Fukushima Fiction: The Literary Landscape of Japan's Triple Disaster by Rachel DiNitto, and: The Earth Writes: The Great Earthquake and the Novel in Post–3/11 Japan by Koichi Haga

2021 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 259-266
Author(s):  
Karen Thornber
Keyword(s):  
Great Earthquake ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Earth

Dombey and Son

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Dickens ◽  
Dennis Walder
Keyword(s):  
Family Relationships ◽  
The Sun ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Future ◽  
Original Illustrations ◽  
The One

Dombey and Son ... Those three words conveyed the one idea of Mr. Dombey's life. The earth was made for Dombey and Son to trade in, and the sun and moon were made to give them light.' The hopes of Mr Dombey for the future of his shipping firm are centred on his delicate son Paul, and Florence, his devoted daughter, is unloved and neglected. When the firm faces ruin, and Dombey's second marriage ends in disaster, only Florence has the strength and humanity to save her father from desolate solitude. This new edition contains Dickens's prefaces, his working plans, and all the original illustrations by ‘Phiz’. The text is that of the definitive Clarendon edition. It has been supplemented by a wide-ranging Introduction, highlighting Dickens's engagement with his times, and the touching exploration of family relationships which give the novel added depth and relevance.

scholarly journals Moving Lightly over the Earth

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanni Spissu
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
The Novel ◽  
World War ◽  
Unemployed People ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Ethnographic Observation ◽  
The Future ◽  
Specific Meaning ◽  
The Town

In the novel The Rings of Saturn (1995), the German writer W. G. Sebald recounts his solitary journey to the town of Suffolk (UK) at the end of his years, while he also reflects on some of the dramatic events that shaped World War II and his personal memories. In this work, he takes on a particular narrative tactic defined by the interaction between the text and images that creates a special type of montage in which he seems to draw from cinematic language. I argue that, drawing on Sebald’s work, we can imagine a form of ethnographic observation that involves the creation of a cinematic map through which to explore the memories and imagination of individuals in relation to places where they live. I explore the day-to-day lived experiences of unemployed people of Sulcis Iglesiente, through their everyday engagement with, and situated perceptions of, their territory. I describe the process that led me to build Moving Lightly over the Earth, a cinematic map of Sulcis Iglesiente through which I explored how women and men in the area who lost their jobs as a result of the process of its deindustrialization give specific meaning to the territory, relating it to memories of their past and hopes and desires for the future.

scholarly journals When Earth Matters: Bessie Head’s When Rain Clouds Gather

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 448-455
Author(s):  
Gerd Bayer
Keyword(s):  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
First Century ◽  
Cultural Conflict ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Agricultural Revolution ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
Cultural Forms ◽  
Twenty First Century

Abstract This essay discusses Bessie Head’s When Rain Clouds Gather from an ecocritical perspective, asking how her late 1960s’ novel already anticipated some of the politics of early twenty-first-century environmental thinking in the postcolonial sphere. The alliance of various marginalized characters who, one way or another, violate against existing hegemonic structures replaces the ideological and cultural conflict over territory, which derived directly from the colonialist past, with an agricultural revolution that aims to empower those who most closely resemble the subaltern classes variously theorized in postcolonial theory. This re-turn to the physical or even Real, to the materiality of the earth, opens up an alternative to the cultural essentialism that, from its beginning, created numerous stumbling stones on the path towards decolonization. Through its turn towards farming and the land and away from cultural forms of hegemony, the novel emphasizes the materiality of reality.

scholarly journals Naturalcultural Hybridity and Becoming: Andrus Kivirähk’s The Man Who Spoke Snakish in a Material Ecocritical Perspective // Hibridismo naturocultural y transformación: The Man Who Spoke Snakish desde la ecocrítica material

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-57
Author(s):  
Maris Sõrmus
Keyword(s):  
The Novel ◽  
Solid Ground ◽  
Nature And Culture ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Village Life

