The research project Corona Fictions. On Viral Narratives in Times of Pandemics was funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) between June 1, 2021 and May 31, 2024, DOI: 10.55776/P34571. It was carried out at the Institute of Interactive Systems and Data Science (ISDS) at Graz University of Technology.

In the project, we aimed at collecting, categorizing and analyzing fictional cultural productions (e.g., short stories, films, poems etc.) that were produced in the course of the Covid-19 pandemic. Major achievements are the Corona Fictions Database with more than 1.300 entries, or the volume on 'Pandemic Protagonists' (2023). 

Project Team:
Dr. phil. Elisabeth Hobisch
Dr. phil. Julia Obermayr
Dr. phil. Yvonne Völkl (PI)

Below, you find an overview of our manifold project-related activities:

  1. Publications
  2. Lectures
  3. Science-to-Public activities

1) Publications

Hobisch, Elisabeth; Völkl, Yvonne; Obermayr, Julia (2021-) "Corona Fictions Database", in: Zotero Group Library, URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/4814225/corona_fictions_database/library, 2022-11-15.

The Corona Fictions Database displays a collection of Corona Fictions. The main purpose of this bibliographical database is to compile and categorize the cultural productions resulting from this global pandemic. It is available as a public Zotero group library.

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Corona Fictions Database

Völkl, Yvonne (2025) „Corona Fictions Anthologies. On the Compilation of Hispanophone and Francophone Corona Fictions During the First Lockdown“. In: Martin Butler et al. (eds.) Coming to Terms with a Crisis. Cultural Engagements with COVID-19. Bielefeld: transcript, 91-113.

[T]he Corona Fictions anthologies analyzed in this article demonstrate how the early mitigation measures – especially the first lockdown – influenced cultural production processes, sociocultural practices, as well as individual and collective well-being. While intended as means of documentation and preservation, support and empowerment, and/or inspiration and preparation, the anthologies also succeed in ...

Völkl, Yvonne (2025) „Corona Fictions und ihre Spuren in der Quebecer Literaturlandschaft“ In: Vienna Working Papers in Canadian Studies, Vol. 7 (2025), https://canada.univie.ac.at/publications/vienna-working-papers/, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.14917005

The new Vienna Working Papers in Canadian Studies on "Corona Fictions und ihre Spuren in der Quebecer Literaturlandschaft" by Yvonne Völkl is now available online. In her paper, Yvonne Völkl examines different cultural texts influenced by the Covid-19 pandemic. She looks at the emergence of so-called Corona Fictions with a particular focus on Quebec literature.

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Obermayr, Julia; Hobisch, Elisabeth (2024) “Uplifting Corona Fictions: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Representations Encouraging Well-Being in Music Videos”, Re:visit. Humanities & Medicine in Dialogue 3 (1), 75–97. 

In this article, we analyze […] how three music videos in Romance languages […] encode the uplifting storytelling, portraying the human need for connection, on a narratological macro ([…]) and micro level ([…]). Across national, cultural, and linguistic borders, these Corona Fictions demonstrate how fragile our social fabric is while, […], strengthening the feeling of solidarity, […]. With this contribution, we intend to enrich the existing research from the intersections of psychology, social sciences and musicology with a specific cultural and media studies perspective beyond cultural products in English.

Irouschek, Laura; Hobisch, Elisabeth; Obermayr, Julia; Völkl, Yvonne (2023) “Pandemic Protagonists. Viral (Re)Actions in Pandemic and Corona Fictions. Conference Report”, Zenodo. DOI: https://zenodo.org/records/8028582.

The conference [...] marked the culmination of a year of joint work on the eponymous edited volume Pandemic Protagonists published with transcript in April 2023 and represented another milestone in the research project Corona Fictions [...].

Obermayr, Julia; Hobisch, Elisabeth (2023) "Uplifting Corona Fictions: No tengas miedo, Ya pasará and Andrà tutto bene (PREPRINT)", Zenodo. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7929960.

Across national, cultural, and linguistic borders, Corona Fictions [...] demonstrate how fragile our social fabric is while, at the same time, strengthening the feeling of solidarity, togetherness/ unity, and cohesion. Hence, this article will examine Corona Fictions music videos for their understanding and depiction of uplifting narratives in these challenging times.

