Consuming Catastrophe

by Timothy Recuber

In Consuming Catastrophe, Timothy Recuber presents a unique and provocative look at how these four very different disasters took a similar path through public consciousness.

Consuming Catastrophe

Author: Timothy Recuber

Publisher: Temple University Press

ISBN: 1439913706

Page: 214

View: 270

Horrified, saddened, and angered: That was the American people’s reaction to the 9/11 attacks, Hurricane Katrina, the Virginia Tech shootings, and the 2008 financial crisis. In Consuming Catastrophe, Timothy Recuber presents a unique and provocative look at how these four very different disasters took a similar path through public consciousness. He explores the myriad ways we engage with and negotiate our feelings about disasters and tragedies—from omnipresent media broadcasts to relief fund efforts and promises to “Never Forget.” Recuber explains how a specific and “real” kind of emotional connection to the victims becomes a crucial element in the creation, use, and consumption of mass mediation of disasters. He links this to the concept of “empathetic hedonism,” or the desire to understand or feel the suffering of others. The ineffability of disasters makes them a spectacular and emotional force in contemporary American culture. Consuming Catastrophe provides a lively analysis of the themes and meanings of tragedy and the emotions it engenders in the representation, mediation and consumption of disasters.

Empire of Ruins

by Miles Orvell

Proust, Françoise. L'Histoire a contretemps: Le temps historique chez Walter
Benjamin. Paris: Livre de Poche, 1999. Recuber, Timothy. Consuming
Catastrophe: Mass Culture in America's Decade of Disaster. Temple University
Press, 2016.

Empire of Ruins

Author: Miles Orvell

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

ISBN: 0190491604

Page: 280

View: 512

Once symbols of the past, ruins have become ubiquitous signs of our future. Americans today encounter ruins in the media on a daily basis--images of abandoned factories and malls, toxic landscapes, devastating fires, hurricanes, and floods. In this sweeping study, Miles Orvell offers a new understanding of the spectacle of ruins in US culture, exploring how photographers, writers, painters, and filmmakers have responded to ruin and destruction, both real and imaginary, in an effort to make sense of the past and envision the future. Empire of Ruins explains why Americans in the nineteenth century yearned for the ruins of Rome and Egypt and how they portrayed a past as ancient and mysterious in the remains of Native American cultures. As the romance of ruins gave way to twentieth-century capitalism, older structures were demolished to make way for grander ones, a process interpreted by artists as a symptom of America's "creative destruction." In the late twentieth century, Americans began to inhabit a perpetual state of ruins, made visible by photographs of decaying inner cities, derelict factories and malls, and the waste lands of the mining industry. This interdisciplinary work focuses on how visual media have transformed disaster and decay into spectacles that compel our moral attention even as they balance horror and beauty. Looking to the future, Orvell considers the visual portrayal of climate ruins as we face the political and ethical responsibilities of our changing world. A wide-ranging work by an acclaimed urban, cultural, and photography scholar, Empire of Ruins offers a provocative and lavishly illustrated look at the American past, present, and future.

Prophetic Studies or Lectures on the Book of Daniel

by John CUMMING (D.D., Minister of the Scottish National Church, Crown Court.)

... he should precipitate on himself only a more terrible and consuming
catastrophe . But Babylon has passed away ; and modern Babylon will pass
away too . Where , however , are we ? and what sball we do when the crash and
desolation of ...

Prophetic Studies or Lectures on the Book of Daniel

Author: John CUMMING (D.D., Minister of the Scottish National Church, Crown Court.)

Publisher:

ISBN:

Page: 491

View: 283

A Catastrophe in Bohemia

by Henry S. Brooks

Thus his rooms became in sort a museum illustrative of his studies , in
chronological order , and bearing witness to the intensity of the craze while it
possessed him . A year or so generally sufficed to consume the fervor of his
inspiration in any ...

A Catastrophe in Bohemia

Author: Henry S. Brooks

Publisher:

ISBN:

Page: 372

View: 515

The Culture of Calamity

by Kevin Rozario

Disaster and the Making of Modern America Kevin Rozario ... Many turn-of-the-
century Americans assuaged a profane rage for destruction by consuming
disasters so as to achieve a sense of liberation, a sense of having felt something
real, ...

