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Hurricane Katrina blasted the Gulf Coast in 2005, leaving an
unparalleled trail of physical destruction. In addition to that
damage, the storm wrought massive psychological and cultural trauma
on Gulf Coast residents and on America as a whole. Details of the
devastation were quickly reported-and misreported-by media outlets,
and a slew of articles and books followed, offering a spectrum of
socio-political commentaries and analyses. But beyond the reportage
and the commentary, a series of fictional and creative accounts of
the Katrina-experience have emerged in various mediums: novels,
plays, films, television shows, songs, graphic novels, collections
of photographs, and works of creative non-fiction that blur the
lines between reportage, memoir, and poetry. The creative
outpouring brings to mind Salman Rushdie's observation that, "Man
is the storytelling animal, the only creature on earth that tells
itself stories to understand what kind of creature it is." This
book accepts the urge behind Rushdie's formula: humans tell stories
in order to understand ourselves, our world, and our place in it.
Indeed, the creative output on Katrina represents efforts to
construct a cohesive narrative out of the wreckage of a cataclysmic
event. However, this book goes further than merely cataloguing the
ways that Katrina narratives support Rushdie's rich claim. This
collection represents a concentrated attempt to chart the effects
of Katrina on our cultural identity; it seeks to not merely
catalogue the trauma of the event but to explore the ways that such
an event functions in and on the literature that represents it. The
body of work that sprung out of Katrina offers a unique critical
opportunity to better understand the genres that structure our
stories and the ways stories reflect and produce culture and
identity. These essays raise new questions about the representative
genres themselves. The stories are efforts to represent and
understand the human condition, but so are the organizing
principles that communicate the stories. That is,
Katrina-narratives present an opportunity to interrogate the ways
that specific narrative structures inform our understanding and
develop our cultural identity. This book offers a critical
processing of the newly emerging and diverse canon of Katrina
texts.
Hurricane Katrina blasted the Gulf Coast in 2005, leaving an
unparalleled trail of physical destruction. In addition to that
damage, the storm wrought massive psychological and cultural trauma
on Gulf Coast residents and on America as a whole. Details of the
devastation were quickly reported-and misreported-by media outlets,
and a slew of articles and books followed, offering a spectrum of
socio-political commentaries and analyses. But beyond the reportage
and the commentary, a series of fictional and creative accounts of
the Katrina-experience have emerged in various mediums: novels,
plays, films, television shows, songs, graphic novels, collections
of photographs, and works of creative non-fiction that blur the
lines between reportage, memoir, and poetry. The creative
outpouring brings to mind Salman Rushdie's observation that, "Man
is the storytelling animal, the only creature on earth that tells
itself stories to understand what kind of creature it is." This
book accepts the urge behind Rushdie's formula: humans tell stories
in order to understand ourselves, our world, and our place in it.
Indeed, the creative output on Katrina represents efforts to
construct a cohesive narrative out of the wreckage of a cataclysmic
event. However, this book goes further than merely cataloguing the
ways that Katrina narratives support Rushdie's rich claim. This
collection represents a concentrated attempt to chart the effects
of Katrina on our cultural identity; it seeks to not merely
catalogue the trauma of the event but to explore the ways that such
an event functions in and on the literature that represents it. The
body of work that sprung out of Katrina offers a unique critical
opportunity to better understand the genres that structure our
stories and the ways stories reflect and produce culture and
identity. These essays raise new questions about the representative
genres themselves. The stories are efforts to represent and
understand the human condition, but so are the organizing
principles that communicate the stories. That is,
Katrina-narratives present an opportunity to interrogate the ways
that specific narrative structures inform our understanding and
develop our cultural identity. This book offers a critical
processing of the newly emerging and diverse canon of Katrina
texts.
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