The Persistence of Memory

2020 ◽  
pp. 64-127
Author(s):  
Mark Payne

This chapter surveys the return of historical forms of life in postapocalyptic fiction after Mary Shelley's The Last Man. It includes simple agrarianism and foraging and hunting and gathering that require human beings to make use of capabilities that were dormant or occluded in the civilization that disappeared with the apocalyptic event. It also explains how occupation determines mentation in which the survivors fade back into the forms of life of the people who preceded them on their terrain. The chapter reviews the works that restage the Hesiodic vision of a humankind, which remains itself through a succession of local forms as a choice for the most satisfying capabilities of the human animal. It points out how postapocalyptic fictions invite readers to commit to a future that they can only reach if they detach themselves from present forms of care.

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
Mark Payne

This chapter focuses on postapocalyptic fiction, which imagine the life that human beings might lead after the apocalyptic event has passed. It references large-scale works of literary fiction that stage how new forms of life emerge from catastrophe, how survivors adapt to the altered conditions of existence, and the various ways in which the past asserts its claims on them. It also elaborates the immediate past of the world that is lost and the deep past of prehistory and the anthropological imagination that returns with this loss. The chapter describes postapocalyptic fiction as political theory and a mode of persuasion in fictional form, which shows what it would be like to live that life. It discusses modern postapocalyptic fiction with Mary Shelley's The Last Man in 1826, which stages the return of small-scale agrarianism in the aftermath of catastrophe.


2020 ◽  
pp. 37-63
Author(s):  
Mark Payne

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.


Author(s):  
Victoria N Osuagwu

Human beings have always left signs of their activities behind them. These signs take both tangible and intangible forms, including buildings, sites, sculptural works, antiquities, rock art paintings, belief systems, and traditions. The people of this millennium have recognized the remains of our fore-bears namely archaeological, architectural monuments, sites, and cultural works as an integral part of the cultural heritage of all humanity. They also recognized the fact that heritage is an invaluable source of information about the lives and activities of human beings and their artistic and technical capabilities over the centuries. The Nigerian Ancient Art Tradition which spans eight thousand years is a product of diverse artists from Dufuna, Nok, Igbo-Ukwu, Ife, Owo, Benin, Tada, etc. Also remarkable are the sculptural works created by late Susanne Wenger (an Austrian) and her New Sacred Art Movement in Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove, which gave meaning to open spaces within the grove. This paper examines the role played by these artworks to project Nigeria to the global art world. The benefits to Nigeria and the global art traditions and recommendations on how to revive this dwindling economic resource will also be examined. The approach used was to study the artworks produced by some of these artists. Some of the findings were that the works were carefully done with suitable materials that have withstood climate change.


Author(s):  
حسن بن إبراهيم الهنداوي (Hassan Hendawi)

