Writing in Times of Crisis

Author(s):  
Amir Kalan

This chapter focuses on a memoir and a film that narrate the experiences of Kurdish writer Behrouz Boochani in an Australian refugee camp in Papua New Guinea in order to show how genres organically develop out of human engagement with social and historical circumstances. The author discusses the novel and the film as examples of how writers' interactions with the world impose rhetorical orientations and nurture genre formation. This chapter illustrates that, as opposed to the dominant view of rhetoric as a means of persuasion, the essence of rhetoric and genre formation is engagement with what the author calls “phenomenological autoethnography.” The author argues that studying writing in times of crisis makes the phenomenological and autoethnographic foundations of writing visible because in crises rhetoric is unapologetically used to resist injustice and build resistance through “poetic realism,” which consists of fluid genre practices that can help capture the complexities of human experience.

Antiquity ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 68 (260) ◽  
pp. 604-610 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Pavlides ◽  
Chris Gosden

The growing story of early settlement in the northwest Pacific islands is moving from coastal sites into the rainforest. Evidence of Pleistocene cultural layers have been discovered in open-site excavations at Yombon, an area containing shifting hamlets, in West New Britain's interior tropical rainforest. These sites, the oldest in New Britain, may presently stand as the oldest open sites discovered in rainforest anywhere in the world.


Tsunami ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 37-48
Author(s):  
James Goff ◽  
Walter Dudley

The 1998 Papua New Guinea tsunami was a significant puzzle for scientists who finally cracked the cause, but it also marks the most recent event of many that can be dated back to at least 6,000 years ago where the skull of the oldest tsunami victim in the world was found. Papua New Guinea was also the starting point for the most remarkable navigational feat in the world, with Polynesians moving rapidly east into the Pacific Ocean, their settlement of the region being punctuated by hiatuses caused by catastrophic tsunamis approximately 3,000, 2,000, and 600 years ago. It was on isolated Pacific islands that humans first came into contact with the deadly Pacific Ring of Fire. Settlement abandonment, mass graves, and cultural collapse mark their progress.


Zootaxa ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4411 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
WILLIAM T. WHITE ◽  
ALFRED KO’OU

An annotated checklist of the chondrichthyan fishes (sharks, rays, and chimaeras) of Papua New Guinean waters is herein presented. The checklist is the result of a large biodiversity study on the chondrichthyan fauna of Papua New Guinea between 2013 and 2017. The chondrichthyan fauna of Papua New Guinea has historically been very poorly known due to a lack of baseline information and limited deepwater exploration. A total of 131 species, comprising 36 families and 68 genera, were recorded. The most speciose families are the Carcharhinidae with 29 species and the Dasyatidae with 23 species. Verified voucher material from various biological collections around the world are provided, with a total of 687 lots recorded comprising 574 whole specimens, 128 sets of jaws and 21 sawfish rostra. This represents the first detailed, verified checklist of chondrichthyans from Papua New Guinean waters. 


2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 329-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter J. Yearwood

AbstractOriginally intended to provide an accessible overview for colleagues in Papua New Guinea, this article outlines the emergence of the continental division of the world in classical antiquity. In medieval Europe this survived as a learned conception which eventually acquired emotional content. Nevertheless, the division was still within the context of universal Christianity, which did not privilege any continent. Contrary to the views of recent critics, the European sense of world geography was not inherently ‘Eurocentric’. While Europeans did develop a sense of continental superiority, Americans, Africans, and many Asians also came to identify themselves with their continents and to use them as weapons against European domination. The application of the division to Melanesia is also considered.


1976 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 467 ◽  
Author(s):  
T Petr

The Purari River in Papua (Papua New Guinea) is a tropical river with ionic dominance similar to that of the world average river water, i.e. Ca > Mg > Na > K, and HCO3 > (SO4?) > Cl. As the sulphate concentration was not determined, the anionic trend still needs to be further investigated. The Na:Ca as well as the Ca + Mg:Na + K ionic ratios suggest that chemical weathering in the highlands is the dominant source of dissolved solids, and that it determines the chemistry of the lower course of the Purari River. Among the waters investigated, the Purari River, in its lower course, has a total salinity higher than that of the Sirinumu impoundment, and lower than that of the Sepik River. The low concentration of solutes in the Sirinumu impoundment near Port Moresby indicates that oligotrophication can be expected in reservoirs built on Papuan rivers.


Zootaxa ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4629 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-378
Author(s):  
FRANCISCO JAVIER PERIS-FELIPO ◽  
JULIA STIGENBERG ◽  
DONALD L.J. QUICKE ◽  
SERGEY A. BELOKOBYLSKIJ

A revision of all Oriental species of subgenus Patrisaspilota Fischer, 1995 of the genus Orthostigma Ratzeburg, 1844 is provided and a new species from Papua New Guinea, Orthostigma (Patrisaspilota) enduwaense sp. nov., is described and illustrated. The species name Patrisaspilota memorandum Fischer, 1995 is synonymized with Orthostigma multicarinatum Tobias, 1990. A comprehensive key to the World Patrisaspilota species is presented and all known species are re-described and illustrated. 


1979 ◽  
Vol 30 (5) ◽  
pp. 617 ◽  
Author(s):  
C Sorentino

A survey was carried out of the mercury content of 19 fish species from 18 locations In the coastal and fresh waters of Papua New Guinea. Most commercial catches had total mercury contents well below the 0.5 �g/g limit recommended by the World Health Organization, the only exception being barramundi (Lates calcarifer) caught in the Fly River system. The presence of mercury in this river is discussed.


2007 ◽  
Vol 191 (6) ◽  
pp. 567-570
Author(s):  
Allan Beveridge

In the novel Hard Times, Charles Dickens gives his views on education. His character Mr Gradgrind believes in ‘facts’ and is suspicious of the imagination. All we need to know about the world, he maintains, can be reduced to simple facts. Dickens shows that such a philosophy leads to the impoverishment of the mind and to the weakening of ethical reasoning. Today it seems that the descendants of Mr Gradgrind are still in charge. The main psychiatric library where I work has been closed. It is argued that we can obtain all the ‘facts’ we need from the internet. The notion that books might have more to offer than prosaic detail, that they reflect the rich diversity of human experience, seems alien to the modern-day Gradgrinds.


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