Catastrophes

A History and Theory of an Operative Concept

Nitzan Lebovic, Andreas Killen, Nitzan Lebovic, Andreas Killen

• Publisher: De Gruyter Oldenbourg
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9783110373776
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: History

Catastrophic scenarios dominate our contemporary mindset. Catastrophic events and predictions have spurred new interest in re-examining the history of earlier disasters and the social and conceptual resources they have mobilized. The essays gathered in this volume reconsider the history and theory of different catastrophes and their aftermath. The emphasis is on the need to distance this process of reconsideration from previous teleological representations of catastrophes as an endpoint, and to begin considering their "operative" aspects, which unmask the nature of social and political structures. Among the essays in this volume are analyses, by leading scholars in their respective fields, concerning the role of catastrophes in theology, in the history of industrial accidents, in theory of history, in the history of law, in "catastrophe films", in the history of cybernetics, in post-Holocaust discussions of reparations, and in climate change.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• The Storyteller and the Seismograph
• “Unity, Plasticity, Catastrophe: Order and Pathology in the Cybernetic Era”
• The Last Man: The Birth of Modern Apocalypse in Jean Paul, John Martin, and Lord Byron
• Accidents happen: The Industrial Accident in Interwar Germany
• German Jewish Judges and the Permanent State of Catastrophe
• Ending Time and again in Ruins: Catastrophe and its Discontents in Jewish Theology
• The Obscenity of Objectivity: Post-Holocaust Anti-Semitism and the Invention-Discovery of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
• Kata and/or Streiphen?: Climate Change and the Politics of Catastrophe
• Anticipating the Climate Catastrophe
• The Authors