scholarly journals Youth Life Writing, Networked Media, Climate Change: The Challenge of Testimony to the Future

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. BB119-BB134
Author(s):  
Anna Poletti
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
New Media ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Life Writing ◽  
Political Responsibility ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Effective Form ◽  
The Future ◽  
Personal Testimony ◽  
Identity Category

This article examines some of Greta Thunberg’s life writing as an example of the creativity and ingenuity with which some young people engage with the identity category of ‘youth’ in their life writing. It argues that Thunberg’s activism uses personal testimony in order to amplify expertise testimony as an epistemic source that demands action on climate change. This strategic use of life writing produces a paradoxical, but seemingly effective, form of life writing in which Thunberg provides personal testimony to the future. The article analyses how this paradoxical form of testimony is produced by situating Thunberg’s life writing in the context of the social and political investment in youth as an identity genre central to understanding of the human life course, and to how political responsibility is figured in contemporary western democracies. Drawing on theories of new media as an affective site in which life unfolds, rather than being represented, the paper concludes by reflecting on how Wendy Chun’s argument that networks involve the twinning of habituation and crisis mirrors Thunberg’s argument that action on climate change demands that habitual ways of living and acting must be rethought in response to the climate crisis.

The Future Life of Trauma

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Traumatic Event ◽  
New Materialism ◽  
Political Responsibility ◽  
British India ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
The Future ◽  
Domains Of Life ◽  
History Of ◽  
Psychic Event

The Future Life of Trauma elaborates a transformation in the concepts of trauma and event by situating a ground-breaking encounter between psychoanalytic and postcolonial discourses. It unfolds a new materialism that asserts the coincidence between the symbolic and empirical domains of life. Proceeding from the formation of psychical life as it is presented in the Freudian metapsychology, Future Life thinks anew the relation between temporality and the traumatized subjectivity, demonstrating how the psychic event, understood as a traumatic event, is a material reality that alters the determining character of the structure of repetition. It comprises two major sections. The first elucidates how the case of the psychoanalytic concept of trauma discloses the self-transformative tendency of life as the movement immanent to the real. Through a focus on the role of borders in the history of the 1947 Partition of British India and the politics of memorialization in post-genocide Rwanda, the second brings to light the implications of trauma as a material event in pressing contemporary issues of nation-formation, sovereignty, and geopolitical violence. In showing how the form of the psyche changes in the encounter, Future Life presents a challenge to the category of difference in the condition of identity. The epilogue pushes toward a new approach to ethical and political responsibility that breaks the deconstructive loops perpetuated by the idea of promise. The result is the formation of a form of life that elaborates a new relation to destruction and finitude by asserting its innate power to transform itself.

Imagining Unimaginable Climate Futures in International Climate Change Law

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Peel
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
Alternative Conceptions ◽  
Climate Engineering ◽  
The Future ◽  
Rules And Principles ◽  
International Climate ◽  
Radical Technologies ◽  
International Climate Change

Gradually, alternative conceptions of the future emerged, which centered on questions of adaptation and loss and damages. International climate law followed suit, which resulted in the development of different sets of rules and principles. The focus shifted towards the broader causes of climate change and considerations of equity. Yet, these shifts could not do away with dystopian imageries of the future, including fears that climate change presents existential threats to human life as we know it. This has led to the consideration of more radical technologies such as climate engineering, technologies that give rise to new imageries of the future, and calls for their legal regulation.

