[Sci-tech-public] Brown Bag Lunch Talk:

[Debbie Meinbresse]

How Can Academics Respond to Katrina?
A Brown Bag Lunch Discussion of Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of
Disaster in Chicago by  Eric Klinenberg (U. Chicago Press, 2002) led by
Mike Fischer, Hugh Gusterson, and David Jones.

DATE:   October 3, 2005
TIME:           12:00 - 1:30
LOCATION:       E51-095

Natural disasters and their consequences raise many questions that
need (or at least would benefit from) STS perspectives.  As we all
struggle to figure out how to respond to Katrina, Hugh, Mike, and I
thought it might be useful to get together to discuss an excellent
book that provides a possible model for analysis.  In 1995 a heat
wave struck Chicago, leaving roughly 700 people dead.  The patterns
of mortality bear striking similarities to New Orleans: largely
black, marginalized, elderly, in poor neighborhoods, often public
housing, with no one to turn to for help; their plight was the
outcome of decades of misguided urban policy and urban mismanagement,
etc.  Sociologist Eric Klinenberg published an analysis, a "social
autopsy" of this "natural" disaster: _Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of
Disaster in Chicago_ (U. Chicago Press, 2002).

We will get together to discuss this book in a brown bag lunch,
Wednesday, October 5, 12-1:30, room E51-095.

The book was extensively and controversially reviewed.  For one
interesting set (available via Proquest), see the reviews in
_Contemporary Sociology_, March 2004, pp. 137-156, and his angry
response in the September issue, pp. 521-528.

For anyone interested who can't get their hands on a book, or don't
have time to read the whole thing, see Klinenberg, "Denaturalizing
Disaster: A Social Autopsy of the 1995 Chicago Heat Wave," _Theory
and Society_ 28 (April 1999): 239-295, available via MIT e-resources.

And for people REALLY interested, he was interviewed on All Things
Considered on 14 August 2003, and on Fresh Air (but not by Terry
Gross) on 15 August 2002.

Hope to see you there!  Feel free to bring your lunch; we'll provide coffee 
and dessert.

David Jones


Debbie Meinbresse
STS Program, MIT
617-452-2390 
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