ECO CRITICAL CONCERNS IN THE POETRY OF O.N.V. KURUP

Today the world is changing vigorously and the developments dismiss the ecological concerns for nature. Literature often addresses the environmental issues and does its duty in healing the nature. Ecocriticism is a branch of Literary Criticism that deals with the relationship between literature and the physical environment. Eenvironmental poetry explores the complicated connections between people and nature. O.N.V. Kurup was a renowned poet and lyricist in Malayalam. His works focus on Eco critical aspects such as landscape, sense of consciousness, eco-anxiety about the environmental changes etc. The present study is an attempt to focus on O.N.V.Kurup’s poetry in the theoretical frame work of ecocriticism

REDD+ Governmentality: Governing Forest, Land, and Forest Peoples in Indonesia

<p>Aimed at lowering forest carbon emissions through financing improved forest governance and socially inclusive land and natural resources use, the REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Plus) program is attracting widespread interest and investment in Indonesia. REDD+ introduces new governmental rationalities, in which forest carbon is used as a standard to measure a country’s performance in keeping its tropical forests intact and defines the financial rewards the country will receive. REDD+ is one factor in an emergent new political conjuncture in Indonesia that is opening up to the possibilities for reworking forest governance. This thesis employs Foucault’s concept of governmentality to examine how governmental technologies are formed, contested and implemented through REDD+ and some of the early impacts the program is having (Foucault, 1991a). Drawing on grounded empirical data and inspired by a ‘not-quite neoliberal nature’ framework (de Freitas, Marston and Bakker, 2015) I show how place-based discourses, politics, actors, and interests are shaping the way REDD+ unfolds in Indonesia. This is achieved through three case studies focused on the REDD+ Taskforce; the One Map Initiative; and an Indigenous land claim in a community in Central Kalimantan. Findings from the three case studies show how current deficiencies in forestland governance have been problematized where there is no clarity over who has rights to forestland, who owns the concessions and where they are. Thus, addressing current complexities is becoming the Taskforce’s priority through series of governmental technologies including the One Map Initiative. Meanwhile, activists are making use of this opportunity to render visible Indigenous land rights in an attempt to subvert focused technical fixes to more open social justice ends. By discussing the messy actualities of developing, implementing and responding to governmental technologies the thesis problematizes pro- and anti-REDD+ debates. Rather than view REDD+ governmental technologies through “a programmer’s view” (Death, 2013) as a finished or rigid project implemented on others, I see it as an ongoing attempt to govern human – forest relationships that are shaped by contestations and resistances. Thus, the thesis makes an important contribution to neoliberal nature literature by showing that neoliberal governmental programs, such as REDD+, should be seen as sites of struggle, with different actors experiencing and engaging the program in different ways. As such, this thesis highlights how neoliberal mechanisms can be co-opted by particular actors in order to achieve diverse economic, social and environmental goals. Through engagement with governmental technologies the landscapes of forest politics change in both enabling and constraining ways.</p>

REDD+ Governmentality: Governing Forest, Land, and Forest Peoples in Indonesia

<p>Aimed at lowering forest carbon emissions through financing improved forest governance and socially inclusive land and natural resources use, the REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Plus) program is attracting widespread interest and investment in Indonesia. REDD+ introduces new governmental rationalities, in which forest carbon is used as a standard to measure a country’s performance in keeping its tropical forests intact and defines the financial rewards the country will receive. REDD+ is one factor in an emergent new political conjuncture in Indonesia that is opening up to the possibilities for reworking forest governance. This thesis employs Foucault’s concept of governmentality to examine how governmental technologies are formed, contested and implemented through REDD+ and some of the early impacts the program is having (Foucault, 1991a). Drawing on grounded empirical data and inspired by a ‘not-quite neoliberal nature’ framework (de Freitas, Marston and Bakker, 2015) I show how place-based discourses, politics, actors, and interests are shaping the way REDD+ unfolds in Indonesia. This is achieved through three case studies focused on the REDD+ Taskforce; the One Map Initiative; and an Indigenous land claim in a community in Central Kalimantan. Findings from the three case studies show how current deficiencies in forestland governance have been problematized where there is no clarity over who has rights to forestland, who owns the concessions and where they are. Thus, addressing current complexities is becoming the Taskforce’s priority through series of governmental technologies including the One Map Initiative. Meanwhile, activists are making use of this opportunity to render visible Indigenous land rights in an attempt to subvert focused technical fixes to more open social justice ends. By discussing the messy actualities of developing, implementing and responding to governmental technologies the thesis problematizes pro- and anti-REDD+ debates. Rather than view REDD+ governmental technologies through “a programmer’s view” (Death, 2013) as a finished or rigid project implemented on others, I see it as an ongoing attempt to govern human – forest relationships that are shaped by contestations and resistances. Thus, the thesis makes an important contribution to neoliberal nature literature by showing that neoliberal governmental programs, such as REDD+, should be seen as sites of struggle, with different actors experiencing and engaging the program in different ways. As such, this thesis highlights how neoliberal mechanisms can be co-opted by particular actors in order to achieve diverse economic, social and environmental goals. Through engagement with governmental technologies the landscapes of forest politics change in both enabling and constraining ways.</p>

