In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 123.3 (2002) 529-534 [Access article in PDF] Colin Adams and Ray Laurence, eds. Travel and Geography in the Roman Empire. London and New York: Routledge, 2001. x + 202 pp. 48 black-and-white figures. Cloth, $75. Five of the six contributions to this varied and valuable collection of essays originated as papers delivered at the 1999 Roman Archaeology Conference in Durham, England. The sixth and longest (...) piece, by Benet Salway, was then added, together with an introduction by one co-editor (Adams) and an afterword by the [End Page 529] other (Laurence). Notes follow each contribution, with a consolidated bibliography and index at the end. Although in black and white only, the range of photos, figures, and maps is appropriately extensive.The volume stems from due recognition that geographical knowledge and travel in the Roman world are topics at last attracting the serious attention they deserve. Between them, the contributions amply demonstrate how even some of the aspects most fundamental to our understanding stir deep controversy and how incomplete the exploitation of much of the diverse source material has been to date. Happily, the emergence of exciting new discoveries is prompting fresh examination of testimony long known and neglected.Useful, though limited in scope, is Anne Kolb's "Transport and Communication in the Roman State: The cursus publicus" (95-105), which mainly confines itself to identifying those categories of imperial officials and other individuals entitled to use the service (more properly referred to as vehiculatio during the Principate). By contrast, the support Kolb offers for the doubtful claim that transport of freight—other than baggage accompanying officials—was a "relatively unimportant" aspect of the service, even in the Late Empire (102), remains inadequate. Throughout, changes to the service over such a long span seem underappreciated (not least, for example, Nerva's removal of the burden from Italy).Adams modestly characterizes his contribution "'There and Back Again': Getting around in Roman Egypt" (138-66) as descriptive rather than analytical. His aim is to demonstrate the scope and value of the testimony preserved on papyri, and he does this engagingly, with unfailing regard for the impact of Egypt's unique geography and topography on travel there. Even though its publication dates back to 1952, few readers are likely to be familiar with the extensive archive preserving an itinerary and accounts for Theophanes' return journey from Antinoopolis to Antioch around 320 (160-62). Even fewer will be aware of the record of travelers and animals accommodated overnight, and rations issued to them, kept by the two large, busy mansiones in the Oxyrhynchite nome during the mid-fourth century and only published in 1994 (142-44). Vivid illustration of the multiple hazards awaiting travelers by road from causes both natural and human (154-56) can serve as a sobering counterbalance to the ideal conditions evoked by Aelius Aristides and quoted earlier by Adams (as eulogy) in the Introduction (1-2). One manifestation of "recreational" travel, which seems strangely absent from the discussion, on page 157 in particular, is pilgrimage (note, in general, Der Neue Pauly, s.v. Pilgerschaft 1).Jon Coulston's "Transport and Travel on the Column of Trajan" (106-37) is another predominantly descriptive contribution but one well geared to substantiate its conclusion: "The conflict is not simply between Romans and Dacians, Trajan and Decebalus. It is also a contest between Romans and barbarians, disciplina and perturbatio, labor and inertia, imperial virtues and enemy perfidy, civilisation and untamed nature, urbanisation and wilderness" (129-30). Description, moreover, is justified here when no other piece of Roman propaganda art, [End Page 530] before or after, depicts armies on the move—tents (for which soldiers were charged! [Tacitus Annals 1.17.4]), carts, pack animals, equipment, provisions, along roads, over bridges—with such amazing fullness and detail. We possess no more forceful illustration of the huge "train" that had to accompany every legion (118-19; the comparison made with Ottoman armies on campaign in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is instructive). Coulston's acute observation, lucid presentation, and reluctance to overinterpret... (shrink)

Generations and Geographies brings together a collection of artists, critics and researchers to consider the question of sexual difference and its significance in the production and reception of visual representation by women artists.

