Icecapades

Peak Pursuits ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 115-148
Author(s):  
Caroline Schaumann
Keyword(s):  
The Public ◽  
Scientific Curiosity ◽  
The Alps ◽  
James David Forbes ◽  
Public Imagination ◽  
Louis Agassiz

This chapter focuses on James David Forbes and Louis Agassiz, two glaciologists that fueled a passion for ice and snow that prominently figured in the public imagination. It looks into Agassiz's “Études sur les glaciers” and its accompanying atlas of thirty-two plates that stirred sublime awe and scientific curiosity. It also talks about how Forbes, in contrast to Agassiz, fashioned his “Travels Through the Alps of Savoy” in a format and style after Horace-Bénédict de Saussure's publication as a reference for both scientists and mountaineers. The chapter emphasizes how Forbes and Louis Agassiz's works divulge their infatuation with glaciers as a highly dynamic, volatile, and agentic environment. It also discloses Elizabeth Cabot Agassiz who assumed Agassiz's legacy after his death in December 1873 by publishing “Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence.”

Poetic Science and Competitive Vigor

Peak Pursuits ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 174-208
Author(s):  
Caroline Schaumann
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Spiritual Dimension ◽  
The Alps ◽  
John Tyndall ◽  
James David Forbes ◽  
Physical Recovery ◽  
Louis Agassiz

This chapter looks at Edward Whymper's best-selling “Scrambles Amongst the Alps” in 1871. It reveals how Whymper's book is unmistakably shaped by Alexander von Humboldt's discourse, prefaced by literary quotes, and brimmed with references to Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, James David Forbes, Louis Agassiz, and Leslie Stephen. It also emphasizes Whymper's engagement to nineteenth-century traditions while pointing ahead to the nationally tinged race for first ascents in the twentieth century. The chapter mentions Irish physicist John Tyndall, Whymper's contemporary and rival, who climbed with competitive vigor but praised challenges in the mountains as mental and physical recovery from his work in London. It examines Tyndall's writings that shaped the representation and consumption of mountaineering by imbuing the sport with a spiritual dimension.

Epilogue

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cassandra L. Yacovazzi
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
The Public ◽  
Monastic Life ◽  
The Common ◽  
Public Imagination ◽  
Maria Monk ◽  
People Today

Nuns in popular media today are a staple of kitsch culture, evident in the common appearance of bobble-head nuns, nun costumes, and nun caricatures on TV, movies, and the stage. Nun stereotypes include the sexy vixen, the naïve innocent, and the scary nun. These types were forged in nineteenth-century convent narratives. While people today may not recognize the name “Maria Monk,” her legacy lives on in the public imagination. There may be no demands to search convents, but nuns and monastic life are nevertheless generally not taken seriously. This epilogue traces opposition to nuns from the Civil War to the present, analyzing the various images of nuns in popular culture as they relate to the antebellum campaign against convents. It argues that the source of the misunderstanding about nuns is rooted in the inability to categorize these women either as traditional wives and mothers or as secular, career-driven singles.

Living machines in our cultural imagination

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Szollosy
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Cultural Imagination ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Future ◽  
Public Imagination ◽  
The Human Condition

Public perceptions of robots and artificial intelligence (AI)—both positive and negative—are hopelessly misinformed, based far too much on science fiction rather than science fact. However, these fictions can be instructive, and reveal to us important anxieties that exist in the public imagination, both towards robots and AI and about the human condition more generally. These anxieties are based on little-understood processes (such as anthropomorphization and projection), but cannot be dismissed merely as inaccuracies in need of correction. Our demonization of robots and AI illustrate two-hundred-year-old fears about the consequences of the Enlightenment and industrialization. Idealistic hopes projected onto robots and AI, in contrast, reveal other anxieties, about our mortality—and the transhumanist desire to transcend the limitations of our physical bodies—and about the future of our species. This chapter reviews these issues and considers some of their broader implications for our future lives with living machines.

Perspectives

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Szollosy
Keyword(s):  
New Technologies ◽  
Human Relationships ◽  
Cultural Imagination ◽  
Personal Lives ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Organizations ◽  
The Social ◽  
Human Augmentation ◽  
Public Imagination

This chapter introduces the “Perspectives” section of the Handbook of Living Machines offering an overview of the different contributions gathered here that consider how biomimetic and biohybrid systems will transform our personal lives and social organizations, and how we might respond to the challenges that these transformations will inevitably pose to our ‘posthuman’ worlds. The authors in this section see it as essential that those who aspire to create living machines engage with the public to confront misconceptions, deep anxieties, and unrealistic aspirations that presently dominate the cultural imagination, and to include potential users in questions of design and utility as new technologies are being developed. Human augmentation and enhancement are other important themes addressed, raising important questions about what it means fundamentally to be ‘human’. These questions and challenges are addressed through the lens of the social and personal impacts of new technologies on human selves, the public imagination, ethics, and human relationships.

