'Crisis Implies that it's Unclear...as to What,How, Why and by Whom Things Need to be Done'; Education in Times of Corona; Understanding History from the Future – Crisis as Opportunity; Social Challenges and Impulses of the COVID-19 Pandemic; Consequences of COVID-19 –The Perspective of Anthroposophic Curative Education, Social Pedagogy, Social Therapy and Inclusive Social Development; A Medicalized Society?

Democracy in crisis -- Pandemic resilience -- Federalism is an asset -- A transformed peace: an agenda for healing our social contract.

This open access edited volume is a comparative effort to discern the short-term educational impact of the covid-19 pandemic on students, teachers and systems in Brazil, Chile, Finland, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Spain, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. One of the first academic comparative studies of the educational impact of the pandemic, the book explains how the interruption of in person instruction and the variable efficacy of alternative forms of education caused learning loss and disengagement with learning, especially for disadvantaged students. Other direct and indirect impacts of the pandemic diminished the ability of families to support children and youth in their education. For students, as well as for teachers and school staff, these included the economic shocks experienced by families, in some cases leading to food insecurity and in many more causing stress and anxiety and impacting mental health. Opportunity to learn was also diminished by the shocks and trauma experienced by those with a close relative infected by the virus, and by the constrains on learning resulting from students having to learn at home, where the demands of schoolwork had to be negotiated with other family necessities, often sharing limited space. Furthermore, the prolonged stress caused by the uncertainty over the resolution of the pandemic and resulting from the knowledge that anyone could be infected and potentially lose their lives, created a traumatic context for many that undermined the necessary focus and dedication to schoolwork. These individual effects were reinforced by community effects, particularly for students and teachers living in communities where the multifaceted negative impacts resulting from the pandemic were pervasive. This is an open access book.

What can we read in the fast-moving events of recent times? Is there a theme – a spiritual signature – that should be recognized and understood?Following on from the book of essays Perspectives and Initiatives in the Times of Coronavirus, key figures from the School of Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum assess critical societal issues in a series of striking lectures. In the context of the continuing Covid-19 pandemic, the speakers address questions such as: 'Are we making a religion out of science?', 'How is our behaviour mirrored in the ecosystem?' and 'What effects do inner work and meditation have on the healing powers of the human being?' Offering scientific, artistic, historic and sociological viewpoints, their research is based on expert knowledge and practice in various disciplines such as medicine, agriculture and education. Uppermost in their analysis, however, is the spiritual dimension of the human being. The book also deals with misrepresentations and misinterpretations of anthroposophy.The School of Spiritual Science, with its centre in Dornach, Switzerland, has eleven sections that are active internationally in research, development, teaching and practical implementation of findings. The work of each of the School's sections seeks to develop anthroposophy – as founded by Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) – in a contemporary context through the core disciplines of general anthroposophy, medicine, agriculture, pedagogy, natural science, mathematics and astronomy, literary and visual arts and humanities, performing arts and youth work..

"[Children and young people] should know --and really sense and feel --that viruses are not 'evil' but a part of our organism, of our organic 'self,' and that also the group of mutable coronaviruses has been known for many years; we also live with them and deal with them, especially in the upper respiratory tract, although not with SARS-CoV-2, which is a new challenge for the human immune system, though not quite as new as initially assumed." -- Peter Selg Recognizing Reality is a clarion call for broader perspectives in a time of global crisis, for a differentiated understanding of current events, especially Covid, and for a deepening of dialogue, in Martin Buber's sense of the word. In this book, Peter Selg walks the reader through some of the lesser-known, and often ignored, contexts of the global response to Covid. He describes, for example, the role-play simulations and exercises conducted by private institutions (such as The Rockefeller Foundation and the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins University) in collaboration with government agencies and corporations in the years leading up to 2020. A large part of such exercises involved the role of the media in public-health messaging, including censorship of dissenting or alternative viewpoints. Having a "cohesive narrative" was seen as vital to establishing the mechanisms of control in "states of emergency" and was used as a justification for restricting fundamental human rights. As Selg demonstrates, much of what has played out over the past two years in response to Covid was actively prepared and rehearsed in such roleplay scenarios. He remarks that the goal of these exercises was not "to avert the danger by changing or correcting the system through new values in ecological, socioeconomic, and political terms --or in terms of a 'peace policy' with regard to the natural environment --but solely in the sense of system-stabilizing crisis management, combined with far-reaching vaccination strategies." Selg also discusses the disastrous consequences of the global lockdown, which are often overlooked or outright suppressed in the mass media in favor of a monolithic narrative that ignores all facts and viewpoints which undermine its "key messages." He points out, for example, that "while...the wealth of the approximately 650 billionaires in the US increased from one trillion dollars to a total of approximately four trillion dollars during the COVID-19 pandemic, countless people worldwide became impoverished on a catastrophic scale, through the loss of all their meager earnings, through the interruption of supply and production chains, through stay-at-home orders that kept them stuck in poor conditions, etc." This book leaves us with the question: Will we say yes to the dehumanizing, technocratic vision of society emerging across the globe, or will we seek a future worthy of the human being? Recognizing Reality was originally published as two volumes in German as Wirklichkeits-verständnis: Jugend-pädagogik in globaler Krisenzeit and as Zivilcourage: Die Herausforderung Freier Waldorfschulen (Verlag des Ita Wegman Instituts, Arlesheim, Switzerland, 2021).

Sounds of the Pandemic offers one of the first critical analyses of the changes in sonic environments, artistic practice, and listening behaviour caused by the Coronavirus outbreak. This multifaceted collection provides a detailed picture of a wide array of phenomena related to sound and music, including soundscapes, music production, music performance, and mediatisation processes in the context of COVID-19. It represents a first step to understanding how the pandemic and its by-products affected sound domains in terms of experiences and practices, representations, collective imaginaries, and socio-political manipulations. This book is essential reading for students, researchers, and practitioners working in the realms of music production and performance, musicology and ethnomusicology, sound studies, and media and cultural studies.

Designed to introduce senior undergraduates and graduate students in public health and nursing to the study of infectious disease, Foundations of Infectious Disease: A Public Health Perspective places the study of infectious diseases squarely into its social, historical, and scientific context to demonstrate how it applies to the public and community health setting. Beginning with an introductory chapter that surveys how infectious diseases have impacted human societies over the centuries, this broad descriptive text moves on to examine epidemiological concepts related to infectious disease, from outbreak and epidemic investigations, to study design infectious disease transmission and prevention. Subsequentially, it delves into infectious disease topics of concern to today's public and community health professionals: sexually transmitted infections, foodborne infections, healthcare-acquired infections, and neglected tropical diseases.

This book concentrates on the changing patterns of work and global social order as a result of COVID-19. It scrutinizes these changes in order to point out the possible reasons for these changes following COVID-19. It sheds light on the differences between the condition of underdeveloped and developed countries, focusing on how they struggle to find ways of coping. The pandemic has changed the global social order. It has an impact on every aspect of life around the globe, from individual relationships to institutional operations and international collaborations. Societies are endeavoring to protect themselves despite severe restrictions, while the pandemic continues to upset family relations and overturn governance. COVID-19 has made it clearer than ever before that where many strains on the social sector occur, the current global system, with its interconnectedness and vulnerabilities, is under threat. Due to the changing patterns of economic and societal elements caused by COVID-19, further research is urgently needed to analyze these changing trends. The book portrays what work and the global social order will look like in the future. It is essential reading for anyone interested in these changes and the pst-COVID-19 reality.