Disaster scholar to speak at Tulane

Barri Bronston bbronst@tulane.edu
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Kai Erikson

Kai Erikson, a professor emeritus of sociology and American studies at Yale University, will speak at Tulane as part of the “The Katrina Disaster Now” series. (Photo from Kai Erikson)


Kai Erikson, one of America"s foremost scholars of American community, human disasters and ethnonational conflict, will speak at Tulane University on Monday (Oct. 26) at 5:30 p.m.

The program, which is free and open to the public, is part of the Tulane School of Liberal Arts" “The Katrina Disaster Now” series. It will take place at Goldring/Woldenberg Hall II, Room 1111, on the uptown campus.

Erikson is “truly one of the most distinguished scholars in the humanities,” says Andy Horowitz, an assistant professor of history at Tulane.

“Professor Erikson"s insights resonate across the humanities and social sciences,” Horowitz says. “Few scholars have done more to shape our understanding of why communities matter or how trauma threatens them, which is why his visit will interest people throughout the university.”

Horowitz will join Erikson onstage for what is being described as a “conversation about sociology, history, disaster, trauma, community and the Katrina disaster now.”

The event is sponsored by the Tulane Environmental Studies Program.

Erikson is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor Emeritus of Sociology and American Studies at Yale University. He is past president of the American Sociological Association, the Society for the Study of Social Problems and the Eastern Sociological Society. He co-chaired the Social Science Research Council"s Katrina Task Force, and is the series editor for the University of Texas Press series The Katrina Bookshelf.

Erikson is also the author of Wayward Puritans: A Study in the Sociology of Deviance, which won the MacIver Award of the ASA; and of Everything In Its Path: Destruction of Community in the Buffalo Creek Flood, which won the Sorokin Award of the ASA. He is the only sociologist to ever win the top award of the association twice for the best book of the year. His latest book is titled A New Species of Trouble: Explorations in Disaster, Trauma and Community.