The Culture of Calamity

Author: Kevin Rozario

Publisher:

ISBN: 0226725707

Page: 313

View: 850

Turn on the news and it looks as if we live in a time and place unusually consumed by the specter of disaster. The events of 9/11 and the promise of future attacks, Hurricane Katrina and the destruction of New Orleans, and the inevitable consequences of environmental devastation all contribute to an atmosphere of imminent doom. But reading an account of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, with its vivid evocation of buildings “crumbling as one might crush a biscuit,” we see that calamities—whether natural or man-made—have long had an impact on the American consciousness. Uncovering the history of Americans’ responses to disaster from their colonial past up to the present, Kevin Rozario reveals the vital role that calamity—and our abiding fascination with it—has played in the development of this nation. Beginning with the Puritan view of disaster as God’s instrument of correction, Rozario explores how catastrophic events frequently inspired positive reactions. He argues that they have shaped American life by providing an opportunity to take stock of our values and social institutions. Destruction leads naturally to rebuilding, and here we learn that disasters have been a boon to capitalism, and, paradoxically, indispensable to the construction of dominant American ideas of progress. As Rozario turns to the present, he finds that the impulse to respond creatively to disasters is mitigated by a mania for security. Terror alerts and duct tape represent the cynical politician’s attitude about 9/11, but Rozario focuses on how the attacks registered in the popular imagination—how responses to genuine calamity were mediated by the hyperreal thrills of movies; how apocalyptic literature, like the best-selling Left Behind series, recycles Puritan religious outlooks while adopting Hollywood’s sty≤ and how the convergence of these two ways of imagining disaster points to a new postmodern culture of calamity. The Culture of Calamity will stand as the definitive diagnosis of the peculiarly American addiction to the spectacle of destruction.

The Coming Catastrophe Being a Prediction by Prof C A Grimmer astrologer of the Terrible Misfortunes Woes and Miseries Threatened to Mankind by the Malific Conjuctions Now Ruling the Heavens

by C. A. Grimmer

If these conjectures are based upon truth our sun , from certain causes and
influences , may be consuming itself just like one of those lost suns . And if it did
become cold we would freeze in an instant . We are but insignificant in the
wonderful ...

The Coming Catastrophe Being a Prediction by Prof C A Grimmer astrologer of the Terrible Misfortunes Woes and Miseries Threatened to Mankind by the Malific Conjuctions Now Ruling the Heavens

Author: C. A. Grimmer

Publisher:

ISBN:

Page: 96

View: 746

Sironi

by Mario Sironi

... never tried to deceive himself , nor did he despise or change his mind about
his work . The tones of his paintings started to become harsher and gloomier ; his
works hinted at a cosmic pessimism or at a sort of final , consuming catastrophe .

Sironi

Author: Mario Sironi

Publisher: Editoriale Giorgio Mondadori

ISBN:

Page: 335

View: 880

The Earthscan Reader in Sustainable Consumption

by Tim Jackson

From this limited , asocial , non - ethical interpretation of consumption , all
consumption patterns and consequences are natural ... But eventually the
collective outcome from over - consuming is catastrophe for the population or the
species .

The Earthscan Reader in Sustainable Consumption

Author: Tim Jackson

Publisher: Routledge

ISBN:

Page: 402

View: 828

Providing a coherent synthesis of key contributions to the literature on consumption and sustainability, this work comprises a substantive collection of selected papers and extracts from books, journals and institutional publications.

Jeremiah 26 52

by Gerald Lynwood Keown

The oracle describes an imminent , all - consuming catastrophe with the most
frightful results : the wailing of the stricken ... In its present form , the poem
employs four images for the source of the disaster , the first three of which have
been met ...

Jeremiah 26 52

Author: Gerald Lynwood Keown

Publisher:

ISBN:

Page: 402

View: 212

Amazing Stories

by

... thing in the way of deeds , or even mere that was destined to end in such an all
unconventional utterances anywhere consuming catastrophe for the whole within
the realm of the institution under carth . The scientific genius which should his ...

Amazing Stories

Author:

Publisher:

ISBN:

Page:

View: 542

Time Travel

by Nikk Effingham

And if we did this then we'd avoid whatever catastrophe would otherwise be
expected to befall us, for if we believed mankind would intentionally ... They don't
get the money for consuming the toxin; they get it for merely promising to do so.

Time Travel

Author: Nikk Effingham

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

ISBN: 0198842503

Page: 272

View: 573

There are various arguments for the metaphysical impossibility of time travel. Is it impossible because objects could then be in two places at once? Or is it impossible because some objects could bring about their own existence? In this book, Nikk Effingham contends that no such argument is sound and that time travel is metaphysically possible. His main focus is on the Grandfather Paradox: the position that time travel is impossible because someone could not go back in time and kill their own grandfather before he met their grandmother. In such a case, Effingham argues that the time traveller would have the ability to do the impossible (so they could kill their grandfather) even though those impossibilities will never come about (so they won't kill their grandfather). He then explores the ramifications of this view, discussing issues in probability and decision theory. The book ends by laying out the dangers of time travel and why, even though no time machines currently exist, we should pay extra special care ensuring that nothing, no matter how small or microscopic, ever travels in time.

