scholarly journals Challenging the Environmental History of the Cerrado: Science, Biodiversity and Politics on the Brazilian Agricultural Frontier

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandro Dutra e Silva
Keyword(s):  
Environmental History ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Brazilian Cerrado ◽  
Agricultural Frontier ◽  
Environmental Consequences ◽  
Environmental Interactions ◽  
History Of

This article presents an overview of the environmental history of the Brazilian Cerrado, its environmental characteristics and the processes related to the historical change in the landscapes of this endangered ecosystem. It highlights competing classifications of the Cerrado, the role of politics in establishing them, and the environmental consequences of such classifications. More than just describing an environment, classifying an ecosystem is a political process that involves complex socio-environmental interactions. The sources used points out the different attempts to get to know and "conquered" the Cerrado, bringing together interdisciplinary perspectives from a variety of actors and institutions. Historiographic challenges go beyond environmental descriptions in that the socio-environmental interactions that made up this unique ecosystem are equally complex. This paper’s conclusions reinforce the interdisciplinary role of environmental history in the study of ecosystems and the complex relationship between culture and nature.

scholarly journals Challenging the Environmental History of the Cerrado Science, Biodiversity and Politics on the Brazilian Agricultural Frontier

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 82-116
Author(s):  
Sandro Dutra e Silva
Keyword(s):  
Environmental History ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Brazilian Cerrado ◽  
Agricultural Frontier ◽  
Environmental Consequences ◽  
Environmental Interactions ◽  
History Of

This article presents an overview of the environmental history of the Brazilian Cerrado, its environmental characteristics and the processes related to the historical change in the landscapes of this endangered ecosystem. It highlights competing classifications of the Cerrado, the role of politics in establishing them, and the environmental consequences of such classifications. More than just describing an environment, classifying an ecosystem is a political process that involves complex socio-environmental interactions. The sources used points out the different attempts to get to know and "conquered" the Cerrado, bringing together interdisciplinary perspectives from a variety of actors and institutions. Historiographic challenges go beyond environmental descriptions in that the socio-environmental interactions that made up this unique ecosystem are equally complex. This paper’s conclusions reinforce the interdisciplinary role of environmental history in the study of ecosystems and the complex relationship between culture and nature.

Introduction: Emotion, History and the Arts

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Sullivan ◽  
Marie Louise Herzfeld-Schild
Keyword(s):  
Historical Change ◽  
Carson Mccullers ◽  
Emotional Life ◽  
Review Section ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
War Correspondents ◽  
History Of ◽  
Johan Huizinga

This introduction surveys the rise of the history of emotions as a field and the role of the arts in such developments. Reflecting on the foundational role of the arts in the early emotion-oriented histories of Johan Huizinga and Jacob Burkhardt, as well as the concerns about methodological impressionism that have sometimes arisen in response to such studies, the introduction considers how intensive engagements with the arts can open up new insights into past emotions while still being historically and theoretically rigorous. Drawing on a wide range of emotionally charged art works from different times and places—including the novels of Carson McCullers and Harriet Beecher-Stowe, the private poetry of neo-Confucian Chinese civil servants, the photojournalism of twentieth-century war correspondents, and music from Igor Stravinsky to the Beatles—the introduction proposes five ways in which art in all its forms contributes to emotional life and consequently to emotional histories: first, by incubating deep emotional experiences that contribute to formations of identity; second, by acting as a place for the expression of private or deviant emotions; third, by functioning as a barometer of wider cultural and attitudinal change; fourth, by serving as an engine of momentous historical change; and fifth, by working as a tool for emotional connection across communities, both within specific time periods but also across them. The introduction finishes by outlining how the special issue's five articles and review section address each of these categories, while also illustrating new methodological possibilities for the field.

