Environmental History of the Maghreb, 1800–Present

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brock Cutler
Keyword(s):  
Environmental History ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Local Ecosystem ◽  
The Many ◽  
Localized Knowledge ◽  
And Control

North Africa is a diverse region with a rich history and society, part of a set of varied landscapes that make up a compounded and multiplex socio-ecosystem. Its position as a meeting point—of the desert and the sea, of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, of North and South, of East and West—makes it a complex and rewarding area of study. This multiplicity of environments and societies means there is no one history of North Africa, it is rather a structure of imbricating stories, no one of which records the whole. The environmental history of the region is no different, as the many different ecosystems—and human relations within them—give rise to different stories and different ways to tell them. Indeed, the strength of the environmental approach to the history of the region is that it allows scholars to introduce important factors into the narrative that are otherwise left out. If history is to capture the richness of past lives, tell a compelling story of people in the world, then it needs to embrace those elements of the world that were important to people. These can be the everyday concerns with watering a garden, the spectacular catastrophes of multiyear drought, or the contemplation of what factors make a place one place and not another. While there is this bottomless well of potential stories to tell within the environmental history of North Africa, there are some centripetal forces that hold it together. One is the geographical setting, defined by the desert, seas, and Atlas Mountains. Within this setting the relative aridity of the region is its central concern; each history has a place for water within it. The other generalizing trend over the modern period is the increasing centralization of decision-making about the management of that aridity: since 1800, small-scale and localized knowledge, practice, and control over hydrology has been eroded. More and more the local ecosystem has become the regional ecosystem, managed according to a logic shared on a global scale. The tension between these generalized trends and the multiplicity of local ecologies and stories is what gives the environmental history of North Africa its power and appeal.

The Historiography of Environmental History

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. McNeill
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Industrial Pollution ◽  
Full Scale ◽  
Environmental Concerns ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter discusses the emergence of environmental history, which developed in the context of the environmental concerns that began in the 1960s with worries about local industrial pollution, but which has since evolved into a full-scale global crisis of climate change. Environmental history is ‘the history of the relationship between human societies and the rest of nature’. It includes three chief areas of inquiry: the study of material environmental history, political and policy-related environmental history, and a form of environmental history which concerns what humans have thought, believed, written, and more rarely, painted, sculpted, sung, or danced that deals with the relationship between society and nature. Since 1980, environmental history has come to flourish in many corners of the world, and scholars everywhere have found models, approaches, and perspectives rather different from those developed for the US context.

History, Politics, Law

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cross Section ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
The Political ◽  
Global Order ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Many

Historians of political thought and international lawyers have both expanded their interest in the formation of the present global order. History, Politics, Law is the first express encounter between the two disciplines, juxtaposing their perspectives on questions of method and substance. The essays throw light on their approaches to the role of politics and the political in the history of the world beyond the single polity. They discuss the contrast between practice and theory as well as the role of conceptual and contextual analyses in both fields. Specific themes raised for both disciplines include statehood, empires and the role of international institutions, as well as the roles of economics, innovation and gender. The result is a vibrant cross-section of contrasts and parallels between the methods and practices of the two disciplines, demonstrating the many ways in which both can learn from each other.

Puccini's La Bohème

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Music Drama ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
La Boheme ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Many ◽  
The City

La bohème is one of the most frequently performed operas in the world. But how did it come to be so adored? Drawing on an extremely broad range of sources, Alexandra Wilson traces the opera’s rise to global fame. Although the work has been subjected to many hostile critiques, it swiftly achieved popular success through stage performances, recordings, and filmed versions. Wilson demonstrates how La bohème acquired even greater cultural influence as its music and dramatic themes began to be incorporated into pop songs, film soundtracks, musicals, and more. In this cultural history of Puccini’s opera, Wilson offers a fresh reading of a familiar work. La bohème was strikingly modern for the 1890s, she argues, in its approach to musical and dramatic realism and in flouting many of the conventions of the Italian operatic tradition. Considering the work within the context of the aesthetic, social, and political debates of its time, Wilson explores Puccini’s treatment of themes including gender, poverty, and nostalgia. She pays particular attention to La bohème’s representation of Paris, arguing that the opera was not only influenced by romantic mythologies surrounding the city but also helped shape them. Wilson concludes with a consideration of the many and varied approaches directors have taken to the staging of Puccini’s opera, including some that have reinvented the opera for a new age. This book is essential reading for anyone who has seen La bohème and wants to know more about its music, drama, and cultural contexts.

