Anxious Experts : : Disaster Response and Spiritual Care from 9/11 to the Climate Crisis / / Joshua Moses.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2022 English
• VerfasserIn: Moses, Joshua,
• Place / Publishing House: Philadelphia : : University of Pennsylvania Press, , [2022]; ©2022
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Series: Critical Studies in Risk and Disaster
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (224 p.) :; 2 bw halftones

In this age of near-perpetual disaster, from the Coronavirus epidemic and mass incarceration to hurricanes and earthquakes, spiritual care has become an essential component of the disaster-response toolkit. In Experts in the Age of Anxiety, Joshua Moses chronicles the rise of disaster-related spiritual expertise in the years following the attacks of 9/11. What emerges are approaches to trauma that encompass everything from meditation and acupuncture to trauma therapy and restorative justice. In this way, the ascent of spiritual expertise in response to post-9/11 disasters represents an extension of historical tensions between secular health practice and proponents of religious and spiritual care.The book also provides a lens through which to understand the historical dimensions of disaster-related trauma, its treatment, and the ways that therapeutic and spiritual practices imply politics. By studying the intersection of mental health and spirituality in the context of disaster, we gain essential insight into apocalyptic and dystopic beliefs that are prevalent today throughout the United States—and beyond. We learn not only about the role of particular forms of expertise in defining meaning but also the consequences this concept of meaning may have for how we imagine our relations to other humans and nonhumans, the climate crisis—and ultimately the kind of future we might imagine.This variety of therapeutic and spiritual practices, now deployed in the face of disaster, will be tested as humanity faces growing threats from the climate crisis and other cascading disasters. But it is not at all clear whether the particular kinds of knowledge we have managed to patch together will provide the resources we require to instill the capacities to face the repercussions of future disasters.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Introduction. “There’s Something Going On, and It’s Bad” -- 1. A Patchwork of Disaster Expertise: A Brief Genealogy -- 2. Bureaucratic Spirituality and Disaster Response: From Anxious Individuals to Anxious Organizations -- 3. Mechanics of the Spirit -- 4. From Neuro-Spirituality to Global Transformation of Trauma -- Conclusion. The Ends of Anxiety -- Notes -- References -- Index -- Acknowledgments