7. Fluid Histories

2020 ◽  
pp. 85-100
Author(s):  
Prasenjit Duara
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Human History ◽  
Temporal Scales ◽  
Natural Histories

In Chapter 7, Prasenjit Duara thinks with the circulating waters of oceans to articulate the complex confluence of human and natural histories, particularly with reference to Asian contexts. Whereas the fragmentation of human and natural histories contributes to ethical and political failures to address environmental issues, Duara’s oceanic metaphor demonstrates how human history, including the study of history (i.e., historiography), overlaps with natural history, while these histories nonetheless operate on different temporal scales.

Michael Clegg (1933–1995): from naturalist to environmental correspondent in the multi-media age

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. G. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Biodiversity Conservation ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Scientific Background ◽  
The Media ◽  
Multi Media

The coverage of natural history in British newspapers has evolved from a “Nature notes” format – usually a regular column submitted by a local amateur naturalist – to professional, larger-format, presentations by dedicated environmental correspondents. Not all such environmental correspondents, however, have natural-history expertise or even a scientific background. Yorkshire's Michael Clegg was a man who had a life-long love of nature wedded to a desire to communicate that passion. He moved from a secure position in the museum world (with a journalistic sideline) to become a freelance newspaper journalist and (subsequently) commentator on radio and television dealing with, and campaigning on, environmental issues full-time. As such, he exemplified the transition in how natural history coverage in the media evolved in the final decades of the twentieth century reflecting modern concerns about biodiversity, conservation, pollution and sustainable development.

Anthropology and the Anthropocene: Criticisms, Experiments, and Collaborations

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew S. Mathews
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Human Impacts ◽  
Ecological Models ◽  
World Systems ◽  
Temporal Scales ◽  
The World ◽  
Capitalist World ◽  
Natural Histories ◽  
Historical Epoch

The Anthropocene, a proposed name for a geological epoch marked by human impacts on global ecosystems, has inspired anthropologists to critique, to engage in theoretical and methodological experimentation, and to develop new forms of collaboration. Critics are concerned that the term Anthropocene overemphasizes human mastery or erases differential human responsibilities, including imperialism, capitalism, and racism, and new forms of technocratic governance. Others find the term helpful in drawing attention to disastrous environmental change, inspiring a reinvigorated attention to the ontological unruliness of the world, to multiple temporal scales, and to intertwined social and natural histories. New forms of noticing can be linked to systems analytics, including capitalist world systems, structural comparisons of patchy landscapes, infrastructures and ecological models, emerging sociotechnical assemblages, and spirits. Rather than a historical epoch defined by geologists, the Anthropocene is a problem that is pulling anthropologists into new forms of noticing and analysis, and into experiments and collaborations beyond anthropology.

Spiders, Ants, and Bees

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 27-51
Author(s):  
Doina-Cristina Rusu ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
The Other ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Middle Way ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Natural Histories

This paper argues that the methodology Francis Bacon used in his natural histories abides by the theoretical commitments presented in his methodological writings. On the one hand, Bacon advocated a middle way between idle speculation and mere gathering of facts. On the other hand, he took a strong stance against the theorisation based on very few facts. Using two of his sources whom Bacon takes to be the reflection of these two extremes—Giambattista della Porta as an instance of idle speculations, and Hugh Platt as an instance of gathering facts without extracting knowledge—I show how Bacon chose the middle way, which consists of gathering facts and gradually extracting theory out of them. In addition, it will become clear how Bacon used the expertise of contemporary practitioners to criticise fantastical theories and purge natural history of misconceived notions and false speculations.

scholarly journals “None of Them Could Say They Ever Had Seen Them, but Only Had It from Others”: Encounters with Animals in Eighteenth-Century Natural Histories of Greenland

Animals ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 2024
Author(s):  
Helen Parish
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Christian Mission ◽  
Modern Natural ◽  
The World ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Natural Histories

The pages of early modern natural histories expose the plasticity of the natural world, and the variegated nature of the encounter between human and animal in this period. Descriptions of the flora and fauna reflect this kind of negotiated encounter between the world that is seen, that which is heard about, and that which is constructed from the language of the sacred text of scripture. The natural histories of Greenland that form the basis of this analysis exemplify the complexity of human–animal encounters in this period, and the intersections that existed between natural and unnatural, written authority and personal testimony, and culture, belief, and ethnography in natural histories. They invite a more nuanced understanding of the ways in which animals and people interact in the making of culture, and demonstrate the contribution made by such texts to the study of animal encounters, cultures, and concepts. This article explores the intersection between natural history and the work of Christian mission in the eighteenth century, and the connections between personal encounter, ethnography, history, and oral and written tradition. The analysis demonstrates that European natural histories continued to be anthropocentric in content and tone, the product of what was believed, as much as what was seen.

