Viral Biopolitics: COVID-19 and the Living Dead

In the article, “COVID-19 and the Living Dead,” Rachel Nelson, Director of the Institute of Arts and Sciences at UC Santa Cruz, examines the concept of viral biopolitics through the lens of COVID-19 and capital punishment. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s theory of bio-power—the regulation of populations by managing life and death—Nelson explores how the U.S. justice system renders death-row inmates into “living dead,” individuals sustained only to be executed. This logic is intensified by the pandemic, as inmates like Tim Young describe how basic protective measures were denied, such as access to masks and gloves, while punitive practices such as strip searches continued unchecked. Young’s testimony documents not just institutional neglect but a system structurally indifferent to inmate survival, amplifying the pandemic’s lethality behind bars.

This piece contributes to COVID-19 storytelling by incorporating the visual and testimonial voice of an incarcerated person—Tim Young—who speaks from within a biopolitical system of abandonment. His photograph anchors the article, humanizing the abstract discourse of bio-power and placing visual emphasis on the carceral body under threat. The article does not deploy visual storytelling in the artistic sense, but it uses the visual as documentary evidence, pairing personal narrative with political theory to frame the pandemic’s impact on a highly marginalized population. As such, it expands your databank’s scope by illustrating how visual representation and testimonial accounts from death row articulate a form of pandemic storytelling from within state-managed zones of exclusion.