Exploring the Book of Fortresses

Duarte de Armas’ Livro das fortalezas or Book of Fortresses illustrates 55 border fortresses in over 180 meticulous measured and annotated renderings. The book is even more impressive given that de Armas completed his on-site survey in a single year (1509) and finished annotating the book the following year. The book’s drawings, alluring in their combination of finite time and enormous space, are difficult to link together at an intra-site or inter-site scale. Consequently, while mapping the 55 border fortresses in the book provides a greater apprehension of a historical, liminal space, this alone does not solve the greater problem of reconstructing de Armas’ methods for rendering place on the Portuguese-Castilian border, nor does it acknowledge the historical moment in which it was produced. This article reconstructs the world of the Book of Fortresses through a novel, digital approach that acknowledges Duarte de Armas’ malleable sense of space rather than ‘rectifying’ his work to match modern geography.

Theoretical and methodological essence of noospheric geography of the 21st century

In modern conditions of globalization of society development and fleeting transformations of natural processes, when the development of science, includinggeographical, is extremely accelerated, there is a rapid complication of forms and methods of theoretical and methodological knowledge, which makes it necessary to conduct logical and methodological analysis of geography in modern conditions. It turned out that a hundred years ago, says Edwin Toffler, Thomas Mann put forward a formula that expressed the feeling of death of a certain era. Today, humanity has approached an invisible boundary that separates one era from another. It is established that the world is on the threshold of grand social changes, technical and cultural innovations. In these conditions, when the world has become completely different, it is important for geographers to understand the consequences of the ongoing transformation processes. All this requires a new understanding from the standpoint of a globalized society, to find out what fundamental consequences for geography brought the information technology revolution, which will result in new paradigms for the development of our science. A. Toffler argued in «The Third Wave» that humanity was approaching a new technological revolution, that is, the First Wave (agrarian civilization and the Second (industrial civilization)) was replaced by a new wave that led to the creation of a supra-industrial civilization almost twenty years ago. If the concept of «living matter» (as a natural planetary body) underlies the doctrine of the biosphere, then the selection of such a natural phenomenon on a planetary scale as «scientific thought», becomes the most important naturalistic generalization in the theory of the noosphere. Nowadays, the idea of the coherence of the most progressive social laws and the achievements of scientific knowledge acquires a special meaning, becomes the most important problem of the very existence of human civilization. Based on the above, according to M. V. Bahrov, L. H. Rudenko and I. H. Chervaniov, we argue that «there was a need to create new scientific products that reflect the state and problems of the current stage of development of society», i. e., noosphere geography. The refore, the realization of the purpose of the study is to identify scientific sources about the change of the theoretical essence of modern geography, substantiation of the theoretical and methodological essence of the «new» noosphere geography in the transition of information society to noosphere and clarify the place of noosphere geography in general scientific classification.

PEDAGOGICAL DESIGN OF A MODERN GEOGRAPHY LESSON

Цель и новизна исследования - разработка типовых проектов для основных видов уроков (осваивающих, контрольных и обобщающих). Актуальность исследования связана с тем, что внедрение нового образовательного стандарта (ФГОС) предполагает значительное расширение знаниевой составляющей компетенций учащихся. Их формирование должно носить последовательный характер, поэтому наше исследование посвящено вопросам и алгоритмам проектирования учителем современного урока (на примере географии). The purpose and novelty of the research is the development of standard projects for the main types of lessons (mastering, control and generalizing). The relevance of the study is due to the fact that the introduction of a new educational standard (FSES) presupposes a significant expansion of the knowledge component of students' competencies. Their formation should be sequential, therefore our study is devoted to the issues and algorithms for designing a modern lesson by a teacher (using the example of geography).

SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL WORK IN GEOGRAPHY LESSONS

Geographical education as one of the important means of creating a cultural environment in the educational process of the school opens to the student the world with all the diversity of complex relationships of nature, society and personality, satisfies the need for self-knowledge, promotes the formation of personal qualities and values. Geographical education gives person great opportunities to develop a humane and tolerant attitude to other people, to other civilizations, political and economic systems, the geographical environment, to the planet Earth. Geography as a science of the humanities and natural cycle not only reveals the features of the material and spiritual culture of the peoples of the world, but also shows them in inseparable connection with the natural and social environment. Modern geography comprehensively considers the living environment of humanity, using a systematic geographical approach to knowledge of the world.Education in a broad, social sense is a function of society to prepare the young generation for life, carried out by all society: social institutions, organizations, the church, media and culture, family and school. Education in the learning process, as well as the learning process itself, is a complex phenomenon. In geography lessons education is the formation of morality and spirituality of students, especially those aspects related to human behavior in different geographical, economic, political conditions, education of citizens of their country, preparation of school graduates to perform social roles, because there is no effective economy, social peace in the state, responsible citizens without education. Keywords: geography, education, geography lessons, teacher, culture, morality, student’s personality, social and educational work.

Geography and Empire

Geography has engaged in the study of empire since its early days as an academic discipline. Few disciplines have such a clear complicity with this political formation, that feeds on territorial growth through military power, and that limits political sovereignty in the peripheries. In fact, a temporal correspondence exists between the birth of modern geography and the emergence of a new phase of capitalist imperialism during the 1870s. Viewed as the queen of the imperial sciences over a century ago, geographies of empire have changed throughout time, reflecting the modifications in the discipline and the transformation in the nature of empires. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and under environmental determinism, geographical knowledge produced by the likes of Frederich Ratzel or Alfred Mackinder lent scientific credibility to ideologies of imperialism while, at the same time, they legitimized the scientific claims of geography as an academic discipline. Climatic and acclimatization studies and prerogatives were pivotal to construct moralistic considerations of both people and places. During the first half of the 20th century, geographies of empire were dominated, in part, by the regional tradition of French geographic inquiry, which cultivated a regional, zonal approach, while work with a focus on empire had a global and zonal tropicality architecture. Quantitative and neopositivist geography approaches in the second half of the 20th century had a less marked influence. Since the late 1980s, a concern for “empire” has returned to geography, and various subdisciplines have focused on the imperial genealogy of the discipline, the links between geography and empire, and the consequences of those links. A more critical engagement with the history of geography has provided contextual histories of global spatial practice and discourse over the past two centuries. The reconsideration of imperialism in view of postcolonial theory, tackling “historical amnesia,” has also promoted a new wave of studies. In a broad way we can be tempted today to make a division between geographical research, which participated in imperial development and maintenance, and geographical research “after Empire,” which aims to study and understand the past and present spatialities of empire.

Analysis of the impact of the relief on the soil structure in Smolensk region

The main research topic is the theoretical justification of integrated regionalization of rural areas to optimize the use of natural agro-potential by developing conceptual frameworks and new methodological approaches to assessing the effectiveness of its use and determining environmentally and economically options for the interaction of natural and production-territorial systems. The problem of creating a theoretical (conceptual) model of integrated regionalization of rural areas using modern geographical methods and GIS technologies to optimize the use of natural agro-resource potential is arisen. The object of study is the natural agropotential of Smolensk region. Considering the complexity character of research we used the model area. The aim of the study is to assess the relationship of the spatial soil’s distribution and relief. For this aim, the model area on the territory of Smolensk region was chosen, digital model was created and analyzed. The research results have independent scientific interest and optimize the using of the natural agro-resource potential. The development of theoretical and methodological aspects of agricultural zoning is the most current problem of modern geography. The solution to this problem is necessary to develop recommendations for agricultural management. At the present stage of development of agriculture in Russia with extremely limited material, labor and financial resources, overcoming of the agrarian crisis will be possible on the basis of more efficient using of the natural potential of the territory. For the first time, the correlation of the spatial distribution of soil cover depending on the relief was studied using the model area of Smolensk region. The series of diagrams with the distribution of soil types by height, the distribution of the prevailing soil types on the slopes of different exposures, distribution of the prevailing soil types on the slopes of different angles have been constructed.

