scholarly journals Plant Life and More-than-human Agency in Zainab Amadahy’s Resistance

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 79-91
Author(s):  
Paula Wieczorek
Keyword(s):  
Human Agency ◽  
Speculative Fiction ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Bruno Latour ◽  
Donna Haraway ◽  
Cultural Violence ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Plant Life ◽  
As If

For centuries humans have acted as if the environment was passive and as if the agency was related only to human beings. Both Indigenous and non-Indigenous writers, scholars, and artists express the need to narrate tales about the multitudes of the living earth, which can help perceive the Earth as vibrant and living. The following paper discusses Black/Cherokee Zainab Amadahy’s speculative fiction novel 2013 Resistance as an example of a story resisting the claim about human beings as the ultimate species. The paper initially scrutinizes the phenomena of “plant blindness” and then explores how Zainab Amadahy illustrates plant life in her book. Unlike in traditional literary depictions of botany, the writer presents tobacco as an active and responsive agent that influences the characters, which, consequently, opposes anthropocentrism. The article also addresses the cultural violence and disregard that has dominated the Western perception of animistic cultures and expresses the need to rethink the theory of animism. This paper draws from posthumanist writings by scholars including Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour, Jane Bennett, and Stacy Alaimo. It also refers to some of the most influential contributions to critical plant studies made by Indigenous thinkers such as Robin Wall Kimmerer’ s Braiding Sweetgrass (2013).

Ecological Time: Natures that Matter to Activism and Art

APRIA Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 166-183
Author(s):  
Monique Peperkamp
Keyword(s):  
Time Scales ◽  
Human History ◽  
Bruno Latour ◽  
Cultural Assumptions ◽  
Donna Haraway ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
Sense Of Time ◽  
Agent Of Change

The term 'Anthropocene' brings together a range of interrelated ecological catastrophes and relates human history to the time scales of the Earth. While dominant modes of thinking maintain technocratic notions of nature and time, art has (re)presented alternative proposals and practices that radically shift perception. To foreground and strengthen the power of art to challenge core cultural assumptions and motivate change, this text maps out the implications of philosophical positions often referred to by artists. I consider the ideas of Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour, Andreas Malm, Naomi Klein and T. J. Demos, and perform a more indepth inquiry of the aesthetics proposed by Timothy Morton. Two works of art are at the beginning and at the end of this inquiry: Progress vs. Regress (Progress II) and Nocturnal Gardening, both by Melanie Bonajo. A material sense of time appears to be pivotal for art as an agent of change.

The Apocalyptic Cosmos

2020 ◽  
pp. 37-63
Author(s):  
Mark Payne
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Mary Shelley ◽  
Speculative Fiction ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Occupation ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Last Man ◽  
The Last Man ◽  
Olaf Stapledon

This chapter examines how Mary Shelley refashions Hesiod's search for a continuous ground of humanness that persists through catastrophic transformations of the foundations of social life. It looks at Hesiod's Works and Days, which consists of survival instructions and ontological reflections on what it means for human beings to have to repeatedly rediscover themselves in the occupations of survival. It also mentions Shelley's critics who saw willful cruelty toward humankind in The Last Man. The chapter explains how Shelley brackets the question of motive in the destruction of humankind and makes herself a proxy of Nature in bringing the era of human occupation of the earth to an end. It mentions Olaf Stapledon, an English writer of speculative fiction that focuses on how human beings relate to cosmic forces that produce drastic transformations in their physical being and form of life.

STUDY OF ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS AMONG SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN RELATION TO THEIR GENDER AND ACADEMIC STREAM

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 262-265
Author(s):  
Dr.Navdeep Kaur
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Education ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Environmental Awareness ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
School Students ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Stages Of Learning ◽  
The Masses

