Download or read book The Culture of Calamity written by Kevin Rozario and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-05-23 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Turn on the news and it looks as if we live in a time and place unusually consumed by the specter of disaster. The events of 9/11 and the promise of future attacks, Hurricane Katrina and the destruction of New Orleans, and the inevitable consequences of environmental devastation all contribute to an atmosphere of imminent doom. But reading an account of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, with its vivid evocation of buildings “crumbling as one might crush a biscuit,” we see that calamities—whether natural or man-made—have long had an impact on the American consciousness. Uncovering the history of Americans’ responses to disaster from their colonial past up to the present, Kevin Rozario reveals the vital role that calamity—and our abiding fascination with it—has played in the development of this nation. Beginning with the Puritan view of disaster as God’s instrument of correction, Rozario explores how catastrophic events frequently inspired positive reactions. He argues that they have shaped American life by providing an opportunity to take stock of our values and social institutions. Destruction leads naturally to rebuilding, and here we learn that disasters have been a boon to capitalism, and, paradoxically, indispensable to the construction of dominant American ideas of progress. As Rozario turns to the present, he finds that the impulse to respond creatively to disasters is mitigated by a mania for security. Terror alerts and duct tape represent the cynical politician’s attitude about 9/11, but Rozario focuses on how the attacks registered in the popular imagination—how responses to genuine calamity were mediated by the hyperreal thrills of movies; how apocalyptic literature, like the best-selling Left Behind series, recycles Puritan religious outlooks while adopting Hollywood’s style; and how the convergence of these two ways of imagining disaster points to a new postmodern culture of calamity. The Culture of Calamity will stand as the definitive diagnosis of the peculiarly American addiction to the spectacle of destruction.

Download or read book The Culture of Calamity written by Kevin Rozario and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2007-08-15 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Turn on the news and it looks as if we live in a time and place unusually consumed by the specter of disaster. The events of 9/11 and the promise of future attacks, Hurricane Katrina and the destruction of New Orleans, and the inevitable consequences of environmental devastation all contribute to an atmosphere of imminent doom. But reading an account of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, with its vivid evocation of buildings “crumbling as one might crush a biscuit,” we see that calamities—whether natural or man-made—have long had an impact on the American consciousness. Uncovering the history of Americans’ responses to disaster from their colonial past up to the present, Kevin Rozario reveals the vital role that calamity—and our abiding fascination with it—has played in the development of this nation. Beginning with the Puritan view of disaster as God’s instrument of correction, Rozario explores how catastrophic events frequently inspired positive reactions. He argues that they have shaped American life by providing an opportunity to take stock of our values and social institutions. Destruction leads naturally to rebuilding, and here we learn that disasters have been a boon to capitalism, and, paradoxically, indispensable to the construction of dominant American ideas of progress. As Rozario turns to the present, he finds that the impulse to respond creatively to disasters is mitigated by a mania for security. Terror alerts and duct tape represent the cynical politician’s attitude about 9/11, but Rozario focuses on how the attacks registered in the popular imagination—how responses to genuine calamity were mediated by the hyperreal thrills of movies; how apocalyptic literature, like the best-selling Left Behind series, recycles Puritan religious outlooks while adopting Hollywood’s style; and how the convergence of these two ways of imagining disaster points to a new postmodern culture of calamity. The Culture of Calamity will stand as the definitive diagnosis of the peculiarly American addiction to the spectacle of destruction.

Download or read book Cultural Emergency in Conflict and Disaster written by Berma Klein Goldewijk and published by Nai010 Publishers. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The guiding principle of "Cultural emergency in conflict and disaster" is that culture is a basic need. International heritage specialists, relief workers and politicians discuss the importance of protecting cultural heritage that is threatened by war and calamity, as well as thesignificance of culture as a positive force in the process of recovering from catastrophes and the rebuilding of the communities affected. Reports about projects in conflict zones are alternated with contributions about international administrative and legal aspects, political dimensions and sociocultural perspectives. The result is both an indictment of the senseless destruction of cultural heritage and an unflinching argument for culture as a fundamental factor in the rebuilding and restoration of societies that have been afflicted by conflict and catastrophe.

Download or read book Disaster Culture written by Gregory Button and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-06-03 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on decades of research on the most infamous human and environmental calamities, Button shows how states, corporations, and other actors attempt to create meaning and control social relations in post-disaster struggles for the redistribution of power.

