The "Katrina Effect" On the Nature of Catastrophe

On August 29th 2005, the headwaters of Hurricane Katrina's storm-surge arrived at New Orleans, the levees broke and the city was inundated. Perhaps no other disaster of the 21st century has so captured the global media's attention and featured in the 'imagination of disaster' like Katrina. The Katrina Effect charts the important ethical territory that underscores thinking about disaster and the built environment globally. Given the unfolding of recent events, disasters are acquiring original and complex meanings. This is partly because of the global expansion and technological interaction of urban societies in which the multiple and varied impacts of disasters are recognized.

These meanings pose significant new problems for civil society: what becomes of public accountability, egalitarianism and other democratic ideals in the face of catastrophe? This collection of critical essays assesses the storm's global impact on overlapping urban, social and political imaginaries. Given the coincidence and 'perfect storm' of environmental, geo-political and economic challenges facing liberal democratic societies, communities will come under increasing strain to preserve and restore social fabric while affording all citizens equal opportunity in determining the forms that future cities and communities will take. Today, 21st century economic neo-liberalism, global warming or recent theories of 'urban vulnerability' and resilience provide key new contexts for understanding the meaning and legacy of Katrina.

Michael Levine is Winthrop Professor of Philosophy at the University of Western Australia, Australia.

William M. Taylor is Winthrop Professor of Architecture at the University of Western Australia, Australia.

Oenone Rooksby is a Research Associate at the University of Western Australia and a Graduate Architect at Officer Woods Architects, Australia.

Joely-Kym Sobott is a Research Associate at the University of Western Australia, and teaches in the field of Architectural History and Theory.

Introduction - William B.Taylor (Professor of Architecture, University of Western Australia) / Michael Levine (Professor of Philosophy, University of Western Australia)

Reckoning: Disaster and Justice
Naomi Zack (Professor of Philosophy, University of Oregon, USA) - The Effect of Katrina on Ideas About Justice
Anna Hartnell (Lecturer in Contemporary Literature, Birkbeck, University of London, UK. Regular Columnist for The Guardian Newspaper)- New Orleans, 2005 and Port au Prince, 2010: Some Reflections on Transamerican Disaster in the Twenty-first Century

Composing Katrina
John Hannigan (Professor of Sociology, University of Toronto, Canada. Author of 'Disasters Without Borders') - 'It's the end of the city (as we know it)': Katrina as Metaphor and Template for the 'Urban Apocalypse'
Richard Campanella (Professor, Tulane School of Architecture, USA) - A Katrina Lexicon
James O'Byrne (Journalist & Director of Content, New Orleans Media Group)- Portraits of Disaster: Images and Meaning from the Front Lines of Hurricane Katrina
James Johnson (Professor of Political Science, University of Rochester, USA) - tbc

Dissembling: Sociology, Philosophy and Ecology
James Rhodes (Lecturer in Sociology, University of Manchester, UK)- Extending the 'Urban Disaster' Paradigm: From New Orleans to Detroit (and Beyond?)
Michael Levine (Professor of Philosophy, University of Western Australia) - Morbid Curiosity: Catastrophe, Katrina and the Aesthetics of Disaster
Ted Steinberg (Adeline Barry Davee Distinguished Professor of History, Case Western Reserve University, USA. Author of 'Gotham Unbound' Simon & Schuster) - The World-Historical Importance of Hurricane Katrina

Tabula rasa, Urbanism and Architecture
Christine Boyer (William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Architecture and Urbanism, Princeton University School of Architecture, USA) - Learning from New Orleans: Equity and Justice in the Wake of Katrina
William M. Taylor (Professor of Architecture, University of Western Australia) - Building on or Obliterating the Past? The Reappearance of Architectural Historicism and Historical Building Types in Disaster Reconstruction
Jeffry Diefendorf (Distinguished Professor of History, University of New Hampshire, USA) - Historic Urban Catastrophes

Forgetfulness: Memory and Commemoration
Craig Colten Carl O. Sauer Professor of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, USA) - Historic City with a Poor Memory
David Simpson (Fifth Third Bank Professor in Community Development, University of Louisville, USA) - Natural and Man-Made: Memorializing Complex Causes

Bibliography
Index