07:20 PM to 10:00 PM M
West Building 1007
Section Information for Fall 2012
What constitutes a “disaster”? What do changing interpretations of and responses to disasters tell us about the larger contours of American history? This readings-based seminar will examine disasters as lived experiences and cultural constructions from the colonial period to the industrial era. Weekly readings will focus on particular events or phenomena that contemporaries perceived as disasters (or “calamities”)—a fatal hurricane, a gruesome epidemic, an urban fire, or an ill-fated ship.
This course proceeds from three assumptions. First, that so-called natural disasters are never entirely “natural” phenomena. Second, that storms, fires, and other destructive forces become “disasters” only when they intersect with human lives. Third—and most important for our purposes—that case studies of disasters provide compelling insights into their cultural and social contexts. In other words, we can learn a lot about the history of religion, science, government, social relations via case studies of American disasters. This course fulfills the “Origins to 1861” or the “1861-1914” distribution requirement in US history, but not both.
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Credits: 1-6
Enrollment limited to students with a class of Advanced to Candidacy, Graduate, Junior Plus, Non-Degree or Senior Plus.
Enrollment is limited to Graduate, Non-Degree or Undergraduate level students.
Students in a Non-Degree Undergraduate degree may not enroll.
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