Download or read book Disaster s Impact on Livelihood and Cultural Survival written by Michele Companion and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2015-03-16 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many facets of disasters generate interest among scholars and practitioners. However, a vital area of disaster research is consistently underemphasized. Little is written about the immediate and long-term impacts on a community‘s livelihood systems and the customs and practices of the culture affected. Disaster‘s Impact on Livelihood and Cultural S

Download or read book Man and Society in Calamity written by Pitirim A. Sorokin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-12 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an age of great calamities. War and revolution, famine and pestilence, are again rampant on this planet, and they still exact their deadly toll from suffering humanity. Calamities influence every moment of our existence: our mentality and behavior, our social life and cultural processes. Like a demon, they cast their shadow upon every thought we think and every action we perform. In this classic volume, Sorokin attempts to account for the effects these calamities exert on the mental processes, behavior, social organization, and cultural life of the population involved. In what way do famine and pestilence, war and revolution tend to modify our mind and conduct, our social organization and cultural life? To what extent do they succeed in this, and when and why do they prove less effective? What are the causes of these calamities, and what are the ways out? In dealing with these problems Sorokin tries to give a detailed description of the typical effects of famine and pestilence, war and revolution, such as have repeatedly occurred in all major catastrophes of this kind. To use academic language, he attempts to formulate the principal uniformities regularly manifested during such calamities. This book is a forgotten masterpiece of explanation and prediction. It opened new fields of study and broadened the scope of existing specialties.

Download or read book Routledge Handbook on Cultural Heritage and Disaster Risk Management written by Rohit Jigyasu and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-12-27 with total page 459 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Handbook provides a comprehensive and interdisciplinary overview of the intersections between cultural heritage and disaster risks. It serves as a defining reference, presenting the key concepts and policy arena that disaster risk management and cultural heritage currently operate. With 22 contributions from leading scholars and practitioners in the field, chapters explore the various contexts for cultural heritage and disaster risk management, illustrated through case studies from around the world. The Handbook is organised into 4 parts: Part 1 includes Disaster Risk Management and Cultural Heritage, Part 2 helps to Understanding the context, Part 3 focuses on the challenges and Part 4 delves deep into the future prospects. This Handbook provides insights a wide range of topics and themes, such as climate change, conflict, urbanisation, the role of community, and examines the relationships with a range of sectors such as governance and policy, finance, infrastructure, shelter, and urban planning. It also presents critiques on issues that are often taken for granted, including technocratic approaches, nature/culture binary, the romanticisation of traditional knowledges and the role of recovery and reconstruction. Insights into the future are also presented, and the Handbook concludes with a detailed agenda of proposed action to be taken in the field. Offering critical reflections on the topic, this book caters to students, researchers, professionals, and policy makers in the fields of disaster studies, cultural studies, heritage studies, conservation and geography.

Download or read book America s Disaster Culture written by Robert C. Bell and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2017-10-19 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are we inside the era of disasters or are we merely inundated by mediated accounts of events categorized as catastrophic? America's Disaster Culture offers answers to this question and a critical theory surrounding the culture of “natural” disasters in American consumerism, literature, media, film, and popular culture. In a hyper-mediated global culture, disaster events reach us with great speed and minute detail, and Americans begin forming, interpreting, and historicizing catastrophes simultaneously with fellow citizens and people worldwide. America's Disaster Culture is not policy, management, or relief oriented. It offers an analytical framework for the cultural production and representation of disasters, catastrophes, and apocalypses in American culture. It focuses on filling a need for critical analysis centered upon the omnipresence of real and imagined disasters, epidemics, and apocalypses in American culture. However, it also observes events, such as the Dust Bowl, Hurricane Katrina, and 9/11, that are re-framed and re-historicized as “natural” disasters by contemporary media and pop culture. Therefore, America's Disaster Culture theorizes the very parameters of classifying any event as a “natural” disaster, addresses the biases involved in a catastrophic event's public narrative, and analyzes American culture's consumption of a disastrous event. Looking toward the future, what are the hypothetical and actual threats to disaster culture? Or, are we oblivious that we are currently living in a post-apocalyptic landscape?

Download or read book Culture Catastrophe and Rhetoric written by Robert Hariman and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2015-10-01 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores political culture, especially the catastrophic elements of the global social order emerging in the twenty-first century. By emphasizing the texture of political action, the book theorizes how social context becomes evident on the surface of events and analyzes the performative dimensions of political experience. The attention to catastrophe allows for an understanding of how ordinary people contend with normal system operation once it is indistinguishable from system breakdown. Through an array of case studies, the book provides an account of change as it is experienced, negotiated, and resisted in specific settings that define a society’s capacity for political action.

Download or read book Gender Culture and Disaster in Post 3 11 Japan written by Mire Koikari and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-10-15 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Great East Japan Disaster – a compound catastrophe of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown that began on March 11, 2011 – has ushered in a new era of cultural production dominated by discussions on safety and security, risk and vulnerability, and recovery and refortification. Gender, Culture, and Disaster in Post-3.11 Japan re-frames post-disaster national reconstruction as a social project imbued with dynamics of gender, race, and empire and in doing so Mire Koikari offers an innovative approach to resilience building in contemporary Japan. From juvenile literature to civic manuals to policy statements, Koikari examines a vast array of primary sources to demonstrate how femininity and masculinity, readiness and preparedness, militarism and humanitarianism, and nationalism and transnationalism inform cultural formation and transformation triggered by the unprecedented crisis. Interdisciplinary in its orientation, the book reveals how militarism, neoliberalism, and neoconservatism drive Japan's resilience building while calling attention to historical precedents and transnational connections that animate the ongoing mobilization toward safety and security. An important contribution to studies of gender and Japan, the book is essential reading for all those wishing to understand local and global politics of precarity and its proposed solutions amid the rising tide of pandemics, ecological hazards, industrial disasters, and humanitarian crises.