Soil and the Future

Earth Matters ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Bardgett
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Soil Formation ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Natural Rate ◽  
Plant Remains ◽  
The Future ◽  
Complex Population ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Release ◽  
Dead Plant

If the importance of soil for human lives hasn’t leapt out of the previous pages, this book has failed in its goal. Soil touches so many aspects of human life, often in ways of which we are not even aware. There are the obvious, such as when we dig up the soil to grow vegetables and flowers, or when a farmer takes a plough to a field. But there are also the less obvious, such as the role of soil in dampening climate change, filtering the water we drink, and breaking down and recycling the billions of tonnes of dead plant remains that annually fall to the ground. Soils have also played their role in warfare, thwarting military advances and providing underground shelter to those under attack. I could go on, but I think the message is clear: earth matters. Looking to the future, a major challenge for humans will be how to deal with rapid soil change. I emphasized at the start of this book that the natural rate of soil formation is spectacularly slow; it takes literally thousands of years for a mature soil to develop. But within just a few years, or decades, humans can completely transform the structure, chemistry, and biology of soils, often leading to their degradation. This degradation of soil can be catastrophic, for example when soils are over-cultivated or overgrazed, or when unstable hill slopes are deforested and left exposed to the erosive forces of wind and rain. Or it can be progressive, such as that caused by climate warming which, in some places, such as the Arctic, is gradually speeding up organic-matter decay and carbon dioxide release from soils. It can also be abrupt, such as when land is sealed by asphalt and concrete during the construction of expanding cities, or during war when major offensives obliterate the fabric of soil. As I stressed earlier in this book, the causes of soil degradation are complex: population growth, poverty, poor delivery of information to farmers, conflict, shortage of land, and climate change all play a role.

Digital and Technical Developments in the Amblyopia Therapy

2020 ◽  
Vol 237 (10) ◽  
pp. 1172-1176
Author(s):  
Charlotte Schramm ◽  
Yaroslava Wenner
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Technical Progress ◽  
Therapy Monitoring ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
Technical Developments ◽  
The Future

AbstractThe digital media becomes more and more common in our everyday lives. So it is not surprising that technical progress is also leaving its mark on amblyopia therapy. New media and technologies can be used both in the actual amblyopia therapy or therapy monitoring. In particular in this review shutter glasses, therapy monitoring and analysis using microsensors and newer video programs for amblyopia therapy are presented and critically discussed. Currently, these cannot yet replace classic amblyopia therapy. They represent interesting options that will occupy us even more in the future.

What we can learn from the parallels between the COVID-19 and the future climate change crises

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rubén D. Manzanedo ◽  
Peter Manning
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Substantial Portion ◽  
Preventative Measures ◽  
The Future ◽  
Behavioral Norm ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Global Population

The ongoing COVID-19 outbreak pandemic is now a global crisis. It has caused 1.6+ million confirmed cases and 100 000+ deaths at the time of writing and triggered unprecedented preventative measures that have put a substantial portion of the global population under confinement, imposed isolation, and established ‘social distancing’ as a new global behavioral norm. The COVID-19 crisis has affected all aspects of everyday life and work, while also threatening the health of the global economy. This crisis offers also an unprecedented view of what the global climate crisis may look like. In fact, some of the parallels between the COVID-19 crisis and what we expect from the looming global climate emergency are remarkable. Reflecting upon the most challenging aspects of today’s crisis and how they compare with those expected from the climate change emergency may help us better prepare for the future.

Penerapan Rinfo Sebagai Media Pendukung Untuk Proses Pembelajaran Pada Perguruan Tinggi Raharja

CCIT Journal ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-115
Author(s):  
Untung Rahardja ◽  
Khanna Tiara ◽  
Ray Indra Taufik Wijaya
Keyword(s):  
Learning Process ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Learning Tools ◽  
Integrated Learning ◽  
Civilizing Process ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
Life Education ◽  
New Generation

Education is an important factor in human life. According to Ki Hajar Dewantara, education is a civilizing process that a business gives high values ??to the new generation in a society that is not only maintenance but also with a view to promote and develop the culture of the nobility toward human life. Education is a human investment that can be used now and in the future. One other important factor in supporting human life in addition to education, which is technology. In this globalization era, technology has touched every joint of human life. The combination of these two factors will be a new innovation in the world of education. The innovation has been implemented by Raharja College, namely the use of the method iLearning (Integrated Learning) in the learning process. Where such learning has been online based. ILearning method consists of TPI (Ten Pillars of IT iLearning). Rinfo is one of the ten pillars, where it became an official email used by the whole community’s in Raharja College to communicate with each other. Rinfo is Gmail, which is adapted from the Google platform with typical raharja.info as its domain. This Rinfo is a medium of communication, as well as a tool to support the learning process in Raharja College. Because in addition to integrated with TPi, this Rinfo was connected also support with other learning tools, such as Docs, Drive, Sites, and other supporting tools.

