Catastrophes and crises fascinate as much as they terrorize. The common goal of the articles collected in this book is to investigate the ways in which catastrophes (real or fictitious) have provided film, art and literature with a historical, if not universal, matrix for exploring the frailty of human existence, the passions they trigger and the new behavioral modes they necessitate. The book thus argues that film, art, and literature are privileged and essential ways of understanding what catastrophes are, what they do to us, and how we can deal with them.