Toxic or Otherwise Harmful Algae and the Built Environment

This article gives a comprehensive overview on potentially harmful algae occurring in the built environment. Man-made structures provide diverse habitats where algae can grow, mainly aerophytic in nature. Literature reveals that algae that is potentially harmful to humans do occur in the anthropogenic environment in the air, on surfaces or in water bodies. Algae may negatively affect humans in different ways: they may be toxic, allergenic and pathogenic to humans or attack human structures. Toxin-producing alga are represented in the built environment mainly by blue green algae (Cyanoprokaryota). In special occasions, other toxic algae may also be involved. Green algae (Chlorophyta) found airborne or growing on manmade surfaces may be allergenic whereas Cyanoprokaryota and other forms may not only be toxic but also allergenic. Pathogenicity is found only in a special group of algae, especially in the genus Prototheca. In addition, rare cases with infections due to algae with green chloroplasts are reported. Algal action may be involved in the biodeterioration of buildings and works of art, which is still discussed controversially. Whereas in many cases the disfigurement of surfaces and even the corrosion of materials is encountered, in other cases a protective effect on the materials is reported. A comprehensive list of 79 taxa of potentially harmful, airborne algae supplemented with their counterparts occurring in the built environment, is given. Due to global climate change, it is not unlikely that the built environment will suffer from more and higher amounts of harmful algal species in the future. Therefore, intensified research in composition, ecophysiology and development of algal growth in the built environment is indicated.

STVALL: Hybrid TV for Interactive Language and Content Learning

Hybrid television refers to the merging of the Internet and traditional television via a multi-user platform. In this scope, we have developed the STVALL project for the past two-three years on a regional scale (Extremadura TV in Spain). This technology aims to provide an educational platform for interactive and adaptive (individual or group) learning of content and language via the smart television. Our research group has focused on the development of specific activities and challenges (so-called customized training pills) to feed content and information into the authoring tool, which stores and distributes it from its knowledge base. As education experts (language and content teachers / educators), we have labelled this content according to five subject areas (Science and Nature, Literature and Art, Geography and History, Entertainment and Sports, and Language) and four language user levels: Adult (over 12 years of age) / Children (0-12): A1/A2/B1/B2. In addition, the content has been assigned other types of tags for user-related feedback in the authoring tool (e.g., monologic vs. dialogic, narrative vs. instructions, etc). Thus, upon interaction with the program, users build a content and language level profile that the system will store and remember for the next interaction (single- or group-based). Because the users’ profiles may differ significantly, this system has been tested with groups of adults and children so that their specific aims and inclinations as regards content and language learning can be registered and compared. By relying on users’ performance and personal surveys, our team will be able to specify more customized types of activities, some of which require experts’ responses and mediation.

Etymological Recirculation in Seamus Heaney, R. F. Langley, and J. H. Prynne

This chapter discusses ways in which three poets approach etymology as a vehicle of cultural recirculation. The section on Seamus Heaney describes his career as deepening three lines of etymological influence—Old English, Irish, and Latin—beginning in an imitative and versioning mode, and concluding with direct translations. For Heaney, the etymological substrate confers ‘aura and authenticity’, which results in etymological figures that are self-buttressing and self-confirming, qualities he also ascribes to poetry more generally. R. F. Langley’s ‘semiosis of the forest’ is discussed with reference to a number of poems and journal entries, which make attempts at recirculating human experiences, especially of nature, literature, and scholarship, into a poetic present. The chapter concludes with a reading of J. H. Prynne’s Kazoo Dreamboats; or, On What There Is as performing an ‘atomic etymology’, breaking down language and literature into elemental particles which are then reassembled according to new ontologies.

New Raw Materials from the New World: Transfer of Knowledge to Polish Pharmacies

Cataloguing of the natural world was started by the 16th–century scholar Ulisses Aldrovandi, who was inspired by overseas expeditions. Collectors of specimens, among whom were many doctors of medicine and pharmacists, noticed the possibilities for using exotic plants and animals in medicine. The first pharmacopoeias, however, contained very few of the previously unknown raw materials and they did not have a great impact on the contemporary therapeutic possibilities. In the Polish territories, the raw materials from the New World had already been recorded in Jan Woyna’s Krakow Pharmacopoeia of 1683, in which five American species were identified. By contrast, in the 18th–century Jesuit pharmacies, 30 such materials were already used, although they were not pharmacopoeial. In the 18th century, in the Polish lands, an important role was played by duchess Anna Jabłonowska (1728–1800), who gathered one of the richest natural history collections in Europe in Siemiatycze in Podlasie. Thanks to her support, the Polish nature literature was enriched with numerous works that were of importance for the development of the natural sciences.

Literary production in Niger: The case of the novel

Literature, like all art, is in part geographically and historically determined. Despite its imaginary nature, literature maintains close ties with its context of emergence. African literature is in part an illustration of determinisms of this type and owes a great deal to colonial trauma. Nevertheless, it also draws on autochthonous myths – both old and new – on the colonial heritage, and on new mentalities generated by decolonisation and other factors. However, certain political and ideological choices visible in literary texts underline national specificities. My intention, as a citizen of Niger, is to contribute to bringing Nigérien literature, and the Nigérien novel, in particular, into the limelight. In fact, this production is only just emerging, as the first novel dates back to 1959. This paper focuses on the fundamental problem of the relation between the novel produced in Niger and the Nigérien society, and by extension, the relation between Nigérien literature and the society from which it is emerging. Based on a thematic study, in the spirit of socio-criticism, an attempt will be made to place a selected corpus of eleven novels, published between 1977 and 1993, in their context of emergence. The geographical (spatial and climatic) milieu is omnipresent and dominant in these works; focus on a traditional socio-cultural milieu is recurrent and is still of current importance, while the modern socio-cultural milieu is determinant but not quite as dominant as rural space. These are some of the basic elements composing the backdrop of Nigérien novelistic creation. They suggest aspects of a collective identity. Nonetheless these are not, in themselves, sufficient grounds on which to identify a specific literary production.