Introduction

Big Sur ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shelley Alden Brooks
Keyword(s):  
National Park ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
The West ◽  
Central Coast ◽  
Cultural Symbol ◽  
Big Sur ◽  
Hybrid Space ◽  
Tourist Demand ◽  
The Way

For seventy miles along California’s central coast stretches an exceptional landscape known as Big Sur. Looming mountains, precipitous cliffs, deep canyons, towering redwoods, abundant wildlife, and an expansive ocean are all defining features of this prized coastline. Big Sur’s timeless landscape compelled California legislators to cater to the growing auto-tourist demand of the 1920s by penetrating the isolated Big Sur with the Carmel–San Simeon Highway, later known as Highway 1. For over seventy-five years, this ribbon of road, etched into the Santa Lucia Mountains, has delivered millions of admirers to the dramatic Big Sur coastline. They seek contact with a landscape that possesses qualities similar to those of a national park, but they also come to Big Sur because it has long been a cultural symbol of California and the West, a place rife with meaning in contemporary society. Big Sur’s pioneering preservation model—developed by residents and local and state officials—is key to its mystique. Big Sur occupies a hybrid space somewhere between American ideals of development and wilderness. It is a space that challenges the way most Americans think of nature, its relationship to people, and what, in fact, makes it “wild.”

Big Sur

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shelley Alden Brooks
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Real Estate ◽  
First Century ◽  
The West ◽  
Cultural Symbol ◽  
Big Sur ◽  
Monterey County ◽  
Ansel Adams ◽  
The Way

Big Sur embodies much of what has defined California since the mid-twentieth century. A remote, inaccessible, and undeveloped pastoral landscape until 1937, Big Sur quickly became a cultural symbol of California and the West—and a home to the ultra-wealthy. This transformation was due in part to writers and artists such as Robinson Jeffers and Ansel Adams, who created an enduring mystique for this coastline. But Big Sur’s prized coastline is also the product of the pioneering efforts of residents and Monterey County officials, who forged a collaborative public/private preservation model for Big Sur that foreshadowed the shape of California coastal preservation in the twenty-first century. Big Sur’s well-preserved vistas and high-end real estate situate this coastline somewhere between American ideals of development and wilderness. It is a space that challenges the way most Americans think of nature, its relationship to people, and what, in fact, makes it “wild.” This book highlights today’s complex and ambiguous intersections of class, the environment, and economic development through the lens of an iconic California landscape.

Ron Rash

2020 ◽  
pp. 573-579
Keyword(s):  
National Park ◽  
The Sun ◽  
The West ◽  
Biographical Information ◽  
Mountain Communities ◽  
Smoky Mountains ◽  
The Way

For biographical information on Ron Rash, see the headnote that accompanies his poetry in this anthology. In “The Ascent,” from Burning Bright (2010), Rash explores how methamphetamine addiction has damaged individuals, families, and mountain communities. Jared had never been this far before, over Sawmill Ridge and across a creek glazed with ice, then past the triangular metal sign that said smoky mountains national park. If it had still been snowing and his tracks were being covered up, he’d have turned back. People had gotten lost in this park. Children wandered off from family picnics, hikers strayed off trails. Sometimes it took days to find them. But today the sun was out, the sky deep and blue. No more snow would fall, so it would be easy to retrace his tracks. Jared heard a helicopter hovering somewhere to the west, which meant they still hadn’t found the airplane. They’d been searching all the way from Bryson City to the Tennessee line, or so he’d heard at school....

Our Most Troubling Madness

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Defeat ◽  
Social World ◽  
Epidemiological Evidence ◽  
The West ◽  
Social Settings ◽  
The Social ◽  
Brain Alteration ◽  
Benign Course ◽  
Cultural Features ◽  
The Way

This book examines the way schizophrenia is shaped by its social context: how life is lived with this madness in different settings, and what it is about those settings that alters the course of the illness, its outcome, and even the structure of its symptoms. Until recently, schizophrenia was perhaps our best example—our poster child—for the “bio-bio-bio” model of psychiatric illness: genetic cause, brain alteration, pharmacologic treatment. We now have direct epidemiological evidence that people are more likely to fall ill with schizophrenia in some social settings than in others, and more likely to recover in some social settings than in others. Something about the social world gets under the skin. This book presents twelve case studies written by psychiatric anthropologists that help to illustrate some of the variability in the social experience of schizophrenia and that illustrate the main hypotheses about the different experience of schizophrenia in the west and outside the west--and in particular, why schizophrenia seems to have a more benign course and outcome in India. We argue that above all it is the experience of “social defeat” that increases the risk and burden of schizophrenia, and that opportunities for social defeat are more abundant in the modern west. There is a new role for anthropology in the science of schizophrenia. Psychiatric science has learned—epidemiologically, empirically, quantitatively—that our social world makes a difference. But the highly structured, specific-variable analytic methods of standard psychiatric science cannot tell us what it is about culture that has that impact. The careful observation enabled by rich ethnography allows us to see in more detail what kinds of social and cultural features may make a difference to a life lived with schizophrenia. And if we understand culture’s impact more deeply, we believe that we may improve the way we reach out to help those who struggle with our most troubling madness.