scholarly journals An analysis of inclusion gaps in sustainable development themes: Findings from a review of recent social work literature

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 864-876 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah M Bexell ◽  
Jessica L Decker Sparks ◽  
Jacqueline Tejada ◽  
Andreas Rechkemmer
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Human History ◽  
Inclusion Criteria ◽  
Health And Well Being

Recently, humans have negatively altered ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any other time in human history, contributing to gains in well-being and economic development for some, while threatening the security of most, particularly oppressed populations. We comprehensively reviewed recent social work literature (2010–2015) to examine gaps in environmental sustainability themes relevant to social work practice. Peer-reviewed manuscripts, dissertations/theses and white papers were examined. A total of 71 papers (less than 1% of social work literature) met inclusion criteria. Although our call is to protect human health and well-being, recent literature does not account for sustainability even with evidence that environmental issues directly impact clients, hindering practice efficacy.

The Communication of Hit Quality Using Natural History Visualizations (NHVs)

2021 ◽  
pp. 247255522110175
Author(s):  
Kathryn M. Nelson ◽  
Michael A. Walters
Keyword(s):  
Case Report ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Physicochemical Properties ◽  
Retrospective Analysis ◽  
High Throughput ◽  
High Throughput Screening ◽  
Active Compounds ◽  
Historical Literature ◽  
Integral Component ◽  
Natural Histories

High-throughput screening (HTS) often yields a list of compounds that requires prioritization before further work is performed. Prioritization criteria typically include activity, selectivity, physicochemical properties, and other absolute or calculated measurements of compound “value.” One critical method of compound prioritization is often not discussed in published accounts of HTS. We have referred to this oft-overlooked metric as “compound natural history.” These natural histories are observational evaluations of how a compound has been reported in the historical literature or compound databases. The purpose of this work was to develop a useful natural history visualization (NHV) that could form a standard, important part of hit reporting and evaluation. In this case report, we propose an efficient and effective NHV that will assist in the prioritization of active compounds and demonstrate its utility using a retrospective analysis of reported hits. We propose that this method of compound natural history evaluation be adopted in HTS triage and become an integral component of published reports of HTS outcomes.

Hölderlin's Philosophy of Nature

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Human History ◽  
Poetic Form ◽  
Philosophy Of Nature ◽  
Friedrich Hölderlin

In an age of climate change, the work of the decidedly philosophical poet Friedrich Hölderlin has gained renewed urgency in its emphasis on the forces of nature that produce life and at the same time threaten to devour it. Although Hölderlin gives these forces various names throughout his poetry (e.g., Zeus and the Titans, love and strife, Father Aether and the depths), on one point he remains clear. Human history is bound up with natural history, and it falls to the poet to strike a balance between opposing tendencies. The thirteen essays by distinguished scholars in this volume analyse Hölderlin’s concept of nature and its relation to his poetry, theory of tragedy, essays on poetic form and notion of divinity.

Human history as natural history

1988 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-110
Author(s):  
Lee Cronk
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Human History

scholarly journals VICTORIAN ECOCRITICISM FOR THE ANTHROPOCENE

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 667-684 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Williams
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Human History ◽  
Media Archaeology ◽  
The Earth

How might literary and cultural spheres intersect with the Anthropocene, the epoch — however defined — of humanity's detectable influence at geological scale? What forms, genres, objects, and methodological lenses might prove most fertile in mediating between the concept's abstraction and its concrete entailments for literary and cultural history? Such questions have already commissioned a range of critical projects that attempt to reframe the Anthropocene itself: as a trope of science fiction, given how humans are “terraforming” the planet (Heise 215–20); as an object for media archaeology, considering the “signatures” that our aggregate actions are leaving in the physical strata of the earth (Boes and Marshall 64–67); and as a challenge to the categorical distinctions by which historical study is practiced, with its blurring of “human history” and “natural history” (Chakrabarty 201–07).

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