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Sociologist Who Studied the Collective Trauma of Disaster

The Wall Street Journal

December 20, 2025

An expert in natural and man-made catastrophes, he said Hurricane Katrina was 'far and away the most telling disaster of our national experience.'

- BY JON MOOALLEM

In 1973, Yale sociologist Kai T. Erikson got a phone call from an attorney, asking him to recommend a graduate student who could consult on a class-action lawsuit in West Virginia coal country. The previous February, 132 million gallons of black,

This story is from the December 20, 2025 edition of The Wall Street Journal.

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