07:20 PM to 10:00 PM W
Research Hall 202
Section Information for Spring 2019
What constitutes a “disaster”? What do changing interpretations of and responses to disasters tell us about the larger contours of history? This readings-based seminar will examine disasters as lived experiences and cultural constructions from the ca.1550 to the present. Weekly readings will focus on particular events or phenomena that contemporaries perceived as disasters—famines earthquakes, hurricanes, epidemics, fires, shipwrecks, and other calamities.
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 much about religion, science, government, social relations by studying historical disasters.
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Credits: 3
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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