131-213 Disasters in Historical Context

Usually 25 points of first year history.

This subject examines the social, cultural, economic and demographic contexts of 'disasters' throughout history, including topics such as famine, natural catastrophe, environmental disaster, urban and industrial calamity and epidemics. Discussions will cover a diversity of historical contexts and arenas, including Europe, Australia, North America and Japan, from the ancient to the contemporary world. The subject will specifically focus on the period from the 16th to the 19th centuries, when understandings of disaster and catastrophe were transformed by urbanisation, industrialisation, and secularisation. Further emphasis will be placed on popular memory and representation of disasters; political sanction of particular versions of calamitous events; restoration of material and social order; religious and rationalist responses to disaster; and the development of institutional safeguards. On completion of the subject students should have developed skills in understanding the meanings and consequences of disasters for victims, observers and perpetrators, and have gained historical understanding of the ways in which disasters have been understood, experienced, managed, relieved, and exploited.