Beyond Words to Find Words: Creative Hermeneutical Dialogue During COVID-19

This article puts forward several offerings to go beyond words using words to fi nd words. With island studies, late modern discourses in human geography, and fringy takes on linguistics as a base, the dialogue involving the hermeneutics—the branch of knowledge dealing with interpretation—of creative and scientifi c formulation is extended. Elements of the political and social current of Australia in an evolving COVID-19-affected, island-bound present—a During—are discussed against a backdrop of the epistemology of Some Islands, an experimental academic group and forum the authors use to mediate some of the Befores, Durings, and Afters (capitals intentional) that have evolved during COVID-19 times. The authors and their work are presented as inhabiting island-like spaces within the academic and creative industries.