The New Materialism

2018 ◽  
pp. 96-106
Author(s):  
David Wood
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Hybrid Model ◽  
New Materialism ◽  
Direct Impact ◽  
New Words ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
The World ◽  
Ways Of Thinking ◽  
Better Than ◽  
Post Humanism

Post-humanism throws up deep questions about agency and responsibility at a point in human and terrestrial history at which we most urgently need answers. Do new materialists—a cluster of contemporary thinkers influenced by Spinoza, Deleuze, and feminism—help us with such answers? Is it enough to speak of the agency of things? Or a hybrid model in which humans share agency with natural forces? Or to rethink agents not as independent beings but essentially relational, assemblages? Is new materialism any better than the old one? It offers ways of thinking and talking that attempt to overcome or displace patterns of thought that generate blind repetitions of empty formulae. Following Deleuze, new materialism attempts to overcome the ways in which we are caught up in reactive forces, which has a direct impact on how we respond to climate change. But it is less plausible as ontology, often falling into performative self-contradiction, and more significant as discursive innovation. It opens the world in new ways, refiguring matter with new words, new concepts. It wants to point to the resistance, recalcitrance, and powers of things, but much of the work takes place in transforming our discursive inheritance.

Conclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 199-202
Author(s):  
Philip Jenkins
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
The Political ◽  
Climate History ◽  
Accurate Knowledge ◽  
The World ◽  
Religious Dimensions ◽  
Better Than

My own interest in the topics of this book dates back a good many years. In fact, it predates the emergence of the modern field of climate history, or the identification of global warming as an incipient menace. In saying that, I am claiming no status as a prodigy, still less a prophet. Rather, in my teenage years, I read a great deal of speculative fiction, science fiction, in which themes of climate change and cataclysm have long percolated, at least since the latter years of the nineteenth century. We can debate how accurate the scientific analyses or predictions were in many of these works—in many cases, the level of accurate knowledge was minimal—but those works had the inordinate advantage of thinking through the human and cultural consequences of catastrophe, commonly speculating about religious dimensions. Obviously, some works succeeded better than others in that regard, but the essential project was critically important. If we are foretelling that the world will be assailed by lethal menaces, then we cannot fail to go on to imagine what the political or cultural consequences would or should be....

scholarly journals Kunstverkets nødvendighet

2020 ◽  
pp. 27-40
Author(s):  
Øivind Varkøy
Keyword(s):  
Human Subject ◽  
Object Oriented ◽  
Social Origins ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
The Third ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The World ◽  
Ways Of Thinking ◽  
Better Than

A work of art is never just a thing or an object. In the art experience, a relationship is established between a person and a part-subject/part-object, never between a person and just a “thing”. These claims are in a certain tension with the well-known critique of the traditional western focus on music as works or objects. The discussion in this essay is based on three premises. The first premise is that our object-oriented understanding of music is historically and socially constructed. The second premise is that the historical and social origins of all ways of thinking in no way prevent some ways of thinking from being “better” than others. This opens up the possibility of being able to think that some ways of relating to music are more meaningful than others. The third premise is that a fundamental prerequisite for moving encounters between the human subject and music is the very idea of music as a work of art (as a part-subject/part-object). The necessity of a rethinking of the work of art as a part-subject/part-object is related to the possibility of re-romanticization, re-describing the world poetically.

scholarly journals A Contrastive Analysis of Word Formation of English and Chinese Neologisms

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 251
Author(s):  
Shiyun Cheng
Keyword(s):  
Information Age ◽  
Oral Communication ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
New Words ◽  
Cultural Field ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
New Meanings ◽  
The World ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Political Economic

Neologisms refer to the words created to express new things, new concepts and new ideas in written and oral communication. Since the 1980s, the world has entered into an information age. The world has witnessed great changes in political, economic, cultural field. At the same time, China has been carrying out a series of political and economic reforms, which have brought about amazing changes in all social aspects. As a result, a great deal of neologisms have appeared both in English and Chinese. There are three sources of neologisms both in English and Chinese: creating new words with native word elements, adding new meanings to existing words and borrowing new words from other languages. This paper focus on the first one of these three sources: word-formation, and analyzes the similarities and differences of three major ways of word-formation of neologisms in both English and Chinese: compounds, affixations, shortenings.