Since its evolution environment has remained both a matter of awe and concern to man. The frontier attitude of the industrialized society towards nature has not only endangered the survival of all other life forms but also threatened the very existence of human life. The realization of such potential danger has necessitated the dissemination of knowledge and skill vis-a-vis environment protection at all stages of learning. Therefore, learners of all stages of learning need to be sensitized with a missionary zeal. This may ensure transformation of students into committed citizens for averting global environment crisis. The advancement of science and technology made the life more and more relaxed and man also became more and more ambitious. With such development, human dependence on environment increased. He consumed more resources and the effect of his activities on the environment became more and more detectable. Environment covers all the things present around the living beings and above the land, on the surface of the earth and under the earth. Environment indicates, in total, all of peripheral forces, pressures and circumstances, which affect the life, nature, behaviour, growth, development and maturation of living beings. Irrational exploitation (not utilization) of natural resources for our greed (not need) has endangered our survival, and incurred incalculable harm. Environmental Education is a science, a well-thought, permanent, lasting and integrated process of equipping learning experiences for getting awareness, knowledge, understanding, skills, values, technical expertise and involvement of learners with desirable attitudinal changes about their relationship with their natural and biophysical environment. Environmental Education is an organized effort to educate the masses about environment, its functions, need, importance, and especially how human beings can manage their behaviour in order to live in a sustainable manner.  The term 'environmental awareness' refers to creating general awareness of environmental issues, their causes by bringing about changes in perception, attitude, values and necessary skills to solve environment related problems. Moreover, it is the first step leading to the formation of responsible environmental behaviour (Stern, 2000). With the ever increasing development by modern man, large scale degradation of natural resources have been occurred, the public has to be educated about the fact that if we are degrading our environment we are actually harming ourselves. To encourage meaningful public participation and environment, it is necessary to create awareness about environment pollution and related adverse effects. This is the crucial time that environmental awareness and environmental sensitivity should be cultivated among the masses particularly among youths. For the awareness of society it is essential to work at a gross root level. So the whole society can work to save the environment.

Religion in the Age of the Anthropocene

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arianne F. Conty
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Climate Change ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Risks And Benefits ◽  
Human Exceptionalism ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Contemporary Christian ◽  
Genesis 1 ◽  
Forms Of Life

Though responses to the Anthropocene have largely come from the natural and social sciences, religious responses to the Anthropocene have also been gaining momentum and many scholars have been calling for a religious response to complement scientific responses to climate change. Yet because Genesis 1:28 does indeed tell human beings to ‘subdue the earth’ monotheistic religions have often been understood as complicit in the human exceptionalism that is thought to have created the conditions for the Anthropocene. In distinction to such Biblical traditions, indigenous animistic cultures have typically respected all forms of life as ‘persons’ and such traditions have thus become a source of inspiration for ecological movements. After discussing contemporary Christian efforts to integrate the natural sciences and the environment into their responses to the Anthropocene, this article will turn to animism and seek to evaluate the risks and benefits that could ensue from a postmodern form of animism that could provide a necessary postsecular response to the Anthropocene.

Living within Limits

1993 ◽  
Author(s):  
Garrett Hardin
Keyword(s):  
Population Control ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Population Problem ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Garrett Hardin ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Free Flow Of Information ◽  
Flow Of Information ◽  
Original Thinker

We fail to mandate economic sanity, writes Garrett Hardin, "because our brains are addled by...compassion." With such startling assertions, Hardin has cut a swathe through the field of ecology for decades, winning a reputation as a fearless and original thinker. A prominent biologist, ecological philosopher, and keen student of human population control, Hardin now offers the finest summation of his work to date, with an eloquent argument for accepting the limits of the earth's resources--and the hard choices we must make to live within them. In Living Within Limits, Hardin focuses on the neglected problem of overpopulation, making a forceful case for dramatically changing the way we live in and manage our world. Our world itself, he writes, is in the dilemma of the lifeboat: it can only hold a certain number of people before it sinks--not everyone can be saved. The old idea of progress and limitless growth misses the point that the earth (and each part of it) has a limited carrying capacity; sentimentality should not cloud our ability to take necessary steps to limit population. But Hardin refutes the notion that goodwill and voluntary restraints will be enough. Instead, nations where population is growing must suffer the consequences alone. Too often, he writes, we operate on the faulty principle of shared costs matched with private profits. In Hardin's famous essay, "The Tragedy of the Commons," he showed how a village common pasture suffers from overgrazing because each villager puts as many cattle on it as possible--since the costs of grazing are shared by everyone, but the profits go to the individual. The metaphor applies to global ecology, he argues, making a powerful case for closed borders and an end to immigration from poor nations to rich ones. "The production of human beings is the result of very localized human actions; corrective action must be local....Globalizing the 'population problem' would only ensure that it would never be solved." Hardin does not shrink from the startling implications of his argument, as he criticizes the shipment of food to overpopulated regions and asserts that coercion in population control is inevitable. But he also proposes a free flow of information across boundaries, to allow each state to help itself. "The time-honored practice of pollute and move on is no longer acceptable," Hardin tells us. We now fill the globe, and we have no where else to go. In this powerful book, one of our leading ecological philosophers points out the hard choices we must make--and the solutions we have been afraid to consider.