الملخّصإنّ الفقر والإملاق من المشكلات الرئيسة التي يواجهها العالم اليوم، ومن أسبابها ندرة الموارد الاقتصادية الشديدة وندرة الغذاء والماء. فندرة الموارد وقلتها كانت ذات أثر مباشر في قتل الملايين من الأنفس البشريّة. وتعدّ ندرة الموارد عند الاقتصاديين الخطر الأساس الذي يهدد الوجود البشري في هذا العصر. ويعتبرها الاقتصاديّون كذلك معضلة اقتصادية ناتجة عن رغبات الإنسان غير المتناهية مقابل موارد محدودة ومتناهية. ومن الأمور التي يقترحها الاقتصاديون من اجل التغلب على هذه المشكلة أن النّاسن ينبغي عليهم أن يختاروا الموارد الضرورية والحاجية لتلبية رغباتهم. فمفهوم الندرة من منظور الاقتصاد التقليدي يعني موارد محدودة في العالم مقابل حاجات ورغبات غير محدودة. وسبب ذلك عند الاقتصاديين أن الطبيعة لا توفر موارد كافية لتلبية حاجات الناس ورغباتهم غير المتناهية. ونظرة الإسلام التي يمثلها القرآن الكريم والسنة النبوية الشريفة لمسألة الندرة نظرة مختلفة تماما عن نظرة الاقتصاد التقليدي. ويعنى هذا البحث ببيان أن الندرة ليست مشكلة الطبيعة التس سخّرها الله تعالى للإنسان،  ولكن المشكلة في أخلاقيات الناس وتصرفاتهم في الموارد الطبيعية وطريقتهم في الانتفاع بها التي أدت إلى إدخال الضرر والفساد على الموارد الموجودة.الكلمات المفتاحية: الإسلام، ندرة الموارد، الاقتصاد المعاصر، الموارد الطبيعية، الطبيعة. **************************************               AbstractAmong the main problems that the world is facing today are poverty and destitution caused by severe scarcity of economic resources and the scarcity of food and water. The lack of resources has already caused the death of millions of human beings. The scarcity of resources is counted by economists as the primary danger that threatens the human existence. Economists also consider it an economic dilemma caused by infinite human desires against limited and finite resources. In order to overcome this problem among the suggestions made by economists is that human beings should choose only necessary resources to satisfy their desires. The conventional concept of scarcity is that the resources in the world are limited vis-à-vis the unlimited human needs and desires. The reason for that according to economists is that the nature does not provide sufficient resources to meet people’s endless needs and desires. Islamic approach as represented by the Holy Qur’an and the Sunnah to the issue of scarcity is essentially different from the conventional viewpoint of economists. This paper proposes and explains that the problem is not in the nature which Allah has made subservient to man, but it is in the ethics of the people and their behaviour and way of utilization of natural resources, which ultimately damage and corrupt the available resources.Keywords: Islam, Scarcity of Resources, Modern Economy, Environmental Resources, Nature.


Author(s):  
Arianne F. Conty

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.


Author(s):  
_______ Archana ◽  
Charu Datta ◽  
Pratibha Tiwari

Degradation of environment is one of the most serious challenges before the mankind in today’s world. Mankind has been facing a wide range of problem arising out of the degradation of environment. Not only the areas under human inhabitation, but the areas of the planet without human population have also been suffering from these problems. As the population increase day by day, the amenities are not improved simultaneously. With the advancement of science and technologies the needs of human beings has been changing rapidly. As a result different types of environmental problems have been rising. Environmental degradation is a wide- reaching problem and it is likely to influence the health of human population is great. It may be defined the deterioration of the environment through depletion of resources such as air, water, and soil. The destruction of ecosystem and extinction of wildlife. Environmental degradation has occurred due to the recent activities in the field of socio-economic, institute and technology. Poverty still remains a problem as the root of several environmental problems to create awareness among the people about the ill effect of environmental pollution. In the whole research it is clear that all factors of environmental degradation may be reduced through- Framing the new laws on environmental degradation, Environment friend policy, Controlling all the ways and means of noise, air, soil and water pollution, Through growing more and more trees and by adapting the proper sanitation policy.  


Multilingua ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pirjo Kristiina Virtanen ◽  
Francisco Apurinã ◽  
Sidney Facundes

Abstract This article looks at what origin stories teach about the world and what kind of material presence they have in Southwestern Amazonia. We examine the ways the Apurinã relate to certain nonhuman entities through their origin story, and our theoretical approach is language materiality, as we are interested in material means of mediating traditional stories. Analogous to the ways that speakers of many other languages who distinguish the entities that they talk to or about, the Apurinã make use of linguistic resources to establish the ways they interact with different entities. Besides these resources, the material means of mediating stories is a crucial tool to narrate the worlds of humans and nonhumans. Storytelling requires material mediation, and a specific context of plant substances. It also involves community meeting as a space of trust in order to become a communicative practice and effectively introduce the history of the people. Our sources are ethnography, language documentation, and autoethnography.


2020 ◽  
Vol 132 (2) ◽  
pp. 301-305
Author(s):  
Daewook Kim

AbstractThe expression נפשות in Ezekiel 13 refers to two different meanings: (living) human beings and the spirits of the dead. The words כסתות and מספחות seem to refer to the paraphernalia involved in the women’s practice of necromancy and in the fall of the people, respectively. The expression נפשות is employed as antanaclasis to establish a conceptual connection between necromancy and ruin.


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