Disasters, Vulnerability, and Narratives


Book Description

This book uses narrative responses to the 2010 Haiti earthquake as a starting point for an analysis of notions of disaster, vulnerability, reconstruction and recovery. The turn to a wide range of literary works enables a composite comparative analysis, which encompasses the social, political and individual dimensions of the earthquake. This book focuses on a vision of an open-ended future, otherwise than as a threat or fear. Mika turns to concepts of hinged chronologies, slow healing and remnant dwelling. Weaving theory with attentive close-readings, the book offers an open-ended framework for conceptualising post-disaster recovery and healing. These processes happen at different times and must entail the elimination of compound vulnerabilities that created the disaster in the first place. Challenging characterisations of the region as a continuous catastrophe this book works towards a bold vision of Haiti’s and the Caribbean’s futures. The study shows how narratives can extend some of the key concepts within discipline-bound approaches to disasters, while making an important contribution to the interface between disaster studies, postcolonial ecocriticism and Haitian Studies.




Amidst Mass Atrocity and the Rubble of Theology


Book Description

It is hubris to claim answers to unanswerable questions. Such questions, however--as part of their burden and worth--must still be asked, investigated, and contemplated. How there can be a loving, all-powerful God and a world stymied by suffering and evil is one of the unanswerable questions we must all struggle to answer, even as our responses are closer to gasps, silences, and further questions. More importantly, how and whether one articulates a response will have deep, lasting repercussions for any belief in God and in our judgments upon one another. Throughout this wide-ranging, interdisciplinary work, Peter Admirand draws upon his extensive research and background in theology and testimonial literature, trauma and genocide studies, cultural studies, philosophy of religion, interreligious studies, and systematic theology. As David Burrell writes in the Foreword: ". . .[T]he work's intricate structure, organization, and development will lead us to appreciate that the best one can settle for is a fractured faith built on a fractured theodicy, expressed in a language explicitly fragmented, pluralist, and broken."




Contrary Destinies


Book Description

"Provides a wealth of information about the nature of American occupations in Haiti that can be useful to Latin American historians and political scientists interested in international relations between the United States and other countries in the region."--Leslie G. Desmangles, author of The Faces of the Gods: Vodou and Roman Catholicism in Haiti "Unpacks the cultural, political, and economic impact of U.S. occupation, and by extension, American imperialism in Haiti."--Quito Swan, author of Black Power in Bermuda: The Struggle for Decolonization In 1915, United States Marines arrived in Haiti to safeguard lives and property from the political instability of the time. While there, the Marine Corps controlled everything from finance to education, from health care to public works and built an army, "La Garde d’Haiti," to maintain the changes it implemented. Ultimately, the decisions made by the United States about and for Haiti have indelibly shaped the development of what is generally considered the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Contrary Destinies presents the story of the one hundred year relationship between the two countries. Leon Pamphile chronicles the internal, external, and natural forces that have shaped Haiti as it is today, striking a balance between the realities faced by the people on the island and the global and transnational contexts that affect their lives. He examines how American policies towards the Caribbean nation--during the Cold War and later as the United States became the sole world superpower--and the legacies of the occupation contributed to the gradual erosion of Haitian independence, culminating in a second occupation and the current United Nations peacekeeping mission. Leon D. Pamphile is founder and executive director of the Functional Literacy Ministry of Haiti. He is the author of Haitians and African Americans: A Heritage of Tragedy and Hope.




From Burned Out to Beloved


Book Description

As a social worker, jail chaplain, and justice advocate, Bethany Dearborn Hiser pushed herself to the brink of burnout—only to discover that she needed the very soul care she was providing to others. Tackling the effects of secondary trauma and burnout, this is a trauma-informed soul care guide for Christians working in high-stress, helping professions.




Humbling Faith


Book Description

This is a book hoping to embolden doubt and sharpen unanswerable questions, all in the context of loving the self and one another. Ridiculously, it believes the world can be healed through such a hope. It is especially addressed to those allergic to the word “faith,” and others who feel confident and proud in the faith they profess or system of thought they live by. Humbling Faith helps us see how our beliefs, or non-beliefs, our belongings and identities, often remain flawed, myopic, self-absorbed, unredeemed. The hope is that such awareness of our brokenness can fuel greater ethical partnerships and dialogue, promoting peace from our recognized need for one another. Humbling Faith is not only a resource towards humbling other faiths, but most importantly, your own.