This article identifies three geographical shifts that have altered the relative social, spatial and temporal locations of dying, church and health care, and axiology causally contributing to our culture’s deformed dying processes. It proposes an alternative script for a new art of dying drawing upon the early church’s practice of the order of widows.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"New" Media, Art, and Intercultural CommunicationBart Vandenabeele (bio)It is fairly common — but perhaps not altogether innocent — to avoid addressing new media and intercultural aspects of communication in one and the same essay. Here, however, both issues are treated together. I shall investigate, in a perhaps somewhat unusual way, the phenomenon of "new" artistic media and some related issues such as virtual reality, computer and telecommunications technology, and (...) cyberspace. I offer some philosophical remarks, especially of an epistemological kind, that are important to every debate in which terms like multimedia art, "new" media art, and screen based art occur. I argue that the novelty of some changes in the use of artistic media tends to be overemphasized and dramatized. Furthermore, I shall point to the lack of interest in intercultural aspects of artistic communication and to the relevance an intercultural orientation can have for reflection on the phenomenon of so-called "new" media in art.1It has often been claimed that art is the best possible window into another community. Art would be a universal language and contact with works of art supposedly offers the best direct or immediate internal access to another community. This is purported to be a kind of access that cannot possibly be matched by knowledge about the geography, religion, and history. Even John Dewey believes that "au fond, the aesthetic quality is the same for Greeks, Chinese, Americans."2 This idea is surprisingly reminiscent of Clive Bell's "discovery" of Significant Form in so-called primitive art.3 Dewey says thatbarriers are dissolved, limiting prejudices melt away, when we enter into the spirit of Negro or Polynesian art. This insensible melting is far more efficacious than the change effected by reasoning, because it enters directly into attitude."4To this contention one could object in the following way. Immediate contact with for example, Congolese Nkisi nkondi fetish statues (in the museum of [End Page 1] African Art and History in Tervuren), which are bristling with nails are quite shocking to Europeans — such as Joseph Conrad in the Congo.5 Only by acquaintance with facts that are external to the artwork can one get real access to and understanding of them. One has to know that the nails are meant to seal dispute resolutions and that the statues "were considered so powerful that they were sometimes kept outside the village."6 Only when I know this, will my first perception be seriously altered. It is an objection that is often made against the privilege enjoyed by the immediate contact with the senses: knowledge of the "context" can enhance our appreciation of the art of the foreign community.Both the universalist view and the objection are flawed.7 First of all, we have to ask whether we can make such a sharp distinction between internal and external information and, second, whether it is correct to presuppose a typical proper aesthetics to make artistic communication possible. Is not every form of life already the (not fully definable) outcome of conscious or unconscious influence by other forms of life? What would be the so-called "own" internal aesthetics by which we should judge the famous "Turkish" Iznik tiles that reflect especially the Ottoman rulers' interest in Chinese porcelain, or the "Japanese" aesthetics of Zen Buddhism that is the result of a century-long historical interaction between Japanese culture and the new, foreign religion of Buddhism, which traveled from Japan to India via China and Korea? What would be the "typical" English garden, which was realized on the basis of travel reports from the Far East? And what of the Eastern influence on so-called typical Western painters as Matisse, Whistler, and Degas or composers such as Debussy, Messiaen, Ravel, Rimski-Korsakow and Puccini? What is clear is that it is completely unclear what is "own," "typical," or "authentic." Live communities are never isolated islands developing by themselves. It is as impossible to demarcate strictly the "proper" from the "foreign" as it is to find a universal language that would make artistic communication possible in an absolutely definitive way.Just as it is not necessary to share a language to communicate8 — this holds both for people... (shrink)

Considering the role of space and place in Integral Ecology is presented as the concept of Integral Geography. First, an ecological AQAL model is proposed to situate the diverse scientific disciplines used in geography, giving equal consideration for their respective contributions in knowledge and understanding of the world. Second, a model for incorporating perspectives provided in the arts and humanities is proposed in situating scientific understanding in relation to aesthetic and cultural aspects of "being and becoming." Third, a Geographical Information (...) System (GIS) based map model illustrates how biophysical and social realities can be viewed and analyzed from a geographical perspective as "Integral places.". (shrink)

Through the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the United States expanded its size by over 800,000 square miles. But neither President Thomas Jefferson nor Congress knew exactly what they had bought until 1806, when Meriwether Lewis and William Clark returned from their famous expedition. One of the most significant contributions of the Expedition was a better perception of the geography of the Northwest. Lewis and Clark prepared approximately 140 maps and filled in the main outlines of the previously blank map of (...) the northwestern United States. Robert I. Field has done much the same for the vast territory of U.S. health care regulation.On the front cover of Fields new book, Health Care Regulation in America: Complexity, Confrontation, and Compromise, is a picture of a giant three-dimensional labyrinth. Rarely is cover art so perfectly appropriate. (shrink)