Völkl, Yvonne (2023) "Corona Fictions Anthologies. On the Compilation of Hispanophone and Francophone Corona Fictions in the First Lockdown (PREPRINT)", Zenodo. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7929932.

Against the background of the classic anthological format, it [this article] describes the reasons indicated by the different editors for their anthologization endeavors, revolving around the three groups of categories of documentation and preservation, support and empowerment, as well as inspiration and preparation.

Völkl, Yvonne; Obermayr, Julia; Hobisch, Elisabeth (eds.) (2023) Pandemic Protagonists. Viral (Re)Actions in Pandemic and Corona Fictions. Bielefeld: transcript. ISBN: 978-3-8376-6616-8.

During the first mandatory lockdowns of the Covid-19 pandemic, citizens worldwide turned to »pandemic fictions« or started to produce their own »Corona Fictions« across different media. These accounts of (previously) experienced or imagined health crises feature a great variety of protagonists and their (re)actions in response to the exceptional circumstances. The contributors to this volume take a closer look at different pandemic protagonists in fictional narratives relating to the Covid-19 pandemic as well as in existing pandemic fictions. Thereby they provide new insights into pandemic narratives from a cultural, literary, and media studies perspective from antiquity to today.

also in this volume:

  • Völkl, Yvonne; Obermayr, Julia; Hobisch, Elisabeth (2023) “Pandemic Protagonists (Re)Claiming Agency: An Introduction”, Yvonne Völkl, Julia Obermayr and Elisabeth Hobisch (eds.) Pandemic Protagonists. Viral (Re)Actions in Pandemic and Corona Fictions. Bielefeld: transcript, 9-22. DOI:  https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839466162-002.
  • Hobisch, Elisabeth (2023) “Hysterical Men and Reasoning Women? On Gender Roles and Agency in Corona Fictions”, Yvonne Völkl, Julia Obermayr and Elisabeth Hobisch (eds.) Pandemic Protagonists. Viral (Re)Actions in Pandemic and Corona Fictions. Bielefeld: transcript, 65-86. DOI:  https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839466162-005.
  • Meozzi, Tommaso (2023) “Protagonisti in cerca di una nuova agency: la pandemia di Covid-19 nelle letteratura italiana”, Yvonne Völkl, Julia Obermayr and Elisabeth Hobisch (eds.) Pandemic Protagonists. Viral (Re)Actions in Pandemic and Corona Fictions. Bielefeld: transcript, 257-275. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839466162-015.
  • Obermayr, Julia (2023) “Corona Fictions Agents: Cinematic Representations of Hopeful Pandemic Protagonists in Early Corona Fictions”, Yvonne Völkl, Julia Obermayr and Elisabeth Hobisch (eds.) Pandemic Protagonists. Viral (Re)Actions in Pandemic and Corona Fictions. Bielefeld: transcript, 277-301. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839466162-016.

Völkl, Yvonne; Obermayr, Julia (2023) "Lockdown-Corona-Fictions als Seismograf für sozialen Zusammenhalt", in: Barbara Ratzenböck, Katharina Scherke, Annette Sprung and Werner Suppanz (eds.) Sozialer Zusammenhalt in der Krise. Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven auf Heterogenität und Kohäsion moderner Gesellschaften, Bielefeld: transcript, 255-279. DOI: 10.14361/9783839462065-012 . www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-6206-1, 2023-02-04.

Fiktionale Erzählungen dienen als Spiegel der Welt. Egal ob in Liebes-, Helden- oder Katastrophengeschichten, zumeist erzählen sie vom zwischenmenschlichen Miteinander. An solchen Geschichten lassen sich das Ausmaß sozialer Beziehungen, emotionaler Verbundenheit sowie von Gemeinwohlorientierung innerhalb von Gruppen ablesen, die als Determinanten für sozialen Zusammenhalt angesehen werden können. So geben auch [...] Corona Fictions Indikationen dafür, wie gesellschaftlicher Zusammenhalt vor allem in der Anfangsphase der Krise er- und gelebt wurde. Ebenfalls zeigen sie, dass...