Northland

by

It becomes a thousand times more logical when the ignoble things in our lives
have led to all - consuming catastrophe of war . This year the motivating power to
inspire us is the tragedy of liar . War teaches lessons that no language can put
into ...

Northland

Author:

Publisher:

ISBN:

Page:

View: 918

The Odyssey of a U boat Commander

by Erich Topp

We also did not know that to die for a country or a principle became a senseless
act of heroism if country , principle , and all good patriots went down in an all -
consuming catastrophe . How did we see the entry into the war ? On January 26
 ...

The Odyssey of a U boat Commander

Author: Erich Topp

Publisher: Praeger Pub Text

ISBN:

Page: 242

View: 328

Admiral Topp's memoirs reflect the faith, hopes, errors, and transformations in a man's life, indeed those of a whole generation whose understanding of history and ideology were held captive by the myth of power. The terrible annihilation in World War II and, even more so, the unimaginable destructive potential of nuclear weapons, have resulted in a change in the use of power. The author's diaries and journals, along with their contemporary interpretation, illustrate the political dimension of this change. Topp wrote this book to illuminate a segment of twentieth century history which can only be portrayed truthfully by those who themselves have lived and suffered through it. Topp also describes freely the era of the Third Reich. Even today, after long years of occupying positions of leadership, the author feels the burden of historical responsibility. In this sense his book is a statement about the ambivalence of human existence. It provides answers to the question of why a whole generation of Germans followed the mesmerizing siren song of a totalitarian regime, an experience which still looms like a shadow over the living.

Rebecca West

by Bernard Schweizer

Furthermore , West was intrigued by the inherent pessimism of the
Mesoamerican calendar , which forecasts the possibility of a world - consuming
catastrophe every fifty - two years . According to Aztec cosmology , the earth had
already been ...

Rebecca West

Author: Bernard Schweizer

Publisher: Praeger

ISBN:

Page: 160

View: 399

Rebecca West (1892-1983) was a prominent English critic, journalist, and novelist. She contributed to feminist and socialist magazines, had a lengthy relationship with H. G. Wells, and was named Dame of the British Empire in 1959. Her literary reputation declined after 1970 and was revived in the mid-1980s, with the posthumous publication of three novels and a memoir, as wells as the reissue of several earlier works. With the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon catapulted her into the limelight and brought her wide critical attention. This book offers a much-needed assessment of her literary career. Schweizer's volume analyzes West's spiritual and philosophical ideas, asserting that her novels and travel writings betray an epic impulse and therefore reinvent epic heroism in feminist terms. The first part of this study examines her fiction, including, The Judge and the trilogy of novels about the Aubrey family. Philosophical and conceptual elements in her fictional and nonfictional prose are explored, relating her ideas to other thinkers. The volume closes with a look at West's reworking of epic conventions in her travel writings, including her unfinished Survivors in Mexico.

Firestorm

by Paul Addison

... discussion used by those protagonists . In his close , agonisingly detailed
account of the lived experience of the bombing raids from the perspective of the
victims , David Irving , for instance , depicts an absolute , all - consuming
catastrophe ...

Firestorm

Author: Paul Addison

Publisher: Ivan R Dee

ISBN:

Page: 260

View: 594

Firestorm assembles a cast of distinguished scholars to review the origins, conduct, and consequences of the World War II U.S. and British raids on Dresden. Here is a panoramic reassessment of the evidence and the issues, including the question of whether the bombing of the city constitutes a war crime. Firestorm cogently demonstrates the reasons why Dresden has come to symbolize the military and ethical questions involved in the waging of total war.

Roomanitarian

by Henry Rollins

I feel like I ' ve somehow been able to limp away from some massive all
consuming catastrophe that killed all the good ones . Left me here to measure my
weakness against the strength of their absence . Dead people in my past . So
many .

Roomanitarian

Author: Henry Rollins

Publisher: 2 13 61

ISBN:

Page: 174

View: 836

Popular author, actor, musician, and spoken-word artist Henry Rollins returns to the combative prose that has won him critical acclaim and a legion of devoted fans. The book is divided into three parts: poem, short prose pieces, and a series of mock love letters to a fictional woman who bears a striking resemblance to conservative pundit Ann Coulter.

Liguorian

by

The opening of a new year is the logical time for resolutions to change what has
been ignoble and base in our lives ; it becomes a thousand times more logical
when the ignoble things in our lives have led to the all - consuming catastrophe
of ...

Liguorian

Author:

Publisher:

ISBN:

Page:

View: 129