Discover how mathematical sequences abound in our natural world in this definitive exploration of the geography of the cosmos You need not be a philosopher or a botanist, and certainly not a mathematician, to enjoy the bounty of the world around us. But is there some sort of order, a pattern, to the things that we see in the sky, on the ground, at the beach? In A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe, Michael Schneider, an education writer and computer (...) consultant, combines science, philosophy, art, and common sense to reaffirm what the ancients observed: that a consistent language of geometric design underpins every level of the universe, from atoms to galaxies, cucumbers to cathedrals. Schneider also discusses numerical and geometric symbolism through the ages, and concepts such as periodic renewal and resonance. This book is an education in the world and everything we can't see within it. Contains numerous b&w photos and illustrations. (shrink)

This book makes a timely and engaging contribution to geography’s resurgent interest in art and artistic practice, as well as to growing geographical concerns with embodied or pre-reflective experience. It introduces Eugene Gendlin’s philosophical and methodological work to stimulate geographical thinking and practice, and explores its disciplinary potential through innovative practice-based research into artistic spatial experience. Gendlin’s philosophy and techniques for articulating the pre-reflective are explained and illustrated using artists’ accounts of their practices, both retrospectively and during their practice. The (...) geographical implementation of research methods informed by those techniques is detailed and critiqued. Diverse and potentially contradictory findings, and potentially problematic methodological choices, are discussed, accounted for, and reframed through Gendlin’s ideas. Significant geographical potential within Gendlin’s work—philosophical, conceptual and methodological—is identified and described, and avenues and challenges for further investigation are highlighted. This first step towards a Gendlin-informed geography invites further engagement with his work. (shrink)