The article takes a material ecocritical view on contemporary Estonian literature—Andrus Kivirähk’s The Man Who Spoke Snakish. The canonical novel, which focuses on the forest life being replaced with village life as well as the extinction of snakish, or, snake language, has importantly been classified as “the first Estonian eco-novel” (Hasselblatt 1262). In this light, I discuss the ways that nature emerges in new materialist terms as a subject, tangled with culture, challenging normative understandings of humanity. Particularly interesting is the fluid border of nature and culture, which suggests their reciprocal becoming. First, naturalcultural hybridity becomes manifest in the blurring of voices. Snakes emerge as the ancient brothers of humans, speaking with the last forest dwellers, while the protagonist speaks snakish and resembles a snake. The hybridity is further represented through the grandfather, human apes, and the protagonist’s sister. Above all, a hybrid “natureculture” is portrayed through Meeme, who resembles human “turf” and dissolves in nature, foregrounding the trans-corporeal naturalcultural entanglement. As Meeme becomes the earth, the novel suggests the intra-active becoming of the natural and the cultural, confirming the new materialist idea that there is no solid ground on which to stand but a dynamic world, where nature and culture finally still retreat into their own worlds.   Resumen   Este artículo analiza la obra The Man Who Spoke Snakish de Andrus Kivirähk, escritor estonio contemporáneo, desde una perspectiva ecocrítica materialista. Esta novela de culto, que se centra en la desaparición de la vida en el bosque y en la extinción del idioma de las serpientes, ha sido llamada “la primera econovela estonia” (Hasselblatt 1262). Teniendo esto en cuenta, observo cómo aparece la naturaleza como un sujeto entrelazado con la cultura, desafiando de esta manera el concepto normativo de ser humano. Es particularmente interesante el borroso límite entre naturaleza y cultura, haciendo hincapié en su transformación recíproca. En primer lugar, se manifiesta el hibridismo naturocultural en la mezcla de las voces. Las serpientes, hermanos de los humanos, hablan con los últimos habitantes del bosque, mientras que el protagonista habla el idioma de las serpientes y se parece a una serpiente. El mismo hibridismo es también evidente en la figura del abuelo, los simios y la hermana del protagonista. No obstante, la máxima declaración del hibridismo naturocultural es Meeme, que se parece a un pasto humano disolviéndose en la naturaleza y destacando el entrelazamiento transcorporal y naturocultural. Así como Meeme se convierte en tierra, la novela enfatiza la interacción del bosque y el pueblo reflejando una nueva comprensión materialista según la cual la naturaleza y la cultura se funden para formar un solo concepto.

scholarly journals A Novel Geo-Inspired Earthquake Optimization Algorithm

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Efrain Mendez ◽  
Alexandro Ortiz ◽  
Pedro Ponce ◽  
Arturo Molina
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic Balance ◽  
Engineering Application ◽  
Bat Algorithm ◽  
Search Space ◽  
Optimization Method ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Exploration And Exploitation ◽  
Swarm Optimization ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Early Results

A novel metaheuristic optimization method is proposed based on an earthquake that is a geology phenomenon. The novel Earthquake Algorithm (EA) proposed, adapts the principle of propagation of geology waves P and S through the earth material composed by random density to ensure the dynamic balance between exploration and exploitation, in order to reach the best solution to optimization complex problems by searching for the optimum into the search space. The performance and validation of the EA are compared against the Bat Algorithm (BA) and the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) by using 10 diverse benchmark functions. In addition, an experimental engineering application is implemented to evaluate the proposed algorithm. Early results show a feasibility of the proposed method with a clearly constancy and stability. It is important highlight the fact that the main purpose of this paper is to present a new line of research, which is opened from the novel EA.

scholarly journals Rape of a Nation: An Eco-critical Reading of Helon Habila’s Oil on Water