Hobisch, Elisabeth; Völkl, Yvonne; Obermayr, Julia (2023) “Corona Fictions Database – Documentation of a Bibliographical Structuring System”, Zenodo. DOI: https://zenodo.org/records/7529753.

The Corona Fictions Database (cf. Hobisch/Völkl/Obermayr 2021-) is an essential part of the Corona Fictions research project [...]. In order to understand the composition, compilation and functioning of [it], [...] we describe [here] the corpus entering the bibliographical database, the process of data collection and structuring – including the specific challenges encountered in this process – as well as the functionality of the database.

Obermayr, Julia; Völkl, Yvonne (2022) “¡Ni Te Me Acerques! (Stay Away!) Negotiating Physical Distancing in Hispanophone Corona Fictions”, Altre modernità 28, 158-174. DOI: https://doi.org/10.54103/2035-7680/19125.

This contribution will [...] look at the representations of physical distancing in written and audiovisual productions from the first lockdown and analyze the similarities therein. From a cultural studies point of view, we are particularly interested in the ways these Corona Fictions negotiate physical distancing, isolation and self-reflection in their narratives of the respective medium.

Völkl, Yvonne; Hobisch, Elisabeth; Obermayr, Julia (2022-) "Corona Fictions Data Survey", in: LimeSurvey.org, URL: https://survey.tugraz.at/index.php/131911, 2022-08-01.

With this survey, we collect bibliographic data on Corona Fictions with the aim to create an Open Access bibliographic database on Corona Fictions in the course of the Corona Fictions research project supported by the Austrian Research Fund (FWF: P 34571-G).

Hobisch, Elisabeth; Völkl, Yvonne; Obermayr, Julia (2022) “Narrar la pandemia. Una introducción a formas, temas y metanarrativas de las Corona Fictions”, Ana Gallego Cuiñas and José Antonio Pérez Tapias (eds.) Pensamiento, Pandemia y Big Data: El impacto sociocultural del coronavirus en el espacio iberoamericano. Berlin [u.a.]: de Gruyter, 191-211. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110693928-013.

En este artículo presentaremos, primero, la hipótesis principal en la que se basa nuestro proyecto sobre las Corona Fictions y, en segundo lugar, los resultados preliminares de análisis de los que disponemos después de un año trabajando con un corpus compuesto mayoritariamente por Corona Fictions creadas en el primer año de la pandemia.

Obermayr, Julia; Völkl, Yvonne (2022) “Corona Fictions as Cultural Indicators of Social Cohesion and Resilience in the Wake of the Covid-19 Pandemic”, Momentum Quarterly (thematic issue on Gender, Diversity and Social Cohesion in Europe), 129-142. DOI: https://doi.org/10.15203/momentumquarterly.vol11.no1.p129-142.

Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, many Europeans have turned to preexisting written and audiovisual pandemic fictions for better sense-making and as a coping strategy. Two years into the crisis, on a cultural level, numerous European countries have since actively produced their own Corona Fictions offering narratives that deal with the current pandemic. On a societal level, these narratives early on hinted at...

Research Group Pandemic Fictions* (2020) „From Pandemic to Corona Fictions: Narratives in Times of Crises“. In: PhiN-Beihefte 24, 321-344. [*Y. Völkl, A. Göschl, E. Hobisch, J. Obermayr].

[The global pandemic crisis] discourse was and still is not limited to media and politics, but also penetrates into fictional productions constituting a new corpus, which can be subsumed under the term Corona Fictions. However, Corona Fictions pertain to a more generally assumed genre of pandemic fiction, i.e. literary and cultural productions, which rely strongly on the representation and functionalization of pandemics. Thus, Corona Fictions not only draw on everyday media and political discourse, but also on previous ...
Pandemic Circuit
Fig.: 'Pandemic Circuit', Research Group Pandemic Fictions 2020, 324.

2) Lectures

Völkl, Yvonne "Corona Fictions und ihre Spuren in der Quebecer Literaturlandschaft", 7th Vienna Lecture in Canadian Studies, University of Vienna, Austria, 30/11/2024.