MARINA PAOLA BANCHETTI-ROBINO is Associate Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Florida Atlantic University. Her areas of research include phenomenology, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, and zoosemiotics. Her publications have appeared in such journals as Synthese, Husserl Studies, Idealistic Studies, Philosophy East and West, and The Review of Metaphysics. She has also contributed essays to The Role of Pragmatics in Contemporary Philosophy (1997), Feminist Phenomenology (2000), and Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology on the Perennial (...) Issue of Microcosm and Macrocosm (2006). She co-edited Philosophies of the Environment and Technology (1999) and is currently working on a book-length project entitled The Birth of Science Out of the Spirit of Myth: A Historico-Phenomenological Re-Examination of the Crisis of the European Sciences. BERNARD BOXILL was born in Saint Lucia, West Indies where he received his primary and secondary education. He studied philosophy at the University of New Brunswick, Canada and at the University of California, Los Angeles where he was awarded a doctorate in philosophy in 1971. He has published numerous articles, a book, Blacks and Social Justice (1992), and is professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. ED BRANDON was born and educated in England, studying philosophy and linguistics at The University of York, England, and later philosophy at The University of Oxford with the late John Mackie. After teaching in Sierra Leone and briefly in England, he went to teach philosophy of education at the University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica in 1978. From 1992 he has been attached to a policy unit of the Vice-Chancellery, based at the Cave Hill campus in Barbados, where he has been assisting since 2000 with a new major in philosophy. His academic work can be accessed from http://cavehill.uwi.edu/bnccde/epb/personalpage.html CAROLYN CUSICK is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. She is a founding member of the Phenomenology Roundtable. Her research focuses on feminist epistemology, Africana philosophy, and phenomenology. LEWIS GORDON is President of the Caribbean Philosophical Association. He is Laura H. Carnell Professor, the most distinguished chair, at Temple University, where he holds appointments in philosophy, religion, and Judaic studies and directs the Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought and the Center for Afro-Jewish Studies. He is also Ongoing Visiting Professor of Philosophy and Government at the University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica. He is the author of several books, including the award-winning Her Majesty's Other Children: Sketches of Racism from a Neocolonial Age (Rowman and Littlefield, 1997), Disciplinary Decadence: Living Thought in Trying Times (Paradigm, 2006), An Introduction to Africana Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming), and co-editor of A Companion to African-American Studies (Blackwell, 2006) and Not Only the Master's Tools: African-American Studies in Theory and Practice (Paradigm, 2005). CLEVIS HEADLEY is currently Associate Professor of Philosophy at Florida Atlantic University, director of the Ethnic Studies Certificate Program, as well as director of the Master's in Liberal Studies. Professionally, he serves as the Vice-President and Treasurer of the Caribbean Philosophical Association. Professor Headley has published widely in the areas of Critical Race Theory and Africana philosophy. He has also published in Analytic philosophy, focusing specifically on Gottlob Frege. PAGET HENRY is Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies at Brown University. He is the author of Caliban's Reason: Introducing Afro-Caribbean Philosophy, Peripheral Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Antigua, and the co-editor of C. L. R. James' Caribbean. Professor Henry also serves as the editor of the C. L. R. James Journal, and has published numerous articles on the political economy of the Caribbean as well as on African, African-American, and Afro-Caribbean philosophy. ESIABA IROBI is Associate Professor of International Theatre/Performance Studies at Ohio University, Athens. His groundbreaking book: A Theatre for Cannibals: Resisting Globalization on the Continent and Diaspora since 1441 will be published by Palgrave Macmillan, London, in 2007. He has been invited to be an External Resident Fellow at the prestigious Dartmouth College Humanities Institute for the 2007-2008 academic year. CHIKE JEFFERS is a graduate student in the Ph.D. program of the Philosophy Department at Northwestern University. His interests are in Africana philosophy, social and political philosophy, ethics, philosophy of religion and aesthetics. He is originally from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. CATHERINE JOHN is Associate Professor of African Diaspora Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Oklahoma. Her book Clear Word and Third Sight: Folk Groundings and Diasporic Consciousness in African Caribbean Writing was co-published by Duke University Press and UWI Press in 2003. She has published several articles on Caribbean literature and culture and her current book project is entitled The Just Society and the Diasporic Imagination. She spends her summer working in Woodside, St. Mary, Jamaica helping with a summer school for children and participating in the community's emancipation celebration. KENNETH KNIES is a doctoral student in philosophy at Stony Brook University. His areas of focus are phenomenology and ancient philosophy. He is also a contributing editor for Political Affairs magazine. EDIZON LEN is a photographer and coordinator of the Fondo Documental Afro-Andino at the Universidad Andina Simòn Bolivar in Quito, Ecuador. In 2006, he was curator of the photo exhibit "The Color of the Diaspora" presented at the Cultural Center of the Catholic University of Ecuador and the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He is currently completing his doctorate at the Universidad Andina Simòn Bolivar with a focus on Maroon thought. REKHA MENON is Associate Professor of Art History at State University of New York, Buffalo State. She is the author of Seductive Aesthetics of Post Colonialism (forthcoming). Her area of research focuses on current philosophical investigations in colonial and neocolonial aspects of Indian art, artistic/cultural practices and philosophies and their relationship to Western arts and philosophies. Her manuscripts under review are: Ashamed of Our Nakedness, Is There Ever a Naked Body? Ambivalence in Contemporary Indian Expressive Aesthetics and Insatiable Desire. MICHAEL R. MICHAU is a Ph.D. candidate in the Philosophy and Literature Program at Purdue University, and during the 2006-2007 school year, a lecturer in the Department of Comparative Studies and Department of Philosophy at Ohio State University. He is the co-founder and co-secretary of the North American Levinas Society. CHARLES W. MILLS is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He works in the general area of oppositional political theory, and is the author of numerous articles and three books: The Racial Contract (Cornell University Press, 1997), Blackness Visible: Essays on Philosophy and Race (Cornell University Press, 1998), and From Class to Race: Essays in White Marxism and Black Radicalism (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003). MABOGO P. MORE is currently Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He has published articles on African philosophy and social and political philosophy in a number of academic journals, such as South African Journal of Philosophy, Dialogue and Universalism, Alternation, Theoria, and African Journal of Political Science. MARILYN NISSIM-SABAT, Ph.D., M.S.W. is Professor Emerita and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy, Lewis University. Dr. Nissim-Sabat is also a psychotherapist in private practice. She is the author of numerous book chapters and papers in the fields of philosophy (Husserlian phenomenology), psychoanalysis, feminism, and critical race theory. Citations of her works can be found on her website: marilynnissim-sabat.com. FREDERICK OCHIENG'-ODHIAMBO is a Senior Lecturer of Philosophy and Coordinator of the discipline at The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados. His major research areas are African philosophy and social philosophy. He has published several articles on philosophic sagacity. IVAN PETRELLA is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Miami. He is author of The Future of Liberation Theology: An Argument and Manifesto (SCM Press, 2006) and editor of Latin American Liberation Theology: The Next Generation (Orbis Books, 2005) as well as co-editor of the series Reclaiming Liberation Theology (SCM Press) RICHARD PITHOUSE is a research fellow at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa. He is editor of Asinamali: University Struggles in Post-Apartheid South Africa (Africa World Press, 2006). SATHYA RAO is Assistant Professor in French translation at the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies, University of Alberta, Canada. His research fields include: theory of translation, continental philosophy, postcolonial studies, discourses on Africa, and Francophone cinema and literature. He has published articles in various peer-reviewed journals and written chapters in several collective books such as: De l'Ecrit Africain a l'Oral le Phenomene Graphique Africain, Simon Battestini (Ed.) (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2006) and Thèorie-rèbellion. Un Ultimatum, Gilles Grelet (Ed.) (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2005). He has a co-edited a book on Francophone African cinema L'Afrique fait son cinema (Montreal: Memoires d'encrier, forthcoming). Sathya Rao is vice-president of the International Non-Philosophical Organisation (INPhO), member of the Canadian Association of Translatology (CATS), coordinator of the research team Poexil, and Secretary of the Caribbean Philosophical Association. He is co-founder of an online journal Alternative Francophone. CATHERINE WALSH is Professor and Director of the doctoral program in Latin American Cultural Studies at the Universidad Andina Simon Bolivar in Quito, Ecuador. Her research interests include the geopolitics of knowledge, interculturality and concerns related to the Afro-Andean Diaspora and the production of decolonial thought. Among her recent publications are Pensamiento crìtico y matriz colonial (Quito: Abya Yala, 2005), "Interculturality and the Coloniality of Power. An 'Other' Thinking and Positioning from the Colonial Difference," in Coloniality of Power, Transmodernity, and Border Thinking, R. Grosfoguel, J.D. Saldivar, and N. Maldonado-Torres (Eds.) (Durham: Duke University Press, forthcoming) and "Shifting the Geopolitics of Critical Knowledge: Decolonial Thought and Cultural Studies 'Others' in the Andes," Cultural Studies (forthcoming). KRISTIN WATERS has published widely in the areas of race and gender. Her anthology Enlightened Conversations: Women and Men Political Theorists (Blackwell, 2000) challenges political theorists to be more inclusive of race and gender in their research and teaching. Her book Black Women's Intellectual Traditions: Speaking Their Minds, co-edited with Carol Conaway (University of Vermont Press, forthcoming), addresses the varied intellectual traditions of black women's thought that spans more than two hundred years in North America. She is currently Professor of Philosophy at Worcester State College and Visiting Research Associate at Brandeis University. (shrink)