The Mistaken Identification of “The West” with “Modernity”

1996 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
John Obert Voll
Keyword(s):  
World History ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
The West ◽  
Islamic World ◽  
Historical Perspectives ◽  
Important Impact ◽  
Mistaken Identification ◽  
Nature Ofthe ◽  
Made In ◽  
The Way

The relationships between Islam and the West are complex. Even theperceptions of those relations have an important impact on the nature ofthe interactions. If the basic images that are used in discussing “Islam andthe West” are themselves ill-defiied or viewed in inconsistent ways, therelationships themselves are affected in sometimes dangerous ways.Inconsistent and contradictory terms of analysis can lead to misunderstandingand conflict.One of the most frequent conceptual mistakes made in discussingIslam and the West in the modem era is the identification of “the West”with “modemity.” This mistake has a significant impact on the way peeple view the processes of modernization in the Islamic world as well as onthe way people interpret the relationships between Islam and the West inthe contemporary era.The basic generalizations resulting from the following analysis can bestated simply: 1) “modernity“ is not uniquely “western”; 2) “the West” isnot simply “modernity”; and 3) the identifixation of “the West” with“modemity” has important negative consequences for understanding therelationships between Islam and the West. Modernity and the West aretwo different concepts and historic entities. To use the terms interchangeablyis to invite unnecessary confusion and create possible conflict’andinconsistency. This article will address the problem of definition and theapplication of the defined terms to interpreting actual experiences andrelationships.Understanding the difficulties raised by the identification of theWest with modernity involves a broader analysis within the frameworkof world history and global historical perspectives. In such an analysis, ...

Managing rivers for conservation and ecotourism in the Kruger National Park

1995 ◽  
Vol 32 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 227-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. J. Venter ◽  
A. R. Deacon
Keyword(s):  
National Park ◽  
Good Condition ◽  
Kruger National Park ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
Natural Environments ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Management Actions ◽  
Flow Through ◽  
Three Rivers

Six major rivers flow through the Kruger National Park (KNP). All these rivers originate outside and to the west of the KNP and are highly utilized. They are crucially important for the conservation of the unique natural environments of the KNP. The human population growth in the Lowveld during the past two decades brought with it the rapid expansion of irrigation farming, exotic afforestation and land grazed by domestic stock, as well as the establishment of large towns, mines, dams and industries. Along with these developments came overgrazing, erosion, over-utilization and pollution of rivers, as well as clearing of indigenous forests from large areas outside the borders of the KNP. Over-utilization of the rivers which ultimately flow through the KNP poses one of the most serious challenges to the KNP's management. This paper gives the background to the development in the catchments and highlights the problems which these have caused for the KNP. Management actions which have been taken as well as their results are discussed and solutions to certain problems proposed. Three rivers, namely the Letaba, Olifants and Sabie are respectively described as examples of an over-utilized river, a polluted river and a river which is still in a fairly good condition.

scholarly journals Interrogating Western Modernity: Postcolonial Reflections on Occidental Claims and Action

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ina Kerner
Keyword(s):  
Western Tradition ◽  
The West ◽  
Western Modernity ◽  
Gayatri Spivak ◽  
The Way

This paper deals with the way in which European modernity, and the West more generally, are reflected upon in the field of post- and decolonial theories, which generally question those representations of the European/Western tradition of thought and politics that only focus on their positive aspects, but differ greatly with regard to the way in which they frame and formulate their critique of this tradition. I discuss three major positions in this field. They are characterized by the rejection of Western modernity (Walter Mignolo), by a deconstruction of core text and principles of the European Enlightenment (Gayatri Spivak), and by attempts at a renewal and hence a radicalization of some of its core normative claims, particularly humanism (Achille Mbembe).

On the Way of Democracy’s Development: FRG and «Europe of Citizens»

2011 ◽  
pp. 33-43
Author(s):  
A. Sindeev
Keyword(s):  
Federal Republic ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Western Civilization ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
The West ◽  
Difficult Situation ◽  
Western European ◽  
Main Components ◽  
The Way

At a first glance, the article is treating a private issue, namely that of the feasibility of the concept of a “Europe of citizens” in the Federal Republic of Germany. However, while discussing it we have to analyze at least three fundamental issues. 1). What is the West German democracy? 2). How democracy and Western/European integration are interlinked? 3). To what extent the concept of a “Europe of citizens” is able to lead both integration and democracy from the currently difficult situation in which are these two main components of the contemporary Western civilization?

From Chiromancy to Psychochirology

Aries ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 246-270
Author(s):  
Alexandra H.M. Nagel
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The West ◽  
Novel Method ◽  
The Way ◽  
Fortune Telling

Abstract The works of Julius Spier, a pupil of C.G. Jung, provide a perfect case study illustrating the psychologization of chiromancy during the Interbellum. His case also highlights a lack of insight in the way in which hand-reading has evolved in Europe since the nineteenth century. After its appearance in the West, the art of reading hands has generally been referred to as chiromancy (hand divination, i.e. fortune-telling through reading the palm). Thanks to the work of the French captain Casimir S. d’ Arpentigny, published first in 1843, chirognomy (the study of hand forms) has become an important aspect of hand-reading. Afterwards, Adolphe Desbarrolles distinguished a chirognomic and a chiromantic aspect on a hand-analysis, whereupon either chirology (the study of the hand) or chirosophy (wisdom of the hand) became the umbrella terms for the “twin sciences” chiromancy and chirognomy. Spier, however, juxtaposed chirology and chiromancy before branching off with his novel method entitled psychochirology.

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