Völkl, Yvonne; Hobisch, Elisabeth "Confluence des forces créatives – Formes de production collective pendant la crise sanitaire",14. Frankoromanistentag, Passau, Germany, 24-27/09/2024.

Völkl, Yvonne; Hobisch, Elisabeth; Obermayr, Julia "Créativité en confinement ? Émergence de nouvelles pratiques littéraires et artistiques pendant la pandémie", Triennial CEACS Conference on Canadian Studies in Central Europe, Maribor, Slovenia, 12-14/09/2024

Völkl, Yvonne "Corona Fictions. Zur Emergenz eines transmedialen und transkulturellen Phänomens", Düsseldorf, Germany, 03.07.2024.

Völkl, Yvonne; Hobisch, Elisabeth "Corona Fictions. Schriftliche und audiovisuelle Reaktionen auf die Covid-19-Pandemie", Vienna, Austria, 03.06.2024.

Völkl, Yvonne; Hobisch, Elisabeth "Vom Sammeln literarischer und filmischer Spuren der Pandemie. Corona Fictions und die Corona Fictions Datenbank", TU Darmstadt, Germany, 14.05.2024.

Völkl, Yvonne "Réinterprétation et renégociation de l’espace privé dans les Corona Fictions", Séminaire de l’Université de la Sarre et de l’Université de Lorraine en coopération avec l’UniGR-Center for Border Studies: La peste, le choléra et la Covid-19 – Les pandémies et leurs implications pour les frontières, Saarbrücken, Germany, 14-15.03.2024.

Völkl, Yvonne: "'Les traces de la pandémie...' - Pandemische Spuren in der Quebecer Literatur", Journée d'études: L'extrême contemporain au Québec et au Canada francophone. Perspectives culturelles, littéraires, médiatiques et linguistiques, Innsbruck, Austria, 19.01.2024.

Obermayr, Julia: "'You cannot confine imagination' – Contemporary Corona Fictions Embracing LGBT+ Characters", International Conference: Queer & Feminist Relationships in Contemporary Fiction of Romance Cultures, Vienna, Austria, 25-27.10.2023.

Völkl, Yvonne; Hobisch, Elisabeth: "Pandemic Protagonists – Book Presentation", International Conference: Post-Pandemic Futures. Cultural Meeting Points, Maynooth, Ireland, 05.-06.10.2023.

Völkl, Yvonne: "Corona Fictions: Aufkommen, Erscheinungsformen, Potenziale", 8. KWG-Jahrestagung: Populäre Kulturen / Popular Cultures, Saarbrücken, Germany, 27.-30.09.2023.

Meozzi, Tommaso “Ibridazione di spazi nella letteratura italiana sulla pandemia di Covid-19, 38. Romanistentag, Sektion: Spielarten literarischer Raumpräsenzen in narrativen Texten vom 19.–21. Jahrhundert, Leipzig, Germany, 24.-27.09.2023.

Hobisch, Elisabeth: "Corona Fictions Database: Contagious Narratives in the Digital Realm", International Interdisciplinary Online Conference: Contagion: Between Contiguity and Community, Kraków, Poland, 24.-26.05.2023.

Obermayr, Julia/Hobisch, Elisabeth/Völkl, Yvonne: "Corona Fictions: la herencia cultural de la pandemia archivada en un banco de datos Open Access", Posterpräsentation, Hispanistentag, Graz, Austria, 22.-25.02.2023.

Obermayr, Julia/Hiergeist, Teresa (2023) "Too far away. Julia Obermayr über Corona Fictions und Nähe/Distanz in pandemischen Zeiten", Fabulari. Der Wissenschaftspodcast zu Literatur und Film in der Romania 20, https://fabulari.podigee.io/19-neue-episode, 2023-01-12.

Völkl, Yvonne: "La crise sanitaire du Covid-19 et sa configuration narrative immédiate en forme d'anthologie à l'exemple du recueil québécois Récits infectés", Journées québécoises II, Český Krumlov, Czech Republic, 20.-23.10.2022.