Love, Inc.

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurie Essig
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Dating Apps ◽  
Sense Of Security ◽  
True Love ◽  
The Future ◽  
False Sense ◽  
Global Movements

In Love, Inc., Laurie Essig argues that love is not all we need. As the future became less secure—with global climate change and the transfer of wealth to the few—Americans became more romantic. Romance is not just what lovers do but also what lovers learn through ideology. As an ideology, romance allowed us to privatize our futures, to imagine ourselves as safe and secure tomorrow if only we could find our "one true love" today. But the fairy dust of romance blinded us to what we really need: global movements and structural changes. By traveling through dating apps and spectacular engagements, white weddings and Disney honeymoons, Essig shows us how romance was sold to us and why we bought it. Love, Inc. seduced so many of us into a false sense of security, but it also, paradoxically, gives us hope in hopeless times. This book explores the struggle between our inner cynics and our inner romantic.

The Meanings of Life and Value Priorities of the Post-Soviet Society in the Republic of Belarus

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (10) ◽  
pp. 25-37
Author(s):  
Alexander N. Danilov
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Role Model ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Modern Technology ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
The World ◽  
Value Priorities ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Republic

The article discusses the meanings of life and value priorities of the post- Soviet society. The author argues that, at present, there are symptoms of a global ideological crisis in the world, that the West does not have its own vision of where and how to move on and has no understanding of the future. Unfortunately, most of the post-Soviet countries do not have such vision as well. In these conditions, there are mistrust, confusion, paradoxical manifestation of human consciousness. The main meanings that determine our life-world are: the desire of citizens for social justice and social security, the desire to figure out and understand the basic values of modern society, how honestly and equally the authorities act toward their fellow citizens, and to what extent they reflect their interests. The meanings of life, which are the answers to the challenges of the time, are embodied in the cultural code of each nation, state. The growth points of new values, which will become the basis for the future sustainable development of a new civilization, have yet to be discovered in the systemic transformative changes of the culture. In this process, the emergence of a new system of values that governs human life is inevitable. However, modern technology brings new troubles to humans. It has provided wide opportunities for informational violence and public consciousness manipulation. Nowadays, the scenario that is implemented in Western consumer societies claims to be the dominant scenario. Meanwhile, today there is no country in the world that is a role model, there is no ideal that others would like to borrow. Most post-Soviet states failed to advance their societies to more decent levels of economic development, to meet the challenges of the modern information age, and to provide the population with new high living standards. Therefore, in conditions of growing confrontation, we should realistically understand the world and be ready to implement changes that will ensure sustainable development of the state and society without losing our national identity.

Stories from Ultrasonographic Abyss

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matylda Szewczyk
Keyword(s):  
Prenatal Care ◽  
New Media ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Prenatal Ultrasound ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Medical Imagery ◽  
The Future ◽  
Different Cultures

The article presents a reflection on the experience of prenatal ultrasound and on the nature of cultural beings, it creates. It exploits chosen ethnographic and cultural descriptions of prenatal ultrasounds in different cultures, as well as documentary and artistic reflections on medical imagery and new media technologies. It discusses different ways of defining the role of ultrasound in prenatal care and the cultural contexts build around it. Although the prenatal ultrasounds often function in the space of enormous tensions (although they are also supposed to give pleasure), it seems they will accompany us further in the future. It is worthwhile to find some new ways of describing them and to invent new cultural practices to deal with them.

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