Prof. Zhou Qiong (Minzu University of China)
Rethinking Disaster: A Cultural-Historical
Interpretation of “Born of Disaster”
换个视角看灾害：“向灾而生”的文化史解读
(Online Presentation; in Chinese)
Abstract Disasters are remembered and narrated not only for their catastrophic impacts on individuals, communities, and societies, but also for the existential fear they engender. Consequently,negative perceptions and destructive imaginaries of disaster tend to be transmitted, shaped, and sedimented across generations. Yet a historically grounded reflection on recurrent catastrophes reveals a counterintuitive insight: suffering has repeatedly catalyzed socio-spatial development and institutional innovation. In other words, episodes of collective rupture often accompany phases of stepwise historical advancement.Viewed differently,while disasters inflict multi-scalar damage in an anthropocentric world, they simultaneously accelerate capacities for preparedness, mitigation,response, and recovery, in humans and-indirectly-other living beings. The trajectory and direction of human societal development have, to a considerable degree, been propelled by such crisis-induced learning. From a cultural-historical standpoint,existential threat frequently unlocks novel creativity driven by survival imperatives. The forging of institutions, technologies, and engineering practices“in and through disaster,” the formation and strengthening of collective cohesion, and the enrichment and rearticulation of disaster cultures together constitute the constructive consequences of catastrophe at the objective level. This perspective reframes disaster not as a solely destructive force,but as a historically recurrent driver of adaptive transformation.
Bio Zhou Qiong is a Professor of History and doctoral supervisor at Minzu University of China and a Distinguished Professor at Yunnan University, as well as a Yunling Scholar, Donglu Scholar, and Yunnan Provincial Academic and Technical Leader. Her research focuses on environmental and disaster history, famine and disaster culture, and ecological civilization, especially among ethnic minorities in Southwest China. She leads the NSSFC major project “Disaster Culture Database for Ethnic Minorities in Southwest China” and is the author of Major Natural Disasters and Relief Mechanisms in the Early Qing and Miasma and Ecological Change in Qing-era Yunnan, both included in the National Achievements Library of Philosophy and Social Sciences, with over 90 journal articles to her name.
时间：2025年11月11日16点（北京时间11月11日23:00）
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