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (9) ◽  
pp. 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Solomon Adedokun Edebor
Keyword(s):  
Niger Delta ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Analysis Method ◽  
Safe Place ◽  
Sociological Approach ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Living Things ◽  
Content Analysis Method ◽  
Ecological Implications ◽  
The Masses

<p>A number of literary and linguistic researches have been carried out on post-independent Nigerian quagmire. The concerns of some of these studies range from investigating many of the topical issues that have come to define the country, particularly with regard to the issues of bad governance and socio-economic oppression, to the roles played by the masses in aggravating the nation’s predicaments. However, not many critics and scholars have paid the deserved attention to the ecological concerns of Nigerian novelists. This paper, therefore, examines Helon Habila’s Oil on Water as a testament to the environmental mindfulness of Nigerian novelists. The choice of Oil on Water is informed by the fact that there is a dearth of serious scholarly research on the novel. Using the sociological approach and adopting a content analysis method, this study finds out that Habila is not oblivious of the ecological implications of man’s exploitative tendencies on earth’s resources as he makes bare the grim effects of Man’s reckless actions on the environment, the society and other living things, thereby rousing the consciousness of his readers as a way of forcing them to contribute their quota towards making the earth a safe place to live in, free from further gratuitous exploitations by a few to the disadvantage of many. It is, nevertheless, found out that the author fails to suggest pragmatic solutions to the staggering challenges confronting the oil-polluted and violence-ridden nation of Niger Delta.</p>

Ecofeminism and Post-Apocalyptic Environments in Roanhorse’s Trail of Lightning

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Talia Gukert
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Indigenous Women ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Apocalyptic Literature ◽  
Traditional Gender Roles ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Female Protagonist ◽  
Complete Reversal ◽  
And Gender

This paper examines the significance of post-apocalyptic narratives as a means of expressing deep-seated anxieties about colonialism, capitalism, and cultural erasure in Rebecca Roanhorse’s Trail of Lightning. By viewing the novel through an ecofeminist lens, I seek to illuminate and explain the political changes Roanhorse’s post-apocalyptic world, and how this new environment allows for the transformation of social and gender structures of power. The theory of ecofeminism relies upon the belief that both women and nature are equally compromised and exploited by the patriarchy, constrained by the masculine forces of colonialization and capitalism. By situating her novel in a post-apocalyptic environment, Roanhorse implies that just as the earth has asserted its power over the effects of unrestricted capitalism through the consequences of global warming, Indigenous women have similarly taken back their powers of autonomy, liberating themselves from traditional gender roles. This paper shows how the connection between women and nature is most evident in the novel’s female protagonist, Maggie, who has been able to aggressively deviate from traditional gender norms and expectations due to the apocalypse. Through this complete reversal of common gender tropes in post-apocalyptic literature, Roanhorse demonstrates that the apocalypse has proven to be instrumental in freeing women from the constraints of gender roles, advocating the ecofeminist view that cooperation between women and nature is necessary for the liberation of both.

Revisiting the Mercator World Map of 1569: an Assessment of Navigational Accuracy

2016 ◽  
Vol 69 (6) ◽  
pp. 1183-1196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joaquim Alves Gaspar
Keyword(s):  
New World ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Square Grid ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Mercator Projection

An assessment of the navigational accuracy of the Mercator world map of 1569 is made, aimed at better understanding how the information was adapted from the contemporary cartography. At the time the map was engraved, navigational charts were constructed on the basis of astronomically-observed latitudes, magnetic courses and estimated distances between places. Before this information could be incorporated into the new world map it should be first transformed in such a way that the longitudinal spacings between places were restored to their correct values, as defined on the surface of the Earth. The question of whether Mercator performed such transformations or just considered that the positions were approximately correct has hitherto never been addressed in the literature. It is demonstrated in this article that Mercator was not fully aware of the complexity of the contemporary charts – which he considered to implicitly comprise a square grid of meridians and parallels – and that all planimetric information was directly imported to the novel world map without correction. It is further shown that the Mercator projection was not compatible with the navigational methods of the time.

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