Teach-in on Katrina today at Duke

By Chris Kromm / January 16, 2006

For those of you in central North Carolina, I'll be speaking at a "teach-in" at Duke University about the politics of Hurricane Katrina today.

"Understanding Katrina: A Teach-in on the Politics of Disaster and the Geographies of Suffering" will be held at the Bryan Center on West Campus, in the Von Cannon room. Here's a map, come visit us if you can!

It looks like a good program; check it out below the fold.


Understanding Katrina
A Teach-in on the Politics of Disaster and the Geographies of Suffering

Bryan Center
Von Canon A

January 16, 2006

At once a conversation and a teach-in, this program aims to involve students, faculty, staff, and community members in a discussion of the troubling events surrounding Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. We hope especially to focus on how we might begin to understand the larger social and political conditions that exacerbated the hurricane's effects. Beginning with the topic of "Destruction," we will talk about the culture and condition of New Orleans before the hurricane hit. We will discuss how recent public policies have put certain populations "in harm's way" and we will critically examine media constructions of the event as a "natural disaster." Then, as part of a discussion of "Relief," we will talk about the increasing militarism of the social order and the way this structured and limited relief efforts. We will also discuss volunteerism, charity, and community service, environmental racism, and the politics and geographies of displacement. Finally, in "Reconstruction," we will examine what has been called "disaster capitalism," and discuss competing and politically opposed efforts to redevelop the city of New Orleans.


11:30 Welcome and Opening Remarks, Jan Radway, Literature

I. DESTRUCTION 11:30am - 01:00pm

11:35 - 12:00 Professor Danille Taylor, Dean of the Humanities, Dillard University
12:00 - 12:15 Carter Mathes, Instructor, Writing Program
12:15 - 12: 35 Professor Ken Surin, Literature
12:35 - 12: 50 Screening of Media Highlights
12:50 - 1:00 Discussion

LUNCH 1:00 - 1:30pm

II. RELIEF 1:30 - 3:00pm

1:30 - 1:45 Professor Charles Thompson, Center for Documentary Studies (includes media presentation co-authored by Tennessee Watson)
1:45 - 2:00 Professor Maurice Wallace, African and African American Studies and English and Brandon Hudson, Trinity, '06
2:00 - 2:15 Brian Flores, Trinity, 06 and Michelle Shrader, graduate student, Divinity School
2:15 - 2:30 Professor Wahneema Lubiano, African and African American Studies and Literature
2:30 - 3:00 Discussion

III. RECONSTRUCTION 3:15 - 4:45pm

3:15 - 3:45 Steve Sherman, journalist and activist, "Katrina and the Reconstruction of the American Left"
3:45 - 4:15 Ray Erquhart, Pam Broom, "Stories from Survivors"
4:15 - 4:45 Chris Kromm, Executive Director, Institute of Southern Studies, publisher of Southern Exposure

 

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