Critical Disaster Studies

Andy Horowitz is Assistant Professor of History and the Paul and Debra Gibbons Professor in the School of Liberal Arts at Tulane University. Jacob A. C. Remes is Clinical Associate Professor of History at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study, New York University.

• Introduction. Introducing Critical Disaster StudiesAndy Horowitz and Jacob A. C. RemesPart I. Knowing DisasterChapter 1. The Voyage of the Paragon: Disaster as MethodScott Gabriel Knowles and Zachary LoebChapter 2. Acts of God, Man, and System: Knowledge, Technology, and the Construction of DisasterRyan HagenChapter 3. When Does a Crisis Begin? Race, Gender, and the Subprime Noncrisis of the Late 1990sDara Z. StrolovitchPart II. Governing DisasterChapter 4. Concrete Kleptocracy and Haiti's Culture of Building: Toward a New Temporality of DisasterClaire Antone PaytonChapter 5. Risk Technopolitics in Freetown Slums: Why Community-Based Disaster Management Is No Silver BulletAaron Clark-GinsbergChapter 6. Spaces at Risk: Urban Politics and Slum Relocation in Chennai, IndiaPranathi DiwakarChapter 7. Plan B: The Collapse of Public-Private Risk Sharing in the US National Flood Insurance ProgramRebecca ElliottPart III. Imagining DisasterChapter 8. Mediating Disaster, or A History of the NovelSusan Scott ParrishChapter 9. The Tōkai Earthquake and Changing Lexicons of RiskKerry SmithChapter 10. Translating Disaster Knowledge from Japan to Chile: A Proposal for IncompletenessChika WatanabeAfterword. "Acts of Men": Disasters Neglected, Preventable, and MoralKenneth HewittNotesBibliographyIndexList of ContributorsAcknowledgments

"When speaking of disaster henceforth, we cannot escape the ensuing political questions this volume interrogates." (Los Angeles Review of Books) "In a world marked by calamity, this timely volume widens the lens of our understanding by emphasizing the importance of deeply contextualized approaches to the study of disaster. The end result is a vibrant reimagination of the field and a captivating introduction to critical disaster studies." (Lori Peek, University of Colorado Boulder) "This is a vital, iconoclastic volume that turns much conventional thinking about disaster studies on its head. The contributions are lively, geographically varied, and conceptually suggestive. An exciting and invaluable book." (Rob Nixon, Princeton University) "An urgent, timely, and vitally important volume that deserves a wide readership. As the crisis precipitated by the Covid-19 pandemic has made all too clear, this volume's unifying themes—vulnerability, risk, resilience, and disaster—are concepts that every one of us ought to understand, grapple with, and critique." (Julia Irwin, University of South Florida)