In Toxic Matters, Monica Seger considers two Italian environmental disasters: an isolated factory explosion in Seveso, just north of Milan, in 1976 and the ongoing daily toxic emissions from the Ilva steelworks in the Apulian city of Taranto. Both have exposed residents to high concentrations of the persistent organic pollutant known as dioxin. Although different in terms of geography and temporality, Seveso and Taranto are deeply united by this nearly imperceptible substance, and by the representational complexities it poses. They are also united by creative narrative expressions, in literary, cinematic, and other forms, that push back against dominant contexts and representations perpetuated by state and industrial actors.Seger traces a dialogue between Seveso and Taranto, exploring an interplay between bodies, soil, industrial emissions, and the wealth of dynamic particulate matter that passes in between. At the same time, she emphasizes the crucial function of narrative expression for making sense of this modern-day reality and for shifting existing power dynamics as exposed communities exercise their voices. While Toxic Matters, is grounded in Italian cases and texts, it looks outward to the pressing questions of toxicity, embodiment, and storytelling faced by communities worldwide.

Surgical care is increasingly recognized as a critical component of global health, and strong surgical skills, teamwork, and poise under pressure become even more imperative during conflict or disaster. When faced with hospital bombings or devastating earthquakes, healthcare personnel must develop special techniques and abilities to ably care for patients despite limited resources and a disrupted health system. In Operation Crisis, Dr. Adam L. Kushner brings together 22 medical experts from around the world to recount their experiences in the field when disaster struck. These candid firsthand accounts from both local and international aid surgeons provide clinicians and public health practitioners with insightful lessons for effectively treating surgical patients under the most grueling of circumstances. Moving from conflict settings that include war zones in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Syria, and South Sudan, Operation Crisis also touches on post-earthquake Haiti and Nepal and post-tsunami Indonesia. Individual themed chapters cover mass casualty training, burn care, obstetric care, sexual violence, and landmine injuries. Combining personal stories with lessons learned and possible interventions, these vivid and affecting essays detail the immediate aftermath of conflict and disaster while pointing the way to improving care for future victims of crisis. Intended to spark further discussion and function as an advocacy tool while highlighting situations where surgical care can save lives and reduce disability, this book is a valuable resource for medical professionals, students, policy makers, international aid organizations, and philanthropic donors. Contributors: Kapendra Shekhar Amatya, Samer Attar, Jeffrey A. Bailey, Lucas C. Carlson, James C. Cobey, Dattesh R. Dave, Dan L. Deckelbaum, Richard A. Gosselin, Shailvi Gupta, Edna Adan Ismail, Thaim B. Kamara, T. Peter Kingham, Adam L. Kushner, Judy M. Lee, Maria "Tane" Pilar Luna, Brijesh Mishra, Kyle N. Remick, Lauri J. Romanzi, Michael Sinclair, Barclay T. Stewart, Marten van Wijhe, Evan G. Wong

Sociology has developed theories of social change in the fields of evolution, conflict and modernization, viewing modern society as essentially unstable and conflict driven. However, it has not seriously studied catastrophe. A Theory of Catastrophe develops a sociology of catastrophes, comparing natural, social and political causes and consequences, and the social theories that might offer explanations. A catastrophe is a general and systematic breakdown of social and political institutions resulting, among other things, in what we could call a catastrophe consciousness. The Greek ‘cata-strophe’ formed the conclusion to a dramatic sequence of strophes. The cata-strophe was the final act of a drama, namely its denouement. Catastrophic denouements are without hope: genocides, military occupations, plagues, famines and earthquakes. A Theory of Catastrophe analyzes Pompeii, the Black Death, colonial genocide in North America, WWI and the Spanish Flu, and Nazi Germany and finally this century: terrorism, new wars, climate change and pandemics. As a study of sociological theory, Bryan Turner discusses Spengler’s Decline of the West, Marxism as a theory of catastrophic capitalism, messianic movements, Weber on modernity, and risk society. He concludes by comparing optimism and pessimism, and the idea of inter-generational justice.

This book gathers and disseminates opinions, viewpoints, studies, forecasts, and practical projects which illustrate the various pathways sustainability research and practice may follow in the future, as the world recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic and prepares itself to the possibilities of having to cope with similar crisis, a product of the Inter-University Sustainable Development Research Programme (IUSDRP) https://www.haw-hamburg.de/en/ftz-nk/programmes/iusdrp.html and the European School of Sustainability Science and Research (ESSSR) https://esssr.eu/. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to severe human suffering, and to substantial damages to economies around the globe, affecting both rich countries and developing ones. The aftermath of the epidemic is also expected to be felt for sometime. This will also include a wide range of impacts in the ways sustainable development is perceived, and how the principles of sustainability are practised. There is now a pressing need to generate new literature on the connections between COVID-19 and sustainability. This is so for two main reasons. Firstly, the world crisis triggered by COVID-19 has severely damaged the world economy, worsening poverty, causing hardships, and endangering livelihoods. Together, these impacts may negatively influence the implementation of sustainable development as a whole, and of the UN Sustainable Development Goals in particular. These potential and expected impacts need to be better understood and quantified, hence providing a support basis for future recovery efforts. Secondly, the shutdown caused by COVID-19 has also been having a severe impact on teaching and research, especially -but not only - on matters related to sustainability. This may also open new opportunities (e.g. less travel, more Internet-based learning), which should be explored further, especially in the case of future pandemics, a scenario which cannot be excluded. The book meets these perceived needs.