scholarly journals THE MEANING OF “e-”: NEOLOGISMS AS MARKERS OF CULTURE AND TECHNOLOGY

eTopia ◽  
2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucinda McDonald
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Digital Technology ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Growth Rings ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
New Words ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
The World ◽  
The Times ◽  
Over Time

A community is known by the language it keeps, and its words chronicle the times. Every aspect of the life of a people is reflected in the words they use to talk about themselves and the world around them. As their world changes – through invention, discovery, revolution,evolution or personal transformation – so does their language. Like the growth rings of a tree, our vocabulary bears witness to our past.- John Algeo (Fifty Years Among the New Words)Algeo reveals two interesting concepts in this simple passage. First, he acknowledges the intricate relationship between language and culture. Although it is no secret that both language and culture change over time, he explains how language acts as a marker of history, reflecting back culture as it changes. Secondly, he points to vocabulary as the primary indicator for tracking this change and recognizes that new words or neologisms can be useful tools for understanding how culture is evolving. Algeo shows us that through monitoring vocabulary change, we can track cultural change. New words are constantly entering the lexicon to describe new concepts and technologies and what they mean to us. Conversely, older words continually fall out of use as they decrease in cultural significance. Considering the influence digital technology has had on society, it is not surprising then that lexicographers have found that science and technology are by far the most prolific sources of neologisms in recent times (Crystal 2002; Knowles & Elliot 1997;Van Dyke 1992; Gozzi 1990).

scholarly journals TRANSLATION OF ENGLISH SLANG IN ADVERTISEMENTS

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kateryna Shevchyk ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Mass Communication ◽  
Information Technologies ◽  
English Language ◽  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Modern World ◽  
New Words ◽  
Modern Development ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
The World ◽  
Lexical Composition

In the modern world, in the epoch of growth of information technologies, an advertisement is one of the most popular varieties of mass communication that rapidly develops. The growth of advertisement substantially influences on lexical composition of language, creates in a language new concepts and expressions, in particular slang and jargon. Native speakers begin to use such vocabulary in everyday life. Especially modern English has such phenomenon, because it is used all over the world. Nowadays, an advertisement performs the function of public ideas formation. Influencing on people, an advertisement creates consumer philosophy and ideology. One of the most sensible to the advertisement categories of people is youth, because they are in the process of active socialization. Exactly an advertisement is mostly aimed at young consumers, that is why it becomes more widely spread and such products need specific language means of influence. Advertisement makers try to overcome psychological distance between an advertisement and audience, so they use of extralinguistic language units, elements of slang or to create new words. Topicality of this work is defined by the fact that a slang is an integral part of English, and the latest research of slang is of great importance. A slang is one of the most actual and ambiguous problems of modern lexicology. In the world where new slang units appear every day, updating of theoretical and practical knowledge of slang and its functions is very important for modern lexicology. In addition, the deeper analysis of advertisement reports with a slang must be done. A scientific novelty of work is that theoretical knowledge in relation to a slang and advertisement in the conditions of modern development of information technologies are incorporated and generalized; opinions of scientists are analyzed in relation to functioning of slang in an advertisement. The aim of the article is to study features of slang functioning in modern English-language advertisements and analysis of basic methods of translating of such advertisement texts. The achievement of these aims needs solution of the following tasks: 1) to interpret a concept "slang" and "jargon" and define, what a slang differs from jargon in the context of the newest researches; 2) to present the basic methods of forming of slang in modern English; 3) to describe the general views of slang and identify their specifics; 4) to interpret a concept "advertisement" and describe the stylistic features of advertisement text; 5) to describe the features of slang use in advertisement texts; 6) to explain functioning of slang in an advertisement on the example of advertisement slogans and texts; 7) to define the specific features of English-Ukrainian translation of advertisements. The subject of research is an analysis of slang features in modern English and Ukrainian languages in advertisement texts.

scholarly journals Becoming Neolithic in words, thoughts and deeds

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Mithen
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Economic ◽  
Considerable Progress ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Southern Levant ◽  
New Words ◽  
Neolithic Transition ◽  
Neolithic Culture ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
The World ◽  
The Mind

How did people come to ‘think Neolithic’? While there has been considerable progress in reconstructing the environmental, economic, technological and social changes associated with the transition from mobile hunter-gathering to sedentary farming and herding communities, we remain limited in our understanding of how Neolithic culture in its most profound sense arose. I suggest that the formation of new words required for that new lifestyle was as much a driver as a consequence of the Neolithic transition, illustrating this with a sample of Neolithic innovations from the southern Levant that appears likely to have required new words. Such words, I argue, helped to establish new concepts in the mind, shaped thought, influenced perception and ultimately the human deeds in the world that left an archaeological trace.