Hidden in the Rubble


Book Description

"Gerry Straub is a story-teller with a camera. In an era when news has become so atomized and fast-paced it is almost impossible to get a sense of the whole, Straub engages two great risks. He takes us to see what much of the world would rather ignore, and he does it slowly and reflectively. The risks pay off here in a kind of meditation on Haiti that is simultaneously brutally frank and filled with the hope of religious imagination."-Tom Roberts national Catholic Reporter "Gerard Straub's harrowing account of his voluntary descent into the agony of Haiti's suffering-his choosing to become lost with the lost-disallows his reader to remain comfortable on the sidelines. While this book details the courage of the many who are coming to Haiti's aid, Straub's personal discovery of the miracle hidden under an earthquake's rubble-the compassion for one another in extremis by Haitians themselves-is the true spiritual epiphany arising out of this book's careful rendering of an unmitigated tragedy for our time and our world."-Jonathan Montaldo, author, Bridges to Contemplative Living with Thomas Merton In January 2010 a devastating earthquake struck the impoverished land of Haiti, killing over 200,000 people and causing unimaginable suffering. But even before the earthquake, as the photos and reflections in this book make clear, Haiti was already-had been for decades-a disaster zone, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. Filmmaker Gerry Straub was there weeks before the earthquake, and he returned soon after, to continue his project: to capture in words and images the reality of Haiti's poor-both their sufferings and their spirit-and to find in this reality the face of God.




When Helping Hurts


Book Description

With more than 450,000 copies in print, When Helping Hurts is a paradigm-forming contemporary classic on the subject of poverty alleviation. Poverty is much more than simply a lack of material resources, and it takes much more than donations and handouts to solve it. When Helping Hurts shows how some alleviation efforts, failing to consider the complexities of poverty, have actually (and unintentionally) done more harm than good. But it looks ahead. It encourages us to see the dignity in everyone, to empower the materially poor, and to know that we are all uniquely needy—and that God in the gospel is reconciling all things to himself. Focusing on both North American and Majority World contexts, When Helping Hurts provides proven strategies for effective poverty alleviation, catalyzing the idea that sustainable change comes not from the outside in, but from the inside out.




In the Time of the Butterflies


Book Description

Celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2024, internationally bestselling author and literary icon Julia Alvarez's In the Time of the Butterflies is "beautiful, heartbreaking and alive ... a lyrical work of historical fiction based on the story of the Mirabal sisters, revolutionary heroes who had opposed and fought against Trujillo." (Concepción de León, New York Times) Alvarez’s new novel, The Cemetery of Untold Stories, is coming April 2, 2024. Pre-order now! It is November 25, 1960, and three beautiful sisters have been found near their wrecked Jeep at the bottom of a 150-foot cliff on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. The official state newspaper reports their deaths as accidental. It does not mention that a fourth sister lives. Nor does it explain that the sisters were among the leading opponents of Gen. Rafael Leónidas Trujillo’s dictatorship. It doesn’t have to. Everybody knows of Las Mariposas—the Butterflies. In this extraordinary novel, the voices of all four sisters--Minerva, Patria, María Teresa, and the survivor, Dedé--speak across the decades to tell their own stories, from secret crushes to gunrunning, and to describe the everyday horrors of life under Trujillo’s rule. Through the art and magic of Julia Alvarez’s imagination, the martyred Butterflies live again in this novel of courage and love, and the human costs of political oppression. "Alvarez helped blaze the trail for Latina authors to break into the literary mainstream, with novels like In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents winning praise from critics and gracing best-seller lists across the Americas."—Francisco Cantú, The New York Times Book Review "This Julia Alvarez classic is a must-read for anyone of Latinx descent." —Popsugar.com "A gorgeous and sensitive novel . . . A compelling story of courage, patriotism and familial devotion." —People "Shimmering . . . Valuable and necessary." —Los Angeles Times "A magnificent treasure for all cultures and all time.” —St. Petersburg Times "Alvarez does a remarkable job illustrating the ruinous effect the 30-year dictatorship had on the Dominican Republic and the very real human cost it entailed."—Cosmopolitan.com




A History of the Church in Latin America


Book Description

This comprehensive history of the church in Latin America, with its emphasis on theology, will help historians and theologians to better understand the formation and continuity of the Latin American tradition.