Thesis (M.F.A.)--University of North Texas, May, 2007. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

This dissertation examines the cleared spaces after disaster and the way the rhetoric of utopian projects is taken up by corporate and privatizing ventures to mask projects that seek to shut down participation in the public sphere. Chapter one argues that there are mechanisms within societies that can push against these forces by promoting a cosmopolitan sensibility that protects the commons and respects the alterity of the Other. Such mechanisms have theoretical roots in the thinking of Robert Nozick and Fredric Jameson but have been rethought more recently by Bruce Robbins, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Seyla Benhabib. I read literature alongside documentaries and memorials to discover the way cultural texts model these methods of pushing back against neoliberal projects in the wake of 9/11 and Katrina by bringing ethics, as Emmanuel Levinas does, into "real world" situations. Projects that co-opt the commons after disaster convey a imitative cosmopolitanism that can be counteracted through giving agency to those who do not have it, constructing communities of access for the future, supporting a form of public mourning that promotes critique, and protecting post-disaster spaces from becoming only tourist destinations. Chapter two looks to the way the 9/11 fiction of Moshin Hamid, Claire Messud, Alissa Torres, Paul Auster, and Jonathan Safran Foer models a cosmopolitanism that repairs the self's relationship to the Other by allowing the Other an agency previously unavailable before 9/11. Chapter three examines how When the Levees Broke, Trouble the Water, Kamp Katrina, Katrina Ballads, A.D.: New Orleans after the Deluge, and Zeitoun foreground the vulnerability of Gulf Coast residents by linking their vulnerability to the nation's now damaged ecological relationship to the coast. Chapter four explores the cultural memory at a range of 9/11 and Katrina memorials in New York, Washington D. C., and along the Gulf Coast in order to find memorials that reinvigorate the commons by melding public mourning with critique. The epilogue examines the larger implications of my dissertation for the field of American studies in examining the culture of disaster that has arisen in the past decade.

Digital history has grown into a critical aspect of history scholarship and practice. The literature surrounding digital history is colored by its discussions of the possibilities and problems of digital history, both as an archiving tool and a method of increasing interaction with public history. This literature is also defined by its lack of answers to these questions, and lack of examinations of these possibilities in cases studies. By examining how three different New Orleans historical institutions have embraced digital history for preservation and public history in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, this thesis will illustrate how questions of preservation, access, and the impact of digital history on research are being answered by these institutions. The New Orleans historical institutions evaluated in this paper have used digital history to bolster their preservation in the face of natural disaster, and to foster increased interactivity and importance with the New Orleans community.

This PhD dissertation examines the relationships between cultural heritage and the environment, focusing specifically on the devastation and rebuilding of New Orleans, Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Departing from conventional approaches to the natural world (such as documentation- and conservation-based approaches), this thesis adopts a developmental-systems based approach to cultural heritage in order to construct a new way of interpreting it, within the specific context of natural disaster. This new approach, termed 'heritage ecology', reinterprets cultural heritage in two ways: first, as a physical assemblage of sites, materials, traditions, beliefs, and practices that are constructed in significant ways by their natural environments; and second, as a metaphorical ecosystem which impacts back on the assessment and construction of that natural environment in turn. In order to construct this approach, the thesis poses three interrelated questions: how is cultural heritage transformed as a result of disaster, how do societies rebuild their heritage after disaster, and how does heritage contribute to the rebuilding process? Examining a rebuilding process in real-time provides a unique window on these processes; events and developments in New Orleans taken from the first four years of recovery (2005-2009) suggest that prior understandings of how societies rebuild themselves after disaster have neglected crucial aspects of cultural heritage that are integral to that process. The examination of data from the case study - data of diverse forms, such as historiography, the culinary arts, music, the built environment, and memorial sites and landscapes - reveals the limitations of traditional approaches to heritage and prompts a reassessment of a range of issues central to heritage research, issues such as materiality, authenticity, and commodification. This study moreover incorporates into heritage research concepts previously unconsidered, such as infrastructure and policy. In the coming century of global climate change and increased environmental hazards, this last theme will become increasingly central to heritage policy and research; the dissertation concludes accordingly, with a reflection on contingency and future disaster.