The Strait of Magellan—a Gateway to New Worlds

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mauricio Onetto Pavez
Keyword(s):  
Global Scale ◽  
Modern World ◽  
American Continent ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Strait Of Magellan ◽  
The World ◽  
The Strait Of Magellan ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Time

The year 2020 marks the five hundredth anniversary of the “discovery” of the Strait of Magellan. The unveiling of this passage between 1519 and 1522 allowed the planet to be circumnavigated for the first time in the history of humanity. All maritime routes could now be connected, and the idea of the Earth, in its geographical, cosmographic, and philosophical dimensions, gained its definitive meaning. This discovery can be considered one of the founding events of the modern world and of the process of globalization that still continues today. This new connectivity awoke an immediate interest in Europe that led to the emergence of a political consciousness of possession, domination, and territorial occupation generalized on a global scale, and the American continent was the starting point for this. This consciousness also inspired a desire for knowledge about this new form of inhabiting the world. Various fields of knowledge were redefined thanks to the new spaces and measurements produced by the discovery of the southern part of the Americas, which was recorded in books on cosmography, natural history, cartography, and manuscripts, circulating mainly between the Americas and Europe. All these processes transformed the Strait of Magellan into a geopolitical space coveted by Europeans during the 16th century. As an interoceanic connector, it was used to imagine commercial routes to the Orient and political projects that could sustain these dynamics. It was also conceived as a space to speculate on the potential wealth in the extreme south of the continent. In addition, on the Spanish side, some agents of the Crown considered it a strategic place for imperial projections and the defense of the Americas.

Fishing for a Career: Alternative Livelihoods and the Hardheaded Art of Academic Failure

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-167
Author(s):  
Deb Cleland
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Marine Ecosystem ◽  
Academic Failure ◽  
Work Life ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
South East Asia ◽  
Alternative Livelihoods ◽  
Alternative Livelihood ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

Charting the course: The world of alternative livelihood research brings a heavy history of paternalistic colonial intervention and moralising. In particular, subsistence fishers in South East Asia are cyclical attractors of project funding to help them exit poverty and not ‘further degrade the marine ecosystem’ (Cinner et al. 2011), through leaving their boats behind and embarking on non-oceanic careers. What happens, then, when we turn an autoethnographic eye on the livelihood of the alternative livelihood researcher? What lexicons of lack and luck may we borrow from the fishers in order to ‘render articulate and more systematic those feelings of dissatisfaction’ (Young 2002) of an academic’s life’s work and our work-life? What might we learn from comparing small-scale fishers to small-scale scholars about how to successfully ‘navigate’ the casualised waters of the modern university? Does this unlikely course bring any ideas of ‘possibilities glimmering’ (Young 2002) for ‘exiting’ poverty in Academia?

scholarly journals Atlas of Yellowstone, 2nd Edition: Celebrating 150 Years of the World’s First National Park, 1872–2022

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 1-1
Author(s):  
W. Andrew Marcus ◽  
James E. Meacham ◽  
Justin T. Menke ◽  
Aleathea Y. Steingisser ◽  
Ann E. Rodman
Keyword(s):  
Key Management ◽  
Yellowstone National Park ◽  
National Park ◽  
Scientific Data ◽  
Light Pollution ◽  
Natural Setting ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many ◽  
Management Issues

