C2 Editorial work for a scientific compilation book
Catastrophe, Gender and Urban Experience, 1648–1920
Authors: Simonton Deborah, Salmi Hannu
Publishing place: New York
Publication year: 2017
ISBN: 978-1-138-69697-6
Web address : https://www.routledge.com/Catastrophe-Gender-and-Urban-Experience-16481920/Simonton-Salmi/p/book/9781138696976
As Enlightenment notions of predictability, progress and the sense that
humans could control and shape their environments informed European
thought, catastrophes shook many towns to the core, challenging the new
world view with dramatic impact. This book concentrates on a
period marked by passage from a society of scarcity to one of
expenditure and accumulation, from ranks and orders to greater social
mobility, from traditional village life to new bourgeois and even
individualistic urbanism. The volume employs a broad definition of
catastrophe, as it examines how urban communities conceived, adapted to,
and were transformed by catastrophes, both natural and human-made.
Competing views of gender figure in the telling and retelling of these
analyses: women as scapegoats, as vulnerable, as victims, even as
cannibals or conversely as defenders, organizers of assistance,
inspirers of men; and men in varied guises as protectors, governors and
police, heroes, leaders, negotiators and honorable men. Gender is also
deployed linguistically to feminize activities or even countries.
Inevitably, however, these tragedies are mediated by myth and memory.
They are not neutral events whose retelling is a simple narrative.
Through a varied array of urban catastrophes, this book is a nuanced
account that physically and metaphorically maps men and women into the
urban landscape and the worlds of catastrophe.