Download or read book Inventing Disaster written by Cynthia A. Kierner and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2019-09-06 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires, and other disasters strike, we count our losses, search for causes, commiserate with victims, and initiate relief efforts. Amply illustrated and expansively researched, Inventing Disaster explains the origins and development of this predictable, even ritualized, culture of calamity over three centuries, exploring its roots in the revolutions in science, information, and emotion that were part of the Age of Enlightenment in Europe and America. Beginning with the collapse of the early seventeenth-century Jamestown colony, ending with the deadly Johnstown flood of 1889, and highlighting fires, epidemics, earthquakes, and exploding steamboats along the way, Cynthia A. Kierner tells horrific stories of culturally significant calamities and their victims and charts efforts to explain, prevent, and relieve disaster-related losses. Although how we interpret and respond to disasters has changed in some ways since the nineteenth century, Kierner demonstrates that, for better or worse, the intellectual, economic, and political environments of earlier eras forged our own twenty-first-century approach to disaster, shaping the stories we tell, the precautions we ponder, and the remedies we prescribe for disaster-ravaged communities.

Download or read book Calamity and Reform in China written by Dali L. Yang and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book-length treatment of the political causes and consequences of the Great Leap Famine (1959-61), one of the worst tragedies in human history.

Download or read book The Cultural Cold War written by Frances Stonor Saunders and published by New Press, The. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Cold War, freedom of expression was vaunted as liberal democracy’s most cherished possession—but such freedom was put in service of a hidden agenda. In The Cultural Cold War, Frances Stonor Saunders reveals the extraordinary efforts of a secret campaign in which some of the most vocal exponents of intellectual freedom in the West were working for or subsidized by the CIA—whether they knew it or not. Called "the most comprehensive account yet of the [CIA’s] activities between 1947 and 1967" by the New York Times, the book presents shocking evidence of the CIA’s undercover program of cultural interventions in Western Europe and at home, drawing together declassified documents and exclusive interviews to expose the CIA’s astonishing campaign to deploy the likes of Hannah Arendt, Isaiah Berlin, Leonard Bernstein, Robert Lowell, George Orwell, and Jackson Pollock as weapons in the Cold War. Translated into ten languages, this classic work—now with a new preface by the author—is "a real contribution to popular understanding of the postwar period" (The Wall Street Journal), and its story of covert cultural efforts to win hearts and minds continues to be relevant today.

Download or read book Disasters and Life in Anticipation of Slow Calamity written by Reidar Staupe-Delgado and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-09-27 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book provides insights into community narratives concerning life in the face of creeping calamities through a case study from the Colombian Andes. It sets out to make sense of the lived experience of disasters that are slowly unfolding as well disasters that have not yet occurred. This book explores what it means to live in anticipation of disaster and in anticipation of an uprooting of community, sense of self, and sense of belonging. It questions whether community resilience is a useful concept in the context of slow-onset geological hazards for which few viable solutions are available. The book forces us to think about how resettlement and displacement functions in the context of slow calamities, which presents distinct challenges, mainly related to lower political saliency than what is usually the case in emergencies. The book thus also has implications for how we think about the adverse impacts of climate change. By raising new questions on the nature of disasters and calamities and how we experience them, the book explores the challenges and tensions surrounding governance and governmentality. The interdisciplinary blend of practice-oriented and conceptual reflections will appeal to academics in postgraduate and postdoctoral research in social sciences, specifically, disaster research, geography, and research fields centred on natural hazards and disasters.

Download or read book Cultural Calamity written by Joseph W. Mayo and published by . This book was released on 2017-03-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Cultures of Disaster written by Greg Bankoff and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-08-27 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this fascinating and comprehensive study, Greg Bankoff traces the history of natural hazards in the Philippines from the records kept by the Spanish colonisers to the 'Calamitous Nineties', and assesses the effectiveness of the relief mechanisms that have evolved to cope with these occurrences. He also examines the correlation between this history of natural disasters and the social hierarchy within Filipino society. The constant threat of disaster has been integrated into the schema of daily life to such an extent that a 'culture of disaster' has been formed.

Download or read book The Good Book of Human Nature written by Carel van Schaik and published by . This book was released on 2016-05-24 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In The Good Book of Human Nature, evolutionary anthropologist Carel van Schaik and historian Kai Michel advance a new view of Homo sapiens' cultural evolution. The Bible, they argue, was written to make sense of the single greatest change in history: the transition from egalitarian hunter-gatherer to agricultural societies. Religion arose as a strategy to cope with the unprecedented levels of epidemic disease, violence, inequality, and injustice that confronted us when we abandoned the bush--and which still confront us today, "--Amazon.com.