Institute of International Development, University of Vienna Academic year 2016 – 2017 (Spring term) Course Instructor Historical perspectives on disaster management and risk prevention Dr. Lukas Schemper Master Seminar 140372 SE VM5 / VM3 – 7.00 ECTS (Prüfungsimmanente Lehrveranstaltung) Seminar Description This seminar explores ways of approaching “natural“ disaster as an object of historical inquiry on the local, regional, national, inter- and trans-national as well as global level. It aims at critical examining disaster as a phenomenon that has environmental (and other) causes, yet is always socially constructed. How have perceptions of risk and explanation of disaster differed over time in westernand non-western societies? When did the management of natural disaster become a concern of the state? What role does natural disaster play in nation building and the cultural history of a state? And when did it become an international or even intergovernmental concern? As for the international frame of analysis, the seminar will consider “natural” disaster both as an issue of foreign policy and of an emerging “international governance“ of disaster. It will inquire about the place of disaster in international development, international law and environmental protection. Historical disaster research is an emerging field of research and its literature is still scarce. Although the emphasis of the seminar and its assignments is on the historical dimensions of disaster, the mandatory and facultative readings of the course will also include texts from a variety of other disciplines including sociology, anthropology, law, political science or economics. Students are also more than welcome to inform their assignments with methods and literature from nonhistorical disciplines. lukas.schemper@iheid.ch Phone: 0043 (1) 313 58 509 Office hours: always after the seminar (18h-19h) Institut für Internationale Entwicklung, Universität Wien, Sensengasse 3/2/2, A-1090 Wien 2 Syllabus Expectations and assessment criteria 1. Attendance and active participation in class (15% of the final grade) This means: Please attend class regularly. According to the regulations of the University of Vienna, you are not allowed to miss more than 25% of the seminar. While as a courtesy you are kindly asked to notify the instructor in advance if you plan not to attend a class, medical certificates are not needed and do not change the 25% rule. In order to participate, you are expected to do the required weekly readings and come prepared to class. The readings serve as the starting point for our discussions and will enable you to ask questions and engage in the debate of each session. 2. An in-class presentation (30% of the final grade) Each student is expected to give a presentation on one of the topics listed in the syllabus. If you have a good and suitable idea for a topic that is not in the list, we can agree on this in the first session. The presentation should not be longer than 15 minutes. The instructor may stop you if you exceed that limit and you may receive a lower grade if your presentation is too long. Please make sure that you identify an appropriate (focused) question or thesis at the beginning, which will then serve as the thread of your presentation. Follow a clear structure. A conclusion that makes reference to the question or thesis of the introduction will do no harm. You are free to use powerpoint, prezi etc. if you think that it will help the audience to follow your presentation. 3. Discussion of a presentation (15% of the final grade) Each student is expected to serve as discussant of at least one presentation of a classmate. This consists in asking one or several questions and to engage in a discussion with the presenter of no longer than 5 minutes before we open up the discussion to the class. 