Hobisch, Elisabeth: "Narrar la Pandemia: las Ficciones de Corona", Congreso internacional COVIDTECA: Pensamiento, pandemia y Big Data en Iberoamérica, Granada, Spain, 24.-25.03.2022.

Völkl, Yvonne: "Corona Fictions Anthologies: On the Compilation of Hispanophone and Francophone Corona Fictions in the First Lockdown", Pandemic Meets Fiction Workshop, Delmenhorst, Germany, 10.-11.03.2022.

Göschl, Albert: "Hygiene Discourse Between Eutopia and Dystopia in 19th Century Literature", Utopian Possibilities, Porto, Portugal, 11.12.2021.

Obermayr, Julia: "'Confinés. Égalité. Fraternité'? Corona Fictions as Cultural Indicators of Social Cohesion and Resilience in 8 Rue de l’Humanité", Corona Fictions Workshop, Graz, Austria, 09.-10.12.2021.

Göschl, Albert: "Utopianism Clean and Pure. The Interconnected Hygienic Discourse of 19th Century Science and Literature", Corona Fictions Workshop, Graz, Austria, 09.-10.12.2021.

Völkl, Yvonne: "Deconfining Pandemic Fictions!", Corona Fictions Workshop, Graz, Austria, 09.-10.12.2021.

Völkl, Yvonne: "Corona Fictions als (Auto-)Therapeutikum? Zum Potenzial der (Selbst-)Narration in der Covid-19 Pandemie", International Conference: Systemrelevant? Literatur und Arbeit in der Coronakrise, Innsbruck, Austria, 10.-11.11.2021.

Völkl, Yvonne: "Raising Resilience or Diary Writing as a Means of Coping with the Corona Crisis.", Caring and Sharing Conference. Health and Humanities in Today's World, Lisbon, Portugal, 24.06.2021.

Völkl, Yvonne: "Testimoniale Narration als kulturelle Praxis der Resilienz im Kontext der Corona-Krise." Habilitation colloquium. Graz, Austria, 18.12.2020.

Hobisch, Elisabeth; Völkl, Yvonne; Obermayr, Julia; Göschl, Albert: "Ficciones de corona. Narrativas virales en tiempos de pandemias", Conference lecture at 4° Simposio Internacional Interdisciplinario Academia en Contextos Humanos y Socio-Ambientales, UAEM, Toluca, Mexico, 22.10.2020.

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3) Science-to-Public Activities

Obermayr, Julia (2023): "Too far away. Julia Obermayr über Corona Fictions und Nähe/Distanz in pandemischen Zeiten", Fabulari. Der Wissenschaftspodcast zu Literatur und Film in der Romania 20, https://fabulari.podigee.io/19-neue-episode, 2023-01-12.

Völkl, Yvonne (2022): Guest speaker during the literature show "Roboter mit Senf" at Literaturhaus Graz, 2022-10-14.

Exhibition "Corona, Social Change, and Resilience", Graz, Austria, March 04 to 31, 2022.  To get an insight into this exhibition, click here or on the picture below to see the video about it.

"Début 2022, L'actualité rattrape Éloge du cygne", In: Dossier de presse du roman Éloge du cygne (2021) de David Chapon, 2022-02, p. 7.

"'We may lack toilet paper, but we will never lack poetry' - Corona Fictions Workshop Report". In: Corona Fictions Webpage. 2021-12-14.

Corona Fiction. In: Büchereiperspektiven – Fachzeitschrift des Büchereiverbandes Österreichs 2/21, p. 26-27.

Littérature et Covid: "Nous verrons comment les gens vivent la pandémie, trouvent le chemin d'une résilience". In: FranceInter. 2021-05-08.

Forschungsprojekt über "Corona Fictions" will Narrative sammeln. In: Austria Presse Agentur (APA), Science. 2021-04-26.

Corona Fictions – What Literature Can Tell Us About The Future. In: FWF SciLog. 2021-04-26.

Corona Fictions – Was ein Blick in die Literatur über die Zukunft sagt. In: FWF SciLog. 2021-04-26.

Wie wir über Corona reden und denken. In: FWF Jahresbericht 2020, S.20-21. 2021-04-05.

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