Derrida and the Future of the Liberal Arts highlights the Derridean assertion that the university must exist 'without condition' - as a bastion of intellectual freedom and oppositional activity whose job it is to question mainstream society. Derrida argued that only if the life of the mind is kept free from excessive corporate influence and political control can we be certain that the basic tenets of democracy are being respected within the very societies that claim to defend democratic principles. This (...) collection contains eleven essays drawn from international scholars working in both the humanities and social sciences, and makes a well-grounded and comprehensive case for the importance of Derridean thought within the liberal arts today. Written by specialists in the fields of philosophy, literature, history, sociology, geography, political science, animal studies, and gender studies, each essay traces deconstruction's contribution to their discipline, explaining how it helps keep alive the 'unconditional', contrapuntal mission of the university. The book offers a forceful and persuasive corrective to the current assault on the liberal arts. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Art in Social Studies: Exploring the World and Ourselves with RembrandtIftikhar Ahmad (bio)IntroductionRembrandt’s art lends itself as a fertile resource for teaching and learning social studies. His art not only captures the social studies themes relevant to the Dutch Golden Age, but it also offers a description of human relations transcending temporal and spatial frontiers. Rembrandt is an imaginative storyteller with a keen insight for minute details. His narrative (...) of the culture, society, economy, geography, and contemporary events of seventeenth-century Dutch life is as vivid and perceptive as a historian’s eloquent text. How people lived in community, how the city of Amsterdam functioned, how important religion was to people, how diverse and cosmopolitan the culture was, how interdependent the world was in the seventeenth century, and what the social and civic ideals of the Dutch people were during the Golden Age—Rembrandt’s paintings, etchings, and drawings neatly organize these and other social studies themes into visual messages. More importantly, our appreciation and interpretation of Rembrandt’s work helps us learn about not just Dutch society and culture of four hundred years ago but also about ourselves. The passion, emotions, conflicts, and inspirations of his subjects are essentially human and eternal, arousing empathy in every generation and cross-section of society. In this article I look at Rembrandt’s art for the purpose of teaching and learning social studies in our contemporary interdependent world—a world that is chronologically and geographically distant from the Dutch Golden Age but in many respects shares its enduring values, norms, ideals, pursuits, challenges, and possibilities. To do so, I employ a conceptual lens—the curriculum thematic strands of the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS)—to examine Rembrandt’s art in order to explore life and make meaning of the story that is being told about the human condition, and to seek out its relevance to ourselves and [End Page 19] our world in the early twenty-first century. Although Rembrandt’s oeuvre is extensive, including the diverse genres of self-portraits, group portraits, drawings, etchings, landscapes, and religious themes, for our limited purpose I have selected only those works that, in my judgment, correspond with the following seven of the ten thematic curriculum strands of the NCSS:CultureTime, Continuity, and ChangePeople, Places, and EnvironmentIndividual Development and IdentityProduction, Distribution, and ConsumptionGlobal ConnectionsCivic Ideals and PracticesThese thematic curriculum strands are derived from the foundational disciplines of the social sciences and humanities such as anthropology, history, geography, sociology, political science, psychology, economics, philosophy, and law, but they are conceptually interrelated.1 For example, culture is a core concept in anthropology but it is also relevant to Time, Continuity, and Change, which is the main concept in the history discipline. Similarly, culture is relevant to the theme of People, Places, and Environment, which is the central focus of geography. More importantly, since social studies is about human experiences, there is a general consensus among the social studies educators that classroom teachers should draw content knowledge not just from the social sciences as mentioned here but from wide sources “to construct curricular experiences enabling students to actively relate new knowledge to existing understanding.”2 That is to say all fields of knowledge that are related to human civilization and that help in developing students’ skills in reflective thinking, decision making, and problem solving are relevant to social studies education. Those fields also include art. Rembrandt’s art is especially relevant because his themes are universal and the social, political, and economic contexts in which he created his work—globalization, individualism, and free enterprise—are more or less similar to our age.It needs to be mentioned that by looking at Rembrandt’s art from the social studies perspective it is not my intention to strip his work of its aesthetic scope and value. On the contrary, by looking at Rembrandt in the social studies classroom I seek to humanize social studies education itself. That [End Page 20] is to say I wish to step back from the conventional view of social studies to feel free from the bonds of traditionalism and discover, describe, analyze... (shrink)