4. Final paper, due June 30 2017 (40% of the final grade). You can choose your topic for the final paper freely and according to your interests as long as it makes use of one or more themes regarding disaster touched upon in class, is original and goes beyond the class discussions. Please send a proposal for a topic to the instructor via e-mail by May 12. Papers should be between 15 and 20 pages long (Times New Roman 12, space 1.5, excluding title page and bibliography). Please keep in mind that the length of your paper does not necessarily correlate with your grade. Quality over quantity. Similar to the presentation, the paper should contain an introduction and conclusion and needs to be clearly structured and evolve around an original research question. Please use footnotes (no intext citations) and include a bibliography. The paper should fulfil all the requirements of a scientific publication. This means that evidence of academic misconduct such as plagiarism (including copying and pasting of text from the web) will result in non-validation of the course (you will receive a “Nicht beurteilt”). 3 Calendar All sessions take place in Seminar room SG3 Gender-Studies, Sensengasse 3, Bauteil 1. Monday, 20 March, 14h-18h Themes, concepts, periods, approaches Wednesday, 5 April, 15h-18h How natural are “natural” disasters? Wednesday, 26 April, 15h-18h Societies coping with disaster: solidarity, politics and inequality Wednesday, 3 May, 15h-18h Perspectives on culture, the nation, the state Wednesday, 17 May, 15h-18h Disaster science and prevention Friday, 12 May Submission of proposal for final paper Wednesday, 24 May, 15h-18h Disaster diplomacy Wednesday, 31 May, 15h-18h Towards an international governance of natural disaster? Friday, 30 June Submission of final paper 4 General useful monographs and edited volumes • Attina, Fulvio, ed. Politics and Policies of Relief, Aid and Reconstruction: Contrasting Approaches. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. • Bankoff, Greg, Georg Frerks, and Thea Hilhorst, eds. Mapping Vulnerability: Disasters, Development, and People. Sterling, VA: Earthscan Publications, 2004. • Hannigan, John. Disasters without Borders: The International Politics of Natural Disasters. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012. • Janku, Andrea, Gerrit J. Schenk, and Franz Mauelshagen, eds. Historical Disasters in Context: Science, Religion, and Politics. New York: Routledge, 2012. • Kelman, Ilan. Disaster Diplomacy. New York: Routledge, 2012. • Kozák, Jan, and Vladimír Čermák. The Illustrated History of Natural Disasters. Dordrecht ; London ; New York: Springer, 2010. • Lebovic, Nitzan, and Andreas Killen, eds. Catastrophes: A History and Theory of an Operative Concept. Oldenbourg: De Gruyter, 2014. • Revet, Sandrine, Julien Langumier. Governing Disasters: Beyond Risk Culture. New York: Palgrave Macmillan: 2015 (also available in French). • Solnit, Rebecca. A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disasters. New York: Viking, 2009. • Steinberg, Ted. Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. • Svensen, Henrik. The End Is Nigh: A History of Natural Disasters. London: Reaktion, 2009. • Walter, François. Katastrophen: eine Kulturgeschichte vom 16. bis ins 21. Jahrhundert. Stuttgart: Reclam, 2010 (also available in French). 5 • 20 March: ‐ Readings Themes, concepts, periods, approaches Bergman, Jonathan. ‘Disaster: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis’. History Compass 6, no. 3 (May 2008): 934–46. Perry, Ronald W. ‘What is a Disaster?’ In Handbook of Disaster Research, edited by Havid́ ́ án Rodríguez, E. L. Quarantelli, and Russell Rowe Dynes, 1–15. New York: Springer, 2007. Schenk, Gerrit Jasper. ‘Historical Disaster Research. State of Research, Concepts, Methods and Case Studies’. Historical Social Research 32, no. 3 (121) (2007): 9–31.  Topics for student presentations and other short assignments will be distributed during this session. • 5 April ‐ Readings How natural are “natural” disasters? Steinberg, Theodore. ‘What Is a Natural Disaster?’ Literature and Medicine 15, no. 1 (1996): 33–47. Bankoff, Greg. ‘Comparing Vulnerabilities: Toward Charting an Historical Trajectory of Disasters’. Historical Social Research 32, no. 3 (121) (2007): 103–14. Ben Wisner, Phil O’Keefe, and Ken Westgate, ‘Global Systems and Local Disasters: The Untapped Power of Peoples‘ Science’, Disasters 1, no. 1 (March 1977): 47–57. Phil O’Keefe, Ken Westgate, and Ben Wisner, ‘Taking the Naturalness out of Natural Disasters’, Nature 260, no. 5552 (15 April 1976): 566–67. Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, ‘The Lessons of Disasters. A Historical Critique of Postmodern Optimism’, Books and Ideas, 27 May 2011. ‐ Possible presentations - Religious interpretations of disaster - The Lisbon Earthquake 1755 - The 1938 Yellow River Floods 6 - The risk society concept of the 1980s • 26 April ‐ Readings Societies coping with disaster: solidarity, politics and inequality Quarantelli, E. L., and Russell Rowe Dynes. ‘Community Conflict: Its Absence and Its Presence in Natural Disasters’. Mass Emergencies 1 (1976): 139–52. Solnit, Rebecca. A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disasters. New York: Viking, 2009, pp. 1-58. Mark Alan Healey, ‘The Fragility of the Moment: Politics and Class in the Aftermath of the 1944 Argentine Earthquake’, International Labor and Working-Class History, no. 62 (2002): 50–59. Marian Moser Jones, ‘Race, Class and Gender Disparities in Clara Barton’s Late Nineteenth-Century Disaster Relief’, Environment and History 17, no. 1 (1 February 2011): 107–31. ‐ Possible presentations The Halifax disaster and Henry Prince Hurricane Kathrina Disability and disaster • 3 May ‐ Readings Perspectives on culture, the nation, the state Rozario, Kevin. ‘What Comes down Must Go Up. Why Disasters Have Been Good for American Capitalism’. In American Disasters, edited by Steven Biel, 72–102. New York: New York University Press, 2001. Dickie, John. ‘Timing, Memory and Disaster: Patriotic Narratives in the Aftermath of the Messina– Reggio Calabria Earthquake, 28 December 1908’. Modern Italy 11, no. 02 (June 2006): 147–66. Coen, Deborah R. ‘The Tongues of Seismology in Nineteenth-Century Switzerland’. Science in Context 25, no. 01 (2012): 73–102. 7 ‐ Possible presentations Earthquake and culture in Japan The role of the federal government of the United States in disaster relief The 1970 Bhola cyclone Society and natural disaster in the Philippines • 17 May ‐ Readings Disaster science and prevention Revet, Sandrine. ‘Conceptualizing and Confronting Disasters: A Panorama of Social Science Research and International Policies’. In Politics and Policies of Relief, Aid and Reconstruction: Contrasting Approaches., edited by Fulvio Attina, 42–56. Houndmills/New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Stehrenberger, Cécile Stephanie, and Svenja Goltermann. ‘Disaster Medicine: Genealogy of a Concept’. Social Science & Medicine 120 (November 2014): 317–24. Bankoff, Gregory. ‘Rendering the World Unsafe: “Vulnerability” as Western Discourse’. Disasters 25, no. 1 (1 March 2001): 19–35. Read, Róisín, Bertrand Taithe, and Roger Mac Ginty. ‘Data Hubris? Humanitarian Information Systems and the Mirage of Technology’. Third World Quarterly 37, no. 8 (29 February 2016): 1–18. ‐ Possible presentations Seismology during the Cold War La Red de Estudios Sociales en Prevención de Desastres en América Latina The Sendaï Conference and framework Geography and disaster • 24 May ‐ Readings Disaster diplomacy 8 Irwin, Julia F. ‘Raging Rivers and Propaganda Weevils: Transnational Disaster Relief, Cold War Politics, and the 1954 Danube and Elbe Floods’. Diplomatic History 40, no. 5 (11 January 2016): 893– 921. Ker-Lindsay, James. ‘Greek-Turkish Rapprochement: The Impact of Disaster Diplomacy’?’ Cambridge Review of International Affairs 14, no. 1 (September 2000): 215–32. Koukis, Theodore, Ilan Kelman, and N. Emel Ganapati. ‘Greece–Turkey Disaster Diplomacy from Disaster Risk Reduction’. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 17 (August 2016): 24–32. Hutchinson, John F. ‘Disasters and the International Order: Earthquakes, Humanitarians, and the Ciraolo Project’. The International History Review 22, no. 1 (2000): 1–36. ‐ Possible presentations The American Red Cross’ international humanitarian role International aid after the 2004 Tsunami Bilateral agreements in the field of disaster management • 31 May ‐ Readings Towards an international governance of natural disaster? Hutchinson, John F. ‘Disasters and the International Order - II: The International Relief Union’. The International History Review 23, no. 2 (2001): 253–98. Kent, R C. ‘Reflecting upon a Decade of Disasters: The Evolving Response of the International Community’. International Affairs 59, no. 4 (1983): 693–711. Hannigan, John. Disasters without Borders: The International Politics of Natural Disasters. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012, pp. 18-41. Alexander, David. ‘Globalization of Disaster: Trends, Problems and Dilemmas’. Journal of International Affairs 59, no. 2 (Spring/Summer 2006): 1–22. ‐ Possible presentations Disaster relief: what place for international law? Humanitarian coordination at the UN since the end of the Cold War