scholarly journals “‘But the Fountain Sprang Up and the Bird Sang Down’: Heidegger’s Gathering of the Fourfold and the Seven-Sacraments Font at Salle, Norfolk.”

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 464
Author(s):  
Marie Clausén
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Art History ◽  
Architectural Elements ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Medieval Church ◽  
The Church ◽  
As If

My paper analyses the 15th-century seven-sacraments font at the medieval church of St Peter and St Paul at Salle in Norfolk (England). The church guides and gazetteers that describe the font, and the church in which it is situated, owe both their style and content to Art History, focusing as they do on their material and aesthetic dimensions. The guides also tend towards isolating the various elements of the font, and these in turn from the rest of the architectural elements, fittings and furniture of the church, as if they could be meaningfully experienced or interpreted as discrete entities, in isolation from one another. While none of the font descriptions can be faulted for being inaccurate, they can, as a result of these tendencies, be held insufficient, and not quite to the purpose. My analysis of the font, by means of Heidegger’s concept of Dwelling, does not separate the font either from the rest of the church, nor from other fonts, but acknowledges that it comes to be, and be seen as, what it is only when considered as standing in ‘myriad referential relations’ to other things, as well as to ourselves. This perspective has enabled me to draw out what it is about the font at Salle that can be experienced as not merely beautiful or interesting, but also as meaningful to those—believers and non-believers alike—who encounter it. By reconsidering the proper mode of perceiving and engaging with the font, we may spare it from being commodified, from becoming a unit in the standing reserve of cultural heritage, and in so doing, we, too, may be momentarily freed from our false identities as units of production and agents of consumption. The medieval fonts and churches of Norfolk are, I argue, not valuable as a result of their putative antiquarian qualities, but invaluable in their extending to us a possibility of dwelling—as mortals—on the earth—under the sky—before the divinities.

Thinking technology for the Anthropocene: encountering 3D printing through the philosophy of Gilbert Simondon

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 539-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Roberts
Keyword(s):  
3D Printing ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Anthropogenic Change ◽  
Technological Processes ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Social ◽  
Human Thinking ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Gilbert Simondon ◽  
Do So

The notion that the Earth has entered a new epoch characterized by the ubiquity of anthropogenic change presents the social sciences with something of a paradox, namely, that the point at which we recognize our species to be a geologic force is also the moment where our assumed metaphysical privilege becomes untenable. Cultural geography continues to navigate this paradox in conceptually innovative ways through its engagements with materialist philosophies, more-than-human thinking and experimental modes of ontological enquiry. Drawing upon the philosophy of Gilbert Simondon, this article contributes to these timely debates by articulating the paradox of the Anthropocene in relation to technological processes. Simondon’s philosophy precedes the identification of the Anthropocene epoch by a number of decades, yet his insistence upon situating technology within an immanent field of material processes resonates with contemporary geographical concerns in a number of important ways. More specifically, Simondon’s conceptual vocabulary provides a means of framing our entanglements with technological processes without assuming a metaphysical distinction between human beings and the forces of nature. In this article, I show how Simondon’s concepts of individuation and transduction intersect with this technological problematic through his far-reaching critique of the ‘hylomorphic’ distinction between matter and form. Inspired by Simondon’s original account of the genesis of a clay brick, the article unfolds these conceptual challenges through two contrasting empirical encounters with 3D printing technologies. In doing so, my intention is to lend an affective consistency to Simondon’s problematic, and to do so in a way that captures the kinds of material mutations expressive of a particular technological moment.

