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Chapter 4 - “Bodies Tell Stories”

Mourning and Hospitality after Katrina*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2021

Janet Fiskio
Affiliation:
Oberlin College, Ohio
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Summary

Chapter 4 interprets funerals and second lines performed since Hurricane Katrina to articulate an ethics of mourning and hospitality. In the context of post-Katrina New Orleans, these second lines perform memorials for all those who died or were dispossessed during the storm and have been unable to return. They are simultaneously forms of mourning and protest, occupying public space in resistance to government policies of diaspora. Drawing on trauma theory, I argue that Katrina can only be understood from a morally and politically engaged position, and healing can only happen within this context. Furthermore, I build on Jacques Derrida’s work on hospitality to link mourning and repair in post-Katrina New Orleans, illuminating the ways the people of New Orleans articulated an ethics for climate disruption through solidarity and social care. I conclude with a reading of Jesmyn Ward’s novel Salvage the Bones, which depicts the empathy, care, and courage of an African American family in the bayou during the storm.

Type
Chapter
Information
Climate Change, Literature, and Environmental Justice
Poetics of Dissent and Repair
, pp. 105 - 123
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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  • “Bodies Tell Stories”
  • Janet Fiskio, Oberlin College, Ohio
  • Book: Climate Change, Literature, and Environmental Justice
  • Online publication: 13 April 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108886819.005
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  • “Bodies Tell Stories”
  • Janet Fiskio, Oberlin College, Ohio
  • Book: Climate Change, Literature, and Environmental Justice
  • Online publication: 13 April 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108886819.005
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • “Bodies Tell Stories”
  • Janet Fiskio, Oberlin College, Ohio
  • Book: Climate Change, Literature, and Environmental Justice
  • Online publication: 13 April 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108886819.005
Available formats
×