Table Of ContentThe Culture of Disaster
THE
Culture
OF
Disaster
Marie-Hélène Huet
the university of chicago press
chicago and london
marie-he´le`ne huet is the M. Taylor Pyne Professor of French at
Princeton University. She is the author of numerous books,
including Mourning Glory: The Will of the French
Revolution and Monstrous Imagination.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2012 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2012.
Printed in the United States of America
21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 1 2 3 4 5
isbn-13: 978-0-226-35821-5 (cloth)
isbn-10: 0-226-35821-6 (cloth)
This publication is made possible in part by a
subvention from the Barr Ferree Foundation Fund
for Publications, Princeton University.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Huet, Marie-Hélène.
The culture of disaster / Marie-Hélène Huet.
pages; cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-226-35821-5 (cloth: alkaline paper)
isbn 0-226-35821-6 (cloth: alkaline paper)
1. Disasters. 2. World politics.
3. Disasters in literature. I. Title.
d24.h77 2012
363.34—dc23
2011050731
a This paper meets the requirements of ansi/niso z39.48-1992
(Permanence of Paper).
contents
List of Figures / vii
Acknowledgments / ix
Introduction: The Nature of Disasters / 1
part one
Acts of God, Deeds of Men / 15
1: Enlightenment and the Plague / 17
2: The Silence of Lisbon (1755) / 39
3: The Reign of Cholera (1832) / 57
part two
Political Disasters, Time in Ruins / 77
4: Losing Rome (Rousseau) / 79
5: Nightwatch: Terror and Time / 101
6: The Politics of Mortality / 129
part three
Tall Ships and Falling Stars / 147
7: The Face of Chaos (Medusa) / 149
8: The Sphinx of the Ice Fields / 171
part four
The Culture of Disaster / 201
9: Now Playing Everywhere / 205
Notes / 231
Index / 257
figures
1. Jean-François de Troy, The Plague in the City of Marseilles in 1720 /
18
2. Anon., Lisbon Abyss (eighteenth century) / 40
3. Robert Seymour, Cholera Tramples the Victor and the Vanquish’d
Both (1831) / 61
4. Giovanni Paolo Pannini, Ruins with the Pyramid of Gaius Cestius in
Rome (early eighteenth century) / 84
5. Revolutionary watch with two dials (late eighteenth century) / 120
6. Anon., Robespierre Guillotining the Headsman after He Has
Guillotined All the French People (1793) / 140
7. Théodore Géricault, Etude de têtes de suppliciés (Decapitated Heads)
(early nineteenth century) / 150
8. Villeneuve, A Matter of Reflection for the Crowned Jugglers . . .
(1793) / 151
9. Théodore Géricault, Sighting of the Argus: Study of Bodies for “The
Raft of the Medusa” (early nineteenth century) / 157
10. Théodore Géricault, Body Parts: Study of Arms and Legs for “The
Raft of the Medusa” (1818/19) / 168
11. François-Étienne Musin, The HMS Erebus in Ice (1846) / 172
12. Engraving by J. Hamilton and J. Mc Goffin, Ice Bergs Near Kosoak
(Life Boat Cove) (nineteenth century) / 173
13. Report on John Franklin’s death (1847) / 176
14. Edouard Riou, Volcano at the North Pole (nineteenth century) / 181
15. Edouard Riou, The Forward in Ice with Sun Halo (nineteenth
century) / 185
16. Anon., Burial in Ice under Paraselenae (nineteenth century) / 186
17. George Roux, The Halbrane in Ice with Sun Halo (nineteenth
century) / 191
viii figures
18. George Roux, The Sphinx of the Ice Fields (nineteenth century) / 192
19. René Magritte, La Reproduction interdite (ca. 1937) / 200
20. Still from Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation (1974) / 209
21. Still from Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-up (1966) / 214
22. Still from Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) / 222
acknowledgments
I wish to thank the librarians who guided me through the labyrinths
of the special collections I visited during the preparation of this book.
Chief among them are the librarians of the Bibliothèque Nordique and
the Archives de la Police Judiciaire in Paris. I received generous help
from the staff of the Assistance Publique archives, the curators of the rare
books collection of the medical library at the Université Descartes, and
the librarians of the Warburg Institute in London. This book is gratefully
dedicated to them. I am deeply indebted to Michael E. Brown and to the
readers for the University of Chicago Press for their many fruitful com-
ments and suggestions.
Research for this book was funded by several grants from the
Princeton University Committee for Research in the Humanities and
Social Sciences. Excerpts from chapter 4 were published as “On the
Uses of Negative Freedom,” in Rousseau and Freedom, edited by Chris-
tie McDonald and Stanley Hoffmann. Copyright © 2010 by Cambridge
University Press. Reprinted with permission. Chapter 6 first appeared in
Diacritics 30, no. 3 (Autumn 2000): 28–39. Copyright © 2000 The Johns
Hopkins University Press. Parts of chapter 7 appeared in Yale French
Studies 111 (2007): 7–31, edited by Dan Edelstein and Bettina Lerner. I
thank the editors for their permission to reprint this material.