Landscape, Natural Beauty and the Arts offers probing studies of the complex structure of aesthetic responses to nature. Each chapter refines and expands the terms of discussion, and together they enrich the debate with insights from art history, literary criticism, geography and philosophy. To explore the interrelation between our conceptions of nature, beauty and art, the contributors consider the social construction of nature, the determination of our appreciation by artistic media, and the duality of nature's determining in gardening. Showing that (...) natural beauty is impregnated with concepts derived from the arts and from particular accounts of nature, the volume occasions questions of the distinction and relation between art and nature generally, and culminates in a set of philosophical studies of the role of scientific understanding, engagement and emotion in the aesthetic appreciation of nature. (shrink)

This article investigates the concept of the ground truth as both an epistemic and technical figure of knowledge that is central to discussions of machine vision and media techniques of visuality. While ground truth refers to a set of remote sensing practices, it has a longer history in operational photography, such as aerial reconnaissance. Building on a discussion of this history, this article argues that ground truth has shifted from a reference to the physical, geographical ground to the surface of (...) the images echoing earlier points raised by philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy that there is a ground of the image that is central to the task of analysis beyond representational practices. Furthermore, building on the practices of pattern recognition, composite imaging, and different interpretational techniques, we discuss contemporary practices of machine learning that mobilizes geographical earth observation datasets for experimental purposes, including tests such as “fake geography” as well as artistic practices, to show how ground truth is operationalized in such contexts of AI and visual arts. (shrink)

