Touch me not in hate
by Nandini Chatterjee
Nandini Chatterjee is a historian of South Asia, especially the Mughal Empire. She teaches at the University of Exeter in the UK. In her research, she loves to explore Islam in its many cultural forms and through several languages. She paints when words fail her.
Our project takes the words spoken by Jesus to Mary Magdalene in the garden after she discovers his empty tomb — noli me tangere (“touch me not”) — as a provocation for reflection on the COVID-19 pandemic, and on other pandemics, viral and social, that engulf us.