Alexander von Humboldt and Science Policy

In conditions of deep social differentiation, science, apparently, is not capable of internal integration. As a result, it cannot fully participate in political life as an independent and equal subject. Turning to the figure of Alexander von Hum­boldt, the author reconstructs a certain “workaround” of the possible influence of scientists on politics and science management. The importance of the Humboldt brothers for world science in general and Russia, in particular, can hardly be overestimated. Alexander von Humboldt was a specialist in the widest range of disciplines: astronomy, geology, mineralogy, chemistry, biology, and many oth­ers. He stood at the origins of modern geography. Today he is called the herald of globalized science. At the same time, during his journey, the first world global network of scientific research was finally completed, the famous network of geo­logical stations, which made it possible to simultaneously record natural and cli­matic changes in Europe, Russia, and the United States. Today, in an age of fatal environmental change, this endeavor’s relevance has finally become common knowledge. The article proposes the idea of the possibility of a mutually benefi­cial “rational exchange” between science and politics, which is interpreted by the author in the systemic-communicative concept of “structural conjugation”.

Development of Geography since the End of the Second World War

Geography is an ancient discipline whose purpose is space study. This discipline was one of the pillars used for mapping, displacement, and explaining existing phenomena on earth. Before 1914, geography already existed and played an important role during the First World War. However, we note that some authors limit themselves to the definition of geography as an instrument allowing to move and to map the elements. However, after the Second World War, like all other disciplines, geography knew stages in its evolution. Geography has changed dramatically since this definition and has experienced monumental changes. It was transformed through science '' natural '' in social science, hence abandoning the naturalistic point of view which was founded and developed the geography of the 19th century. Modern geography relies on tools and experimental techniques. These methods and techniques used to build a scientific rationale based on experimentation and coherent reasoning.

Geosophy as a scientific discipline: issues of methodology and metatheory

Today is characterized by a dialectical combination of opposite processes in the development of science - differentiation, expressed in the emergence of new analytical, sectoral disciplines, and integration, which consists of the design of synthetic, complex disciplines mainly at the frontiers of science. One of the relatively young synthetic geographic disciplines is geosophy, which originated about a hundred years ago at the boundary of geography and philosophy. The object of geophysical research is human space, that is, space perceived and conceived by man. For a hundred years, this scientific discipline has undergone a difficult path of development, due to both internal, expressed in the nature of the discipline itself, and external (ideological, geopolitical, etc.) factors. Nowadays, post-non-classical methodological approaches are becoming more widely used in geosophy - besides geosophical, it is noospheric, synergistic, eco-evolutionary and passionate. They are based on a fundamentally new relationship between the subject and the research object, qualitatively different from what has traditionally been recognized as classical and non-classical geography. One feature of post-non-classical approaches is subject-object convergence. In particular, the content of the geophysical approach is to consider geographical features as totals that represent the interpenetrating unity of the mineral, organic and human components. Possibilities of its application exist in almost all sections of geography. A special place among the theoretical and methodological foundations of science is metatheoretical provisions - scientific developments that substantially go beyond this science. An essential feature of metatheory as an important attribute of science is its integrating role, both internally (enhancing systemic links between particular branches of science) and external (establishing and strengthening interdisciplinary links between the sciences of one cycle). Formation of metatheory involves the use of theoretical foundations, methods, approaches, evidence of other sciences, which has a verifiable, reflective, integrative and ideological significance. One of the main ones in all geography is the category of landscape. The ambiguity of its interpretation attests to the fundamental importance of this concept, its exceptional role in the knowledge of the Earth’s surface as a multidimensional reality. From the diversity of landscape understandings, two basic concepts stand out. The content of one of them, dating back to the 19th century, is to see the landscape as a general picture of the terrain, which from the point of view is interpreted as totality. From other positions, designed in the early twentieth century, the landscape is understood as a real existing natural material object, characterized by genetic homogeneity, the presence of vertical and horizontal structure and clearly defined boundaries. The coexistence of the aforementioned landscape concepts and the search for possibilities of combining them is one of the important theoretical problems of modern geography, in particular, geosophy.