scholarly journals Gravitation

2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 79-91
Author(s):  
Pia Ahlbäck
Keyword(s):  
Natural Environment ◽  
Physical Environment ◽  
The Other ◽  
Reading Practice ◽  
Primary Position ◽  
Sustainable Economy

Gravitation: Modes of Reading in the Anthropocene In this article, I suggest ‘gravitation’ as a new way of reading in and for the anthropocene, which is characterised by environmentally destructive ‘social acceleration’. This reading practice would imply two things: First, that representations of the natural environment take a primary position in relation to the characters in many genres, including those where nature so far has been read as a highly conventional construction. It also involves acknowledging that ultimately, characters are positioned by the physical environment in these genres, as characters, in one way or the other, can never exist unrelated to the environment that encompass and cut through them. These genres I suggest be called ‘gravitating genres’. Second, and in a similar fashion, I suggest the term ‘gravitating reading’ to denote reading of physical books, which in this context becomes a highly preferred medium. This term partly coincides with that of ‘deep reading’ suggested by Mangen, but in addition, it also recognizes the dependency of both the reader and the medium on the natural environment. Together, these two practices amount to, I suggest, nothing less than a mutually sustainable economy of reading.

‘He Brought the Cold Death on my Harandra’: The Cosmic Trilogy and the Ecotheology of Laudato si'

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 166-182
Author(s):  
Maria Poggi Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Natural Environment ◽  
The Other ◽  
Space Travel ◽  
Human Relationships ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Divine Will ◽  
The Relationship

In his trilogy of space travel novels, published between 1938 and 1945, C.S. Lewis strikingly anticipates, and incarnates in imaginative form, the insights and concerns central to the modern discipline of ecotheology. The moral and spiritual battle that forms the plot of the novels is enacted and informed by the relationship between humans and the natural environment, Rebellion against, and alienation from, the Creator inevitably manifests in a violent and alienated attitude to creation, which is seen as something to be mastered and exploited. Lives and cultures in harmony with the divine will, on the other hand, are expressed in relationships of care and respect for the environment. The imaginative premise of the Trilogy is that of ecotheology; that the human relationships with God, neighbour, and earth and are deeply and inextricably intertwined.

scholarly journals PERMUKIMAN KUMUH, SEBUAH KEGAGALAN PEMENUHAN ASPEK PERMUKIMAN ISLAMI

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aisyah Nur Handryant
Keyword(s):  
Natural Environment ◽  
Family Members ◽  
The Other ◽  
Settlement House ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Future ◽  
Gathering Place

<p>As a social being, interaction with others is one of human’s essential needs. These interaction and socialization in a society is often conducted in a settlement. A settlement as a community ecosystem has an important role in shaping people’s characters in a society. The condition of settlement can be an indication of the condition of its community. On the other hand, Islam as a <em>rahmatan lil 'alamin </em>religion actually provides its followers a set of values on islamic aspects in  the house and settlement. Islam gives some lessons of how a house could become not only as a gathering place for family members, but could also be a place of education and learning for  its  inhabitants.  Islam  also  gives us lessons of  how a house is  closely related to its settlement  and environment, and how every elements in a house should be in harmony and unity with its social and natural environment. This paper tries to analyze many aspects of slums based on some aspects of islamic housing. The deficiencies and problems found in slums are expected as a consideration in the future efforts to overcome the problems holistically and integrally.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>e</strong><strong>y</strong><strong>w</strong><strong>o</strong><strong>r</strong><strong>d</strong><strong>s</strong><strong>: </strong>Slum, islamic settlement, house</p>

scholarly journals Pásztori múzsa a nagyvárosban

2018 ◽  
pp. 9-20
Author(s):  
Gergő Gellérfi
Keyword(s):  
Natural Environment ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
The Other ◽  
Locus Amoenus ◽  
Bucolic Poetry

The title of my paper refers to a remark of Charles Witke, who specifies Juvenal’s Satire 3 in his monograph of Latin Satire as the eclogue of the urban poor. The interlocutor (who is also the main speaker in this case) of the satire says farewell to a friend before leaving his home for good, just like Meliboeus in Vergil’s First Eclogue. Both dialogues take place in natural environment, so to say, in a locus amoenus, however the setting of the satire is somewhat different from the traditional bucolic scenes. In my paper, I present the aforementioned bucolic features of the beginning and closure of Satire 3, after a brief summary of the other Juvenalian Satires showing the influence of bucolic poetry.

