HNAR-305: Writing Disaster

As we all increasingly face both natural and man-made disasters, we are also forced to grapple with how these catastrophes reflect our values. Stories have the capacity to both communicate knowledge about disaster after it occurs, but they also instruct the audience about how to "read" and interpret future disasters. In this course, we will look closely at both literary fiction and non-fiction as well as popular culture (television, film) to explore how storytelling is used to reckon with what disaster reveals about ourselves. How do these narratives either reflect or distort reality? What do these stories say about human resilience and fallibility? How does disaster shape identity and culture? Through critically reading and writing in response to a variety of texts, we will explore how writers and creators confront these larger psychological, social and ecological questions.