Democracy and Its Limits: Gender and Rights in the Czech Lands, 1918–1938

2002 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 553-570 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Feinberg
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Ethnic Nationalism ◽  
New Era ◽  
The Public ◽  
Universal Language ◽  
National Ideology ◽  
Democratic Nation ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Czech Lands ◽  
Public Imagination

On 28 October 1918, a group of Czech nationalists stood on the steps of the Obecni Dům (Municipal House) in Prague and proclaimed their independence from the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, allying themselves with the new state of Czechoslovakia. Their declaration marked the beginning of a new era in the Czech lands, one in which Czechs, as the majority nation, hoped to redefine the terms of political discourse. The new Czechoslovak Republic, its Czech supporters declared, would be the antithesis of the Habsburg regime. In the place of a multinational Monarchy, they would erect a democratic nation-state. The second half of this political vision was complicated by the fact that the new Czechoslovakia actually contained many ethnic groups, but Czechs still tended to imagine their new Republic as the political expression of the Czech nation. At the same time, this “Czech-centered” politics also emphasized the democratic basis of the new country. Czechoslovakia, Czech leaders said, would be a state governed by its people and dedicated to protecting their rights and freedoms as individuals. A political culture that rested on both ethnic nationalism and democratic values obviously contained some internal tensions: the need to protect the interests of one specific nation and the duty to protect the individual rights of all citizens could rub uncomfortably against each other. Yet, at that moment in 1918, most Czechs failed to register this potential for ideological conflict, instead seeing an essential link between democratic politics and the good of the Czech nation. For many Czechs, democracy itself was a need of the nation, a political structure crucial to Czech national self-realization. This idea came from one prominent conception of Czech nationhood that had captured the public imagination in the fall of 1918. According to this strain of Czech national ideology, the Czech nation had a sort of democratic character. This meant that only an egalitarian, democratic government would suit a “Czech” state. So, paradoxically, a universal language of rights and freedoms was the key to building a truly national Czechoslovak Republic. It was with a state that emphasized equality and personal freedom that the Czechs would fulfill their national destiny.

Recognition and transformation: Beyond media discourses on the BRICS

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Dwyer ◽  
Olivier Arifon
Keyword(s):  
Political Elites ◽  
The Public ◽  
Brics Countries ◽  
The Press ◽  
New Development ◽  
Multilateral Institution ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Discourses ◽  
Research Initiatives ◽  
Public Imagination

Based on literature review and interviews with journalists, we argue that the BRICS countries are constructing a collective vision, guided by logics of recognition and of transformation. The production of discourse reaches its high point during the BRICS leaders’ summits. To go beyond analysis of the discourse revealed in the media, this article examines projects, thereby aiming to qualify and label the justificatory discourses, in order to develop an understanding of intentions. The BRICS countries have become a reference point as the press increasingly makes comparisons between these countries. The notion of recognition, present in the political elites, also appears as a part of the public imagination and in the press. The leaders too seek transformation. The first official multilateral institution founded by the BRICS countries was the New Development Bank. Current efforts indicate the development of common scientific and technological research initiatives and official support for the establishment of an innovative BRICS Network University. Initiatives will appear as these countries try to consolidate their position.

scholarly journals In Visible Families: Gay Fatherhood and the Politics of Family Change

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Carroll
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Community Settings ◽  
The Public ◽  
Gay Fathers ◽  
Gay Parents ◽  
White Middle Class ◽  
The Media ◽  
Family Inequality ◽  
Public Imagination

Who counts as a gay father? The answer to this question reaches beyond demographics, encompassing histories of family inequality, LGBTQ identity, and social movements. Presentations of gay fathers in the media and scholarship are often skewed toward white, middle-class, coupled men who became parents via adoption or surrogacy. Yet the demographic majority of gay parents continue to have children in heterosexual unions. My dissertation research uses ethnographic and interview data to argue that contemporary narratives of gay fatherhood have prematurely dismissed gay parents who have children in heterosexual unions. The choice to exclude gay fathers via heterosexual unions can be attributed to emerging narratives of LGBTQ identity and political strategies of the marriage equality movement. The consequences of gay fathers’ disproportionate visibility have led to a stratified system of access to gay parenting resources. By identifying the mechanisms that undermine gay fathers’ diversity in the public imagination and in gay parenting community settings, my dissertation amplifies the voices of marginalized gay fathers and offers an intersectional approach to the study of LGBTQ families through a social movements framework.

Profitable Patriotism

2019 ◽  
pp. 73-96
Author(s):  
Patrick Warfield
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Great Lakes ◽  
World War ◽  
The Public ◽  
To Come ◽  
Public Imagination ◽  
Training Station

World War I gave John Philip Sousa, always an astute businessman, several opportunities to reshape his image and rebuild his career. Sousa embraced first neutrality, and then preparedness, notably in championing “Wake Up, America” during his residency at New York’s Hippodrome. When the country entered the war, Sousa was acclaimed for his quintessential patriotism, and he enlisted in the Naval Reserve to train bandsmen at the Great Lakes Training Station. He even changed his appearance, shaving off his celebrated beard; and he joined in anti-German jingoism, writing a wedding march as a substitute for Wagner and Mendelssohn. By war’s end, he had recaptured the public imagination and rebuilt his legend for the years to come.

The Use of Big Data in Marketing Analytics

2021 ◽  
pp. 62-78
Author(s):  
Chai-Lee Goi
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Business Intelligence ◽  
The Public ◽  
Marketing Analytics ◽  
Literature Reviews ◽  
Data Architecture ◽  
The Future ◽  
Public Imagination

Big data has broken through the public imagination, has revolutionised the process through which business find innovative ways, and has transformed the data into valuable information that will shape business intelligence and gain business insights to make better decisions. The purpose of this study is to review the development of big data, architecture, and the use of big data in marketing analytics. From the analysis of literature reviews, a big data in marketing analytics model has been proposed. In using big data in marketing, marketers need balanced analytics and then identify opportunities for improvement based on reporting or analysing past and present big data to predict and influence the future.

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