The COVID-19 pandemic has spread across the world and left turmoil in every facet of society in its wake. As in-person activities came to an end for public safety, businesses closed, classrooms scrambled to transition online, and society was forever changed. As the pandemic comes to a close, it is essential that researchers take this opportunity to study the changes that have occurred so that society may revive what has been lost and promote resilience should another crisis arise. Societal Transformations and Resilience in Times of Crisis focuses on the revival of societal institutions after events such as natural disasters, pandemics, political turmoil, and global crises, and looks toward building more resilient structures. It contributes novel approaches and provides implications for countries to improve the social system through novel approaches. Covering topics such as employee psychological distress, democracy, and higher education institutions, this premier reference source is a dynamic resource for government officials, community leaders, non-governmental organizations, students and faculty of higher education, sociologists, business executives and managers, human resource managers, researchers, and academicians.

The challenge of life and literary narrative is the central and perennial mystery of how people encounter, manage, and inhabit a self and a world of their own - and others' - creations. With a nod to the eminent scholar and psychologist Jerome Bruner, Life and Narrative: The Risks and Responsibilities of Storying Experience explores the circulation of meaning between experience and the recounting of that experience to others. A variety of arguments center around the kind of relationship life and narrative share with one another. In this volume, rather than choosing to argue that this relationship is either continuous or discontinuous, editors Brian Schiff, A. Elizabeth McKim, and Sylvie Patron and their contributing authors reject the simple binary and masterfully incorporate a more nuanced approach that has more descriptive appeal and theoretical traction for readers. Exploring such diverse and fascinating topics as 'Narrative and the Law,' 'Narrative Fiction, the Short Story, and Life,' 'The Body as Biography,' and 'The Politics of Memory,' Life and Narrative features important research and perspectives from both up-and-coming researchers and prominent scholars in the field - many of which who are widely acknowledged for moving the needle forward on the study of narrative in their respective disciplines and beyond.

A Palestinian activist jailed at sixteen after a confrontation with Israeli soldiers illuminates the daily struggles of life under occupation in this moving, deeply personal memoir.

“What would you do if you grew up seeing your home repeatedly raided? Your parents arrested? Your mother shot? Your uncle killed? Try, for just a moment, to imagine that this was your life. How would you want the world to react?”

Ahed Tamimi is a world-renowned Palestinian activist, born and raised in the small West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, which became a center of the resistance to Israeli occupation when an illegal, Jewish-only settlement blocked off its community spring. Tamimi came of age participating in nonviolent demonstrations against this action and the occupation at large. Her global renown reached an apex in December 2017, when, at sixteen years old, she was filmed slapping an Israeli soldier who refused to leave her front yard. The video went viral, and Tamimi was arrested.

But this is not just a story of activism or imprisonment. It is the human-scale story of an occupation that has riveted the world and shaped global politics, from a girl who grew up in the middle of it . Tamimi’s father was born in 1967, the year that Israel began its occupation of the West Bank and he grew up immersed in the resistance movement. One of Tamimi’s earliest memories is visiting him in prison, poking her toddler fingers through the fence to touch his hand. She herself would spend her seventeenth birthday behind bars. Living through this greatest test and heightened attacks on her village, Tamimi felt her resolve only deepen, in tension with her attempts to live the normal life of a daughter, sibling, friend, and student.

An essential addition to an important conversation, They Called Me a Lioness shows us what is at stake in this struggle and offers a fresh vision for resistance. With their unflinching, riveting storytelling, Ahed Tamimi and Dena Takruri shine a light on the humanity not just in occupied Palestine but also in the unsung lives of people struggling for freedom around the world.

The collapse of the World Trade Center shattered windows across the street in Battery Park City, throwing the neighborhood into darkness and smothering homes in debris. Residents fled. In the months and years after they returned, they worked to restore their community. Until September 11, Battery Park City had been a secluded, wealthy enclave just west Wall Street, one with all the opulence of the surrounding corporate headquarters yet with a gated, suburban feel. After the towers fell it became the most visible neighborhood in New York. This ethnography of an elite planned community near the heart of New York City's financial district examines both the struggles and shortcomings of one of the city's wealthiest neighborhoods. In doing so, September 12 discovers the vibrant exclusivity that makes Battery Park City an unmatched place to live for the few who can gain entry. Focusing on both the global forces that shape local landscapes and the exclusion that segregates American urban development, Smithsimon shows the tensions at work as the neighborhood's residents mobilized to influence reconstruction plans. September 12 reveals previously unseen conflicts over the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan, providing a new understanding of the ongoing, reciprocal relationship between social conflicts and the spaces they both inhabit and create.

As "natural" disasters increase in frequency and scale, the cost of humanitarian assistance elbows development budgets aside. Catastrophes force aid agencies to look for immediate relief for the victims of apparently no-fault natural disasters. But how far is it possible to view such disasters as natural? This text argues that we allow ourselves to ignore the political dimensions of humanitarian aid and disaster relief, which operate as part of a far wider global battle for resources and markets. It highlights the links between disaster, aid, development and relief, placing case studies in the context of the globalization of the economy, the "free" market ideology of the industrialized nations, the rapacity of financial short-termism and the rise of new forms of colonialism.;The book examines seven recent and, in some cases, continuing major disasters, and analyzes the political agendas that can be said to be common to all these disasters. It then puts forward a political framework for humanitarian aid, reviewing the possible consequences, the political issues to be addressed and possible ways forward.