IN-FLIGHT EXPOSURE TO COSMIC RADIATION ALONG SOME COMMERCIAL AIRLINE ROUTES TO AND FROM NIGERIA

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-69
Author(s):  
O O ALATISE ◽  
A A ADEPOJU
Keyword(s):  
Effective Dose ◽  
Radiation Protection ◽  
Cosmic Radiation ◽  
Ground Level ◽  
Radiation Doses ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Commercial Airline ◽  
Additional Level ◽  
Airline Crews

The study of “external” radiation called cosmic radiation that strikes the earth from anywhere beyond the atmosphere is of great importance in radiation protection. All human beings are exposed to an uncontrollable amount of cosmic radiation on the ground level. Those who travel in space, airline crews and frequent flyers are exposed to additional level of cosmic radiation during their trip but unfor-tunately many of them are not aware of this. This workcalculates the exposure of aircrews and fre-quent flyers to cosmic radiation during travel along some air routes to and from Nigeria. The effective dose was computed using a dedicated software CARI 6M, developed by US FAA.The study focuses on the significance of the in-flight exposure, assessment and estimation of in-flight exposure using the dedicated software and some ways of controlling the exposures so that airline crews and frequent flyers are not exposed to fatal levels of radiation.It was observed that the cosmic radiation doses re-ceived by passengers and crew members on board on flights from Lagos Nigeria to countries in Amer-ica were more than what they received en-route countries in Asia.

Bringing People Down

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 433-466
Author(s):  
John Vorhaus
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Corporal Punishment ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
European Court ◽  
The Status ◽  
Relational Concept ◽  
Degrading Treatment ◽  
As If

Under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, degrading treatment and punishment is absolutely prohibited. This paper examines the nature of and wrong inherent in treatment and punishment of this kind. Cases brought before the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) as amounting to degrading treatment and punishment under Article 3 include instances of interrogation, conditions of confinement, corporal punishment, strip searches, and a failure to provide adequate health care. The Court acknowledges the degradation inherent in imprisonment generally, and does not consider this to be in violation of Article 3, but it also identifies a threshold at which degradation is so severe as to render impermissible punishments that cross this threshold. I offer an account of the Court’s conception of impermissible degradation as a symbolic dignitary harm. The victims are treated as inferior, as if they do not possess the status owed to human beings, neither treated with dignity nor given the respect owed to dignity. Degradation is a relational concept: the victim is brought down in the eyes of others following treatment motivated by the intention to degrade, or treatment which has a degrading effect. This, so I will argue, is the best account of the concept of degradation as deployed by the Court when determining punishments as in violation of Article 3.

scholarly journals Plane Sailing or Horizontal Navigation

1956 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 454-462
Author(s):  
D. W. Waters
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Horizontal Plane ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Course Of Action ◽  
Plane Area ◽  
As If

Professor Taylor contends that the expression used to describe a course of action so simple as to leave no room for mistakes is plain sailing; that this is nautical in origin in that it derives from a simple or plain system of navigation based upon the use of a simple or plain (manifestly foolproof) chart; that this system of navigation was known originally as plain (simple) sailing—which expression she traces back to Richard Norwood's Doctrine of Plaine and Sphericall Triangles of 1631, and that it was sophisticated into plane sailing in the eighteenth century in the belief—which she holds to be erroneous—that the expression described a form of navigation based upon the use of a plane or flat chart on which the Earth was drawn as if the Earth and oceans lay in one horizontal plane area and not upon the surface of a sphere or, more accurately, ellipsoid; and, finally, that the Admiralty Navigation Manual is in error in teaching mariners that ‘to regard certain small triangles as plane… gives rise to the expression plane sailing, which is popularly referred to as if plane were spelt plain and the sailing free from difficulty’.

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