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> The Second Edition of the Atlas of Yellowstone will celebrate the 150-year history of the world’s first national park – and reflect on the future of Yellowstone and its evolving place in the world. Like the first Atlas of Yellowstone published in 2012, the Second Edition will provide a comprehensive view of the human and natural setting of Yellowstone National Park. Also like the First Edition, the new edition will portray variations over space and time, explore human-nature interactions throughout the region, document connections of Yellowstone to the rest of the world, and &amp;ndash; ultimately &amp;ndash; guide the reader to a deeper appreciation of Yellowstone.</p><p>Beyond that, the new edition will provide much expanded coverage of the park’s history. Readers will better understand the many different ways in which the creation of Yellowstone National Park has preserved and altered the landscapes and ecology of Yellowstone and conservation thought and practice, both locally and around the world.</p><p>The new atlas will also reflect advances in scientific data collection, knowledge, and insight gained since publication of the first edition. New topic pages will address key management issues ranging from increased visitor impact to wildlife disease to light pollution. In addition, many of the 850 existing graphics will be updated, reimagined, or replaced by new graphics that capture the remarkable wealth of data that has become available since the First Edition. Whether it be tracking of individual wolves, ecosystem imagery from space, or detailed visitor surveys &amp;ndash; new data provide insights that could not be graphically displayed before.</p><p>The Second Edition celebrates 150 years of America’s best idea and what that has meant to the world. The significance of Yellowstone National Park to conservation, scholarship, and the human experience is enormous, and deserves a volume that captures that importance.</p>

scholarly journals The Environment Is Not A System

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 152-165
Author(s):  
Tega Brain
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Mass Extinction ◽  
Computational Models ◽  
Rapid Climate Change ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of Ecology ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Control ◽  
Systems View ◽  
Manipulation And Control

This paper considers some of the limitations and possibilities of computational models in the context of environmental inquiry, specifically exploring the modes of knowledge production that it mobilizes. Historic computational attempts to model, simulate and make predictions about environmental assemblages, both emerge from and reinforce a systems view on the world. The word eco-system itself stands as a reminder that the history of ecology is enmeshed with systems theory and presup-poses that species entanglements are operational or functional. More surreptitiously, a systematic view of the environment connotes it as bounded, knowable and made up of components operating in chains of cause and effect. This framing strongly invokes possibilities of manipulation and control and implicitly asks: what should an ecosystem be optimized for? This question is particularly relevant at a time of rapid climate change, mass extinction and, conveniently, an unprecedented surplus of computing.

Technology and the Historian

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Crymble
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Digital Humanities ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Scholarly Communication ◽  
Approaches To Teaching ◽  
The World ◽  
Digital Work ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many

After nearly a decade of scholars trying to define digital work, this book makes the case for a need instead to understand the history of technology’s relationship with historical studies. It does so through a series of case studies that show some of the many ways that technology and historians have come together around the world and over the decades. Often left out of the historiography, the digital age has been transformative for historians, touching on research agendas, approaches to teaching and learning, scholarly communication, and the nature of the archive itself. Bringing together histories and philosophies of the field, with a genre of works including private papers, Web archives, social media, and oral histories, this book lets the reader see the digital traces of the field as it developed. Importantly, it separates issues relevant to historians from activities under the purview of the much broader ‘digital humanities’ movement, in which historians’ voices are often drowned out by louder and more numerous literary scholars. To allow for flexible reading, each chapter tackles the history of a specific key theme, from research, to communication, to teaching. It argues that only by knowing their field’s own past can historians put technology to its best uses in the future.

Media Hot and Cold

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Starosielski
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
New Media ◽  
Thermal Environment ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
First Century ◽  
Air Conditioners ◽  
History Of ◽  
Infrared Cameras ◽  
The Many ◽  
And Control

In Media Hot and Cold Nicole Starosielski examines the cultural dimensions of temperature to theorize the ways heat and cold can be used as a means of communication, subjugation, and control. Diving into the history of thermal media, from infrared cameras to thermostats to torture sweatboxes, Starosielski explores the many meanings and messages of temperature. During the twentieth century, heat and cold were broadcast through mass thermal media. Today, digital thermal media such as bodily air conditioners offer personalized forms of thermal communication and comfort. Although these new media promise to help mitigate the uneven effects of climate change, Starosielski shows how they can operate as a form of biopower by determining who has the ability to control their own thermal environment. In this way, thermal media can enact thermal violence in ways that reinforce racialized, colonial, gendered, and sexualized hierarchies. By outlining how the control of temperature reveals power relations, Starosielski offers a framework to better understand the dramatic transformations of hot and cold media in the twenty-first century.

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