SOC 380 Sociology of Disaster

This course examines disaster as a social phenomenon and broader trends in managing calculating and responding to a variety of threats and catastrophes. We will focus on the history of disaster response and policy in the U.S. theories of reflexive modernity risk and trauma and cultural responses to calamity in California and in the U.S.more broadly. Case studies include Hurricane Katrina the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill Fukushima and outbreaks of whooping cough and Ebola.