Exposed

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stacy Alaimo
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Environmental Activism ◽  
New Materialism ◽  
Environmental Humanities ◽  
Environmental Protest ◽  
The World ◽  
Ocean Conservation

Exposed argues for a material feminist posthumanism that departs from the predominant modes of humanist transcendence in theory, science, consumerism, and popular culture. Featuring three sections, the book calls for an environmental stance in which humanity thinks, feels, and acts as the very stuff of the world. As a work within the environmental humanities, it grapples with climate change, biodiversity, sustainability, ocean conservation, environmental activism, and the depiction of the anthropocene. And as a study in new materialism it focuses on how the materiality of human bodies provoke modes of posthumanist pleasure, environmental protest, and a sense of immersion within the strange agencies that constitute the world.

scholarly journals Juniperus L. for Restoration of Degraded Forest Lands in Turkey

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cengiz Yücedağ ◽  
Sezgin Ayan ◽  
Perla Farhat ◽  
Halil Barış Özel
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Forest Restoration ◽  
Timber Species ◽  
Degraded Forest ◽  
Degraded Lands ◽  
Drought Tolerant ◽  
The World ◽  
Successful Rehabilitation ◽  
Forest Lands ◽  
Better Than

Degraded forests are among of the most important environmental and commercial problems around the world. Turkey has 22.74 million hectares of forest area, out of which 9.656 million ha (42%) are unproductive. To transform these unproductive forests into productive ones, forest restoration including rehabilitation is one of the best actions. In this sense, juniper species play an important role for degraded lands because they are drought-tolerant and withstand aridity and poor soils better than most timber species grown in Turkey. Therefore, this review presents the ecological considerations for the restoration of degraded forest lands in Turkey under the conditions of climate change. Within this framework, it focuses on the production of planting stock of juniper species, the significance of site-species matching, and post-planting site maintenance for successful rehabilitation.

The World Economic Forum Principles on "Climate Governance on Corporate Boards": can soft law help to face climate change around the world?

2020 ◽  
pp. 37-55
Author(s):  
Sabrina Bruno
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Boards Of Directors ◽  
Soft Law ◽  
Corporate Boards ◽  
World Economic Forum ◽  
Financial Factor ◽  
The World ◽  
World Economic

Climate change is a financial factor that carries with it risks and opportunities for companies. To support boards of directors of companies belonging to all jurisdictions, the World Economic Forum issued in January 2019 eight Principlescontaining both theoretical and practical provisions on: climate accountability, competence, governance, management, disclosure and dialogue. The paper analyses each Principle to understand scope and managerial consequences for boards and to evaluate whether the legal distinctions, among the various jurisdictions, may undermine the application of the Principles or, by contrast, despite the differences the Principles may be a useful and effective guidance to drive boards' of directors' conduct around the world in handling climate change challenges. Five jurisdictions are taken into consideration for this comparative analysis: Europe (and UK), US, Australia, South Africa and Canada. The conclusion is that the WEF Principles, as soft law, is the best possible instrument to address boards of directors of worldwide companies, harmonise their conduct and effectively help facing such global emergency.

Uncountable Matter

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-41
Author(s):  
Jacques Lezra
Keyword(s):  
New Materialism ◽  
Human Hand ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The World ◽  
Human Animal

Humanism returns for the New Materialism in ‘nonhuman’ form as matter. New ‘matter’ and new materialism thus fashion the world to human advantage in the gesture of abjecting us. They commit us to the humanism of masochists. They offer an animistic and paradisiacal realm of immediate transactions, human to human, human to and with nonhuman, face to face, world without end. The impulse is tactically and strategically useful. But ‘matter’ will not help us if we fashion it so that it bears in its concept the signature of a human hand in its making. Can we do otherwise? Only by conceiving matter as what absolutizes what is not-one: matter from which no discipline will normally, normatively, produce an object or take its concept; on which heroical abjection will founder; matter non-human in ways the human animal can neither designate, nor ever count.

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