earthquakes

Istvan Praet, Carson Fellow from July to December 2011, talks about the perception of catastrophes among the Chachi, the Amerindian inhabitants of Esmeraldas, a lowland region on the Pacific coast.

Only in recent times have serious historical studies been published about floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, storm tides, forest-fires, and other natural disasters and their effects on human life.

Attempts at combining reconstruction of physical processes with the discursive perceptions of a disaster need an interdisciplinary approach. Current discussions in cultural science have heightened the sensitivity of historians, leading them to seek and elaborate new models and to establish contact with scientific disciplines…

The present investigation examines the resonance of such catastrophes in the correspondence network of the universal scholar Albrecht von Haller (1708–77).

By re-visiting the sources for the 1348 earthquake following the studies of Borst (1981) and Hammerl (1992) and looking at aspects of its perception, management and explanation, this article calls into question the supposed ‘medieval’ equation of natural disaster and divine punishment.