Becoming Zarathustra

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Kellens
Keyword(s):  
Complex Relationship ◽  
History Of ◽  
Way Of Thinking

This chapter examines the role of ritual and sacrifice in the most sacred Zoroastrian literature, the Gâthâs in order to explore the complex relationship between the figure of Zarathustra and the human ritual officiant. The chapter presents a very Lincoln-ian sort of history of the field of Zoroastrian studies itself, interrogating the contexts and biases of particular scholars in their various readings and misreadings of the tradition. At the same time, it offers a new way of thinking about the figure of Zarathustra himself, who is best understood not as the semi-historical “founder” of Zoroastrianism but rather as the mythical personality into which the human officiant is himself transfigured through the ritual operations.

The Historical Change in the Role of the Two Hungarian Words for Red (Piros and Vörös) and Their Visual Semantics

2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 285-302
Author(s):  
Beáta Bálizs
Keyword(s):  
Research Methods ◽  
International Research ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Color Terms ◽  
Color Term ◽  
Linguistic Research ◽  
Red Color ◽  
History Of ◽  
Hungarian Language

The present study summarizes the key findings of a multi-year interdisciplinary investigation, performed using specific (ethnographic, anthropological, and linguistic) research methods, into the two color terms mentioned in the title. Originally intended as empirical research involving all Hungarian color terms and individual community-dependent relationships with colors, it was eventually supplemented by a text-based examination of the history of the color terms piros and veres/vörös. A further objective was to answer questions raised in the course of international research concerning the reason for the existence of two color terms with similar meanings in the Hungarian language to denote the red color range. Earlier studies had already suggested that the modern use of vörös, which has more ancient roots in the Hungarian language, may be related to the fact that this color term was previously used more extensively. However, the present research is unique in demonstrating the substantial changes that have taken place in the Hungarian language in relation to the role and meaning of these color terms. It has already been established that the two color terms switched places historically, and that piros today fulfills precisely the same function that for centuries belonged to veres/vörös, until the color term piros began to gain ground in the 19th century.

DOMINO EFFECT: BORIS YELTSIN'S DECREE ON THE DE-PARTIZATION IN THE CHAIN OF THE COLLAPSE OF THE USSR

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 69-80
Author(s):  
D.G. SELTSER ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Direct Connection ◽  
Domino Effect ◽  
Nomenclature System ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
History Of

The purpose of the article is to clarify the place and role of the decree in the general course of the political process and highlight its direct consequences for the fate of the CPSU and the USSR. The scientific literature on the topic is analyzed. It is concluded that scientists draw a direct connection between the final events of the history of the USSR – Yeltsin's decree about departisation, degradation of the CPSU, resistance to the Emergency Committee and the liquidation of the CPSU / USSR. The author describes the stages of the personnel actions of Gorbachev and Yeltsin. In his opinion, the nomenclature system was expected: «construction» of the elite (1985–1987), elections in the party (1988–1990), elections in the state (1989–1990), decree about departisation (1991). The decree is seen as the final stage in the denationalization of the party. The CPSU, having lost power and property, ceased to be a state. The content of the decree, the behavior of political actors in connection with its adoption and the political consequences of the decree are considered. In conclusion, it is concluded that the decree was a domino effect, a provocation to the instant collapse of the USSR.

History Repeating Itself. The function of turning points and continuity in three historical narratives on operetta

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 102
Author(s):  
Mikael Strömberg
Keyword(s):  
Turning Points ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Narrative Strategy ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

The article’s primary aim is to discuss the function of turning points and continuity within historiography. That a historical narrative, produced at a certain time and place, influence the way the historian shapes and develops the argument is problematized by an emphasis on the complex relationship between turning points and continuity as colligatory concepts within an argumentative framework. Aided by a number of examples from three historical narratives on operetta, the article stresses the importance of creating new narratives about the past. Two specific examples from the history of operetta, the birth of the genre and the role of music, are used to illustrate the need to revise not only the use of source material and the narrative strategy used, but also how the argument proposed by the historian gathers strength. The interpretation of turning points and continuity as colligatory concepts illustrate the need to revise earlier historical narratives when trying to counteract the repetitiveness of history.