L'humanitaire représente dans le monde une activité énorme en raison de la multiplication des conflits armés et des catastrophes naturelles, La mise en œuvre de l'action humanitaire et sa médiatisation donnent lieu à un débat important au sein de la communauté internationale. Cette recherche vise à analyser les rapports des médias aux questions de solidarité internationale. Nous partons de l'hypothèse que le discours médiatique, de façon générale, est partiel et déséquilibré parce qu'il ne reflète pas toute la diversité et toute la réalité des crises humanitaires. Certaines grandes crises humanitaires font l'objet d'une médiatisation importante. Mais de nombreuses autres ont une visibilité médiatique faible, voire nulle. En 2005, il a été beaucoup question du tsunami en Asie du Su-Est, de l'ouragan Katrina aux États-Unis. Mais pendant cette année, selon les organisations humanitaires, d'autres crises humanitaires graves ont suscité peu l'intérêt des médias (exemples : la famine au Niger, conséquences d'intempéries en Amérique latine, situations diverses en Afrique australe, etc.). L'objectif principal de ce travail est de mettre en évidence les facteurs et enjeux essentiels qui participent de la mobilisation des médias et de la solidarité internationale autour des crises. Pour ce faire, quatre crises humanitaires survenues entre décembre 2004 et octobre 2005 sont prises en exemples : le tsunami en Asie et dans l'océan Indien, l'ouragan Katrina aux États-Unis, la famine au Niger et le séisme du Cachemire au Pakistan. Elles sont comparées dans leur couverture médiatique par la presse française et dans leur appréhension par la communauté internationale / As a result of the growing conflicts and natural catastrophes, humanitarian relief work serves a significant role and activity with several implications. The setting of humanitarian action, along side with the activity by the media has fostered an important debate in the international community. The objective of this particular research is to analyze the relationship between the media and humanitarian questions. It focuses in particular, on the issues surrounding the mobilization of the media and repercussions of media press release of humanitarian crisis. It argues from the hypotheses that the media speeches on humanity are partial and strewn with disequilibrium, as it does not reflect the diverse views and all the realities of the humanitarian crisis. Critics have been said not only from international solidarities but also from volunteer groups, academic scholars, pragmatic specialists of information and communication sciences field, political sciences and sociologist. All the humanitarian situations are not handled at the same level by the media. For instance, there were a lot of questions surrounding the tsunami, hurricane Katrina, in the United States of America. But in this same year, there were other serious humanitarian crisis which captured little interest of the media, which were ignored. This work aims to reflect the exploratory factors of this disequilibrium, of this partial press release of humanitarian questions. Four humanitarian crisis which occurred between december 2004 and october 2005 are used as examples. The tsunami in the Asia at the Indian ocean, the hurricane Katrina in the United States of America, the famine in Niger and the earthquake in Cachemire region in Pakistan

Disasters are an ever increasing phenomena in our society, resulting in many people being adversely affected. the social vulnerability paradigm explores the social, economic and political factors which contribute to certain populations being disproportionately affected by disasters. However, the paradigm has not yet begun to investigate the cultural or religious ideologies which may affect a population's behavior in disaster. This study is an exploratory investigation into whether religious ideologies may impact a person's decision to prepare, or not, in the event of a disaster. Specifically, it seeks to investigate whether a person who holds a belief that natural disasters are under God's control will prepare for the hazard? the study undertaken five years after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans show that religious ideology is closely linked with one's capacity to prepare for the hazard which is closely tied in with social structure. It may appear that a person's 'fatalistic' attitude is tied to economic inability to prepare for a hazard. This does not mean that they will not prepare but that preparation may include prayer as their initial attempt to mitigate.

Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, numerous groups emerged to address recovery related needs in Orleans and St. Bernard Parishes. The phenomenon of emergent groups is widely noted in the disaster literature, but there has been little empirical research focusing on these groups. And, the existing literature discusses emergent groups primarily in the context of response. This study sought to explore the factors related to formation of emergent recovery groups (ERGs) and allow ERGs to have an extended lifespan. Data was gathered through in-depth interviews with founders of twenty ERGs that formed to work in Orleans and St. Bernard Parishes. It was found that the factors related to group formation were the same factors that contributed to the continued existence of the ERG including post-event community situational context, unmet needs, a group driver/leader, ability to network, level of integration, and resources.

This study examined the severity of wind damage created by Hurricane Katrina in southeast Mississippi to determine how the disturbance was influenced by fragmentation based on different forest ownership groups (Non-corporate private forest, corporate private forest and public forest). MODIS-NDVI percent change products were coupled with ownership, rainfall, and Landsat based thematic maps depicting forest age and forest types using GIS techniques to examine potential contributing factors to possible damage for the study area. Multiple linear and binary logistic regression methods were used to explain the relationship between severity of damage and forest age, forest type, ownership, and rainfall. Results indicate that the NDVI percent change had a negative relationship with forest age diversity and a positive relationship with forest type diversity and rainfall. There was no clear and direct consistent relationship between NDVI percent change and forest ownership.

Responses to a web-based survey following Hurricane Katrina were evaluated. The 3,140 university student respondents were separated into impact groups based on evacuation experience: high-impact (student evacuated), moderate-impact (friend/family evacuated), and low-impact (neither student nor friends or family evacuated). Students’ responses to items evaluating service utilization, services desired, and psychological distress were examined by gender, race, and impact group. Female students rated services as more supportive, and reported a greater desire for services not provided by the university, compared to male students. Compared to Caucasian students, African American students viewed services as more supportive and desired services not already provided by the university. Students in the high-impact group scored higher than the other impact groups on measures assessing symptoms of psychological distress. Overall, the results may be used by universities and other organizations to implement future programs and policies for responding to natural disasters.

This study looks at the changes to NDVI value in the Weeks Bay Reserve following the impact by Hurricane Katrina. Four Landsat images from March 24, 2005 (Pre-Katrina), September 16, 2005/ April 26, 2006 (Post-Katrina) and August 7, 2002 (Control) were classified into different landcover types and run with the NDVI vegetation index. Those images were compared against each other and showed that the September image had a NDVI value drop of 49% and the April image had a 47% drop as compared to the previous March. The emergent vegetation surrounding the shoreline was most susceptible to changes in NDVI value and recovered the slowest of the tested landcover types. Swift tracks, bay areas, and rivers in the study area where tested and showed that the rivers are the most susceptible change in NDVI value and recovered the slowest.