Bringing human–robot interaction (HRI) into conversation with scholarship from human geography, this paper considers how socially interactive robots become important agents in the production of social space and explores the utility of core geographic concepts of _scale_ and _place_ to critically examine evolving robotic spatialities. The paper grounds this discussion through reflections on a collaborative, interdisciplinary research project studying the development and deployment of interactive museum tour-guiding robots on a North American university campus. The project is a collaboration among geographers, (...) roboticists, a digital artist, and the directors/curators of two museums, and involves experimentation in the development of a tour-guiding robot with a “socially aware navigation system” alongside ongoing critical reflection into the socio-spatial context of human–robot interactions and their future possibilities. The paper reflects on the tensions between logics of control and contingency in robotic spatiality and argues that concepts of scale and place can help reflect on this tension in a productive way while calling attention to a broader range of stakeholders who should be included in robotic design and deployment. (shrink)

Khorasan, Lands of the East, refers to the northeastern region of Iran. In the early Islamic period, the term Khorasan came to be used for a much larger area, reaching into Central Asia well beyond the Oxus river, encompassing large parts of northern Afghanistan, and even extending to southeastern Iran. This volume brings together state-of-the art research on the history, geography, archaeology, and the material culture of this vast region.".

In The Geographer′s Art, Peter Haggett expounds his view of the nature and purpose, philosophy and methodology of the discipline and practice of geography. Ranging over every aspect of the subject, he considers the attractions, opportunities and responsibilities of life as a geographer and tries to answer some of the basic questions facing the discipline. The result is a highly individual look at geography and geographers, illustrated throughout from his own research and experience. Geography is immemorial and universal: it touches (...) us in many ways, in many forms and frequently in a manner neither fully perceived nor understood. Today interest in geography is booming: both the need for greater geographic awareness and the geographer′s vital role in understanding the processes and consequences of global and environmental change have received widespread recognition throughout the world. Yet the nature of the subject and the role of geographers remain little known to non–geographers and have yet to penetrate many hallowed academic and government halls. Just what do geographers do? What fires their imagination? Why are they so devoted to their subject? How can geography be used? Do we need more or less geographers, and how should they be educated? These and many other issues are addressed by Peter Haggett as he ranges over every aspect of the subject, theoretical and applied, physical and human, in order to explain the essence and importance of this multi–faceted subject. Few books can have conveyed so convincingly and so vividly the intellectual challenge of working in the field and the vital relevance of the discipline to contemporary human and environmental problems. (shrink)

Arts, Ecologies, Transitions provides in depth insights into how aesthetic relations and current artistic practices are fundamentally ecological and intrinsically connected to the world. As art is created in a given historic temporality, it presents specific modalities of productive and sensory relations to the world. With contributions from more than 45 researchers, this book tracks evolutions in the arts that demonstrate an awareness of the environmental, economic, social, and political crises. It proposes interdisciplinary approaches to art that clarify the multiple (...) relationships between art and ecology through an exploration of key concepts such as collapsonauts, degrowth, place, recycling, and walking art. All the artistic fields are addressed from visual arts, theatre, dance, music and sound art, cinema, photography, including those that are rarely represented in research such as digital creation or graphic design, to showcase the diversity of artistic practices in transition. Through original research this book presents ideas in an accessible format. It book will be of interest to students and researchers in the fields of environmental studies, ecology, geography, cultural studies, architecture, performance studies, visual arts, cinema, music and literature studies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:On the Way to Ethical CultureThe Meaning of Art as Oscillating between the Other, Il y a, and the ThirdRossitsa Varadinova Borkowski (bio)Who can suppose that a poet capable of effectively introducing into his scenes rhetoricians, generals and various other characters, each displaying some peculiar excellence, was nothing more than a droll or juggler, capable only of cheating or flattering his hearer, and not of instructing him?Are we all (...) agreed that the chief merit of a poet consists in his accurate representation of the affairs of life? Can this be done by a mere driveller, unacquainted with the world?The excellence of a poet is not to be measured by the same standard as that of a mechanic or a blacksmith, where honor and virtue have nothing to do with our estimate. But the poet and the individual are connected, and he only can become a good poet who is in the first instance a worthy man.— Strabo, The Geography of StraboAfter Emmanuel Levinas showed the need for radically positing the Ethical as the original structure of human inwardness and as art is a fundamental aspect of being human, a reexamination of the meaning of the Artistic and its relation with the Ethical is necessary.1 Throughout [End Page 195] the history of Western thought and culture, the meaning of art has been regarded either as imitation of the world and nature (Plato and Aristotle), objective self-expression of the Absolute Spirit (Hegel) or Being (Heidegger), a subjective “free play of imagination” and judgment (Kant and the Romanticists), or as inevitable engagement with social issues and political position (the Marxists and Sartre). In