Abstract for Disasters Fast and Slow: Photography, History, and the Environment

William D. Johnston, Professor of History, East Asian Studies, and Society in Society at Wesleyan University. This presentation strives to extend our thinking about disasters to include events that occur not only over minutes, hours, and days, but also over months, years, and decades. Together, photography and history can help us understand environmental catastrophes while transcending dichotomies of natural and human instigated, fast onset and slow onset. The Fukushima triple-disaster of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdowns facilitates thinking along these lines.