The Environmental Fall of the Roman Empire

Daedalus ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 145 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle Harper
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Environmental Change ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Environmental Variability ◽  
Ice Cores ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
History Of ◽  
Health And Disease ◽  
Climate Proxies

Global environmental history is currently being enriched by troves of new data, and new models of environmental variability and human impact. Earth scientists are rapidly expanding historians’ knowledge of the paleoclimate through the recovery and analysis of climate proxies such as ice cores, tree rings, stalagmites, and marine and lake sediments. Further, archaeologists and anthropologists are using novel techniques and methods to study the history of health and disease, as revealed through examination of bones and paleomolecular evidence. These possibilities open the way for historians to participate in a conversation about the long history of environmental change and human response. This essay considers how one of the most classic of all historical questions–the fall of the Roman Empire–can receive an answer enriched by new knowledge about the role of environmental change.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Samiparna Samanta
Keyword(s):  
Environmental History ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Urban History ◽  
Human Subjects ◽  
Domestic Animals ◽  
Empire Building ◽  
Extant Literature ◽  
History Of ◽  
Scientific Imagination

This tale of animals and Empire in colonial Calcutta rests at the intersection of three scholarships: history of science/medicine, environmental history and urban history. The introduction situates this study in the larger historiographical narrative and describes the contribution of the project to South Asian scholarship and beyond. Much of the extant literature on environmental history has gone toward arguing for the role of nature as a historical actor. But it has been relatively less emphatic toward the study of non-human subjects, particularly domestic animals in empire building. The novelty and richness of the book lies in its invocation of complex networks of human and nonhuman actors in an empire to inform the metropolitan scientific imagination. It also foregrounds the theoretical underpinnings and methodology of this book by highlighting what is new about this work.

scholarly journals Apartheid South Africa's segregated legal field: black lawyers and the Bantustans

Africa ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 90 (2) ◽  
pp. 293-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Gibbs
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Legal Profession ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Nelson Mandela ◽  
Legal Activism ◽  
History Of ◽  
Professional Formation

AbstractThe history of South Africa's urban-based ‘struggle lawyers’ – a trajectory epitomized by Nelson Mandela – is much discussed by historians and biographers, reflecting a broader vein of historiography that celebrates anti-colonial legal activism. However, it was South Africa's ‘Native Reserves’ and Bantustans that produced the majority of African lawyers for much of the twentieth century. Indeed, two-thirds of the African justices who have sat on the post-apartheid Constitutional Court either practised or trained in the Bantustans during the apartheid era. The purpose of this article is thus to reappraise South Africa's ‘legal field’ – the complex relationship between professional formation, elite reproduction and the exercise of political power – by tracing the ambiguous role played by the Native Reserves/Bantustans in shaping the African legal profession across the twentieth century. How did African lawyers, persistently marginalized by century-long patterns of exclusion, nevertheless construct an elite profession within the confines of segregation and apartheid? How might we link the histories of the Bantustans with the better-known ‘struggle historiography’ that emphasizes the role of political and legal activism in the cities? And what are the implications of South Africa's segregated history for debates about the ‘decolonization’ of the legal profession in the post-apartheid era?

scholarly journals A View from the Bush: Space, Environment and the Historiography of Science

2009 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 27-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Evenden
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Historical Geography ◽  
Space Environment ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Spatial Approach ◽  
Historiography Of Science ◽  
History Of

Abstract This paper examines the interdisciplinary connections among the history of science, historical geography and environmental history. Four approaches have shaped recent scholarship: a spatial approach developed primarily but not exclusively within the discipline of geography that emphasizes problems of space, place, location and circulation; second, a disciplinary approach which pursues histories of environmental disciplines; third, a science and change approach containing works which emphasize the role of science in environmental change; and fourth an eco-spatial approach which includes studies that seek to engage with and link historiographies of science, environment and spatiality. I argue that these approaches have created new connections between fields that should be fostered and extended.

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