SHUM 4724/6724 Après le Déluge: History and Disaster
Also HIST 4424/6424
Kristin Roebuck
A.D. White House
When disaster strikes – war, earthquake, epidemic, nuclear fallout – how do people survive and rebuild? This course explores the history and aftermath of natural disasters and man-made catastrophes. Such disasters often overlap, as when hydroengineering leads to catastrophic flooding; government, military, or industrial policy foster famine or disease; and tsunami bring a nuclear facility to meltdown. Disasters destroy, but they also spark creativity: new scientific paradigms, art forms, communities, politics, and profits. One man’s disaster is another man’s opportunity, as when bombs and earthquakes clear the way for urban planners or spark investment in research and reconstruction. Survivors, scientists, activists, artists, and politicians compete over how to remember past disasters and prepare for – or avoid – a reprise. At stake is the future opened up by disaster.