scholarly journals Omamori: Harmonization of Humans and Their Environment in Cultural Symbols

2020 ◽  
Vol 202 ◽  
pp. 07073
Author(s):  
Yuliani Rahmah
Keyword(s):  
Natural Environment ◽  
Japanese Society ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
Cultural Symbols ◽  
Library Research ◽  
Form Type ◽  
And Function

Omamori is known as an important part of religious life in Japanese society. Omamori, which has been known since the Tokugawa era and still survives in modern Japanese society, is often known as part of the collective culture of Japanese society. However, behind its function as a spiritual medium, Omamori holds a meaning of harmony between humans and nature. With the library research, this article aims to explain the other meanings contained in an Omamori. It is in line with the teachings of Shinto whose concept is centered on nature and the environment. The form, type, and function of an Omamori also symbolize the meaning of harmony between humans and their environment that gives birth to attitudes that support the preservation of the natural environment.

The Reader and World Crime Fiction

2020 ◽  
pp. 195-210
Author(s):  
Stewart King
Keyword(s):  
World Literature ◽  
Jorge Luis Borges ◽  
Crime Fiction ◽  
The Other ◽  
National Context ◽  
Reading Practice ◽  
American Tradition ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One

This chapter reflects on the tension between national-focused and more worldly readings of crime fiction. It treats crime fiction as a form of world literature and examines new ways of conceiving relationships between crime writers, readers and texts that eschew the common categorization of a universal British-American tradition, on the one hand, and, on the other, localized national traditions. Following Jorge Luis Borges, the chapter argues that the transnationality of the crime genre does not reside exclusively within the text, but rather emerges through the interaction of the reader and the text. What emerges is a transnational and trans-historical reading practice that respects the local but also allows for innovative connections and new paradigms to be forged when texts are read beyond the national context.

Brains in bodies in the—social, built, and natural—environment

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-72
Author(s):  
Michael A. Arbib
Keyword(s):  
Natural Environment ◽  
Physical Environment ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
Schema Theory ◽  
Neural Circuitry ◽  
Action Perception ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social And Physical Environment ◽  
Physical Construction

Each brain enlivens a body in interaction with the social and physical environment. Peter Zumthor’s Therme at Vals exemplifies the interplay of interior with surroundings, and ways the actions of users fuse with their multimodal experience. The action–perception cycle includes both practical and contemplative actions. The author analyzes what Louis Sullivan meant by “form ever follows function,” but more often talks of aesthetics and utility. Not only are action, perception, and emotion intertwined, but so are remembering and imagination. Architectural design leads to the physical construction of buildings—but much of what our brains achieve can be seen as a form of mental construction. A first look at neuroscience offers schema theory as a bridge from cognitive processes to neural circuitry. Some architects fear that neuroscience will strip the architect of any creativity. In counterpoint, two-way reduction explores how neuroscience can “dissect” phenomenology by showing how first-person experiences arise from melding diverse subconscious processes. This raises the possibility that neuroscience can extend the effectiveness of architectural design by showing how different aspects of a building may affect human experience in ways that are not apparent to self-reflection.

IX.—The Intellectual Resemblance of Twins

1934 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 105-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis Herrman ◽  
Lancelot Hogben
Keyword(s):  
Physical Environment ◽  
Social Behaviour ◽  
Narrow Range ◽  
Single Gene ◽  
Experimental Methods ◽  
The Other ◽  
Genetic Constitution ◽  
Family Influences ◽  
Social And Physical Environment ◽  
The One

The characteristics of social behaviour in man are conditioned by previous experience. What is observed is the product on the one hand of a certain genetic constitution and on the other of an intricate, prolonged, and at present largely obscure, process of training and physical environment, including both the environment of the fœtus and family influences, social and physical. The experimental methods for detecting differences due to single gene substitutions cannot be applied directly. Indeed, we can see no immediate prospect of applying to social behaviour methods of genetic analysis such as have led to the mapping of the chromosomes in animals and in plants. With methods available at present, genetic inquiry can undertake to detect whether any gene differences are associated with observed differences, and whether such gene differences are recognisable throughout a comparatively wide or narrow range of social and physical environment.

Myth, Environment, and the Orientation of the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan

1988 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 287-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. F. Aveni ◽  
E. E. Calnek ◽  
H. Hartung
Keyword(s):  
Mexico City ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
The Other ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Foundation Myth ◽  
Spring Equinox ◽  
The City ◽  
The Temple

In the light of the recent excavations of the Templo Mayor in downtown Mexico City, we explore the problem of the role of astronomy, calendar, and the landscape in the design and orientation of the building and of the city in general. We employ ethnohistoric data relating to the foundation myth of Tenochtitlan as a means of generating hypotheses concerning astronomical orientation that can be tested by reference to the archaeological record. We find that eastward-looking observations (implied in dismantling and reconstructing the myth) that took place around the time of the equinox may have been related to an attempt to transform a true east orientation from the natural environment into the architecture via a line that passed through the center of the Temple of Huitzilopochtli (the more southerly temple of the pair constituting the top of the Templo Mayor). It also is possible that the notch between the twin temples served a calendrical/orientational function. Evidence is presented to support the view that the mountain cult of Tlaloc, represented in the environment on the periphery of the Valley of Mexico by Mount Tlaloc, also may have directly influenced the orientation of the building and that it was part of a scheme for marking out days of the calendar by reference to the position of the rising sun at intervals of 20 days from the spring equinox. In this regard, we discuss the connection between the Templo Mayor and an enclosure containing offertory chambers atop Mount Tlaloc, which is located on a line extended to the visible horizon 44 km east of the ceremonial center. The ethnohistoric record implies that this place had been used for sacrifices to the rain god after whom the other of the twin temples of the Templo Mayor was named.

scholarly journals Under Darwin’s Cosh? Neo-Aristotelian Thinking in Environmental Ethics

2005 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 22-23
Author(s):  
Michael Wheeler
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
General Position ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right ◽  
Individual Human

As a first shot, one might say that environmental ethics is concerned distinctively with the moral relations that exist between, on the one hand, human beings and, on the other, the non-human natural environment. But this really is only a first shot. For example, one might be inclined to think that at least some components of the non-human natural environment (non-human animals, plants, species, forests, rivers, ecosystems, or whatever) have independent moral status, that is, are morally considerable in their own right, rather than being of moral interest only to the extent that they contribute to human well-being. If so, then one might be moved to claim that ethical matters involving the environment are best cashed out in terms of the dutes and responsibilities that human beings have to such components. If, however, one is inclined to deny independent moral status to the non-human natural environment or to any of its components, then one might be moved to claim that the ethical matters in question are exhaustively delineated by those moral relations existing between individual human beings, or between groups of human beings, in which the non-human natural environment figures. One key task for the environmental ethicist is to sort out which, if either, of these perspectives is the right one to adopt—as a general position or within particular contexts. I guess I don’t need to tell you that things get pretty complicated pretty quickly.

Human and Nonhuman Animals, Mutually at Risk: A Study of the Swiss Information Media

2011 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 337-355
Author(s):  
Annik Dubied Losa ◽  
Claudine Burton-Jeangros
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Human Impact ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
The Other ◽  
Avian Flu ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
The Media ◽  
Information Media ◽  
The One

AbstractNowadays, relationships between nonhuman animals and humans are debated, often in relation to issues associated with the risks they represent for each other. On the one hand, new diseases and accidents indicate that animals are not as innocuous as they were long thought; on the other hand, the now questioned human impact on the natural environment is considered a risk for animals. This research analyzed these contrasting images of animals in the Swiss information media. Of the five main animal figures identified over the last 30 years, this paper focuses on the Undesirable Animal and the Victim Animal. These two figures have existed throughout the observed period; in contrast to Victim Animals, however, who appear fairly infrequently, Undesirable Animals have become more and more common in the last decade, usually in relation to a specific issue (such as the avian flu). This suggests that the media more often convey the dominant anthropocentric relationship to animals, reflecting a preoccupation with the protection of humans against dangerous animals, whereas the protection of animals from humans is considered less important. Recent controversies demonstrate, however, that the frontier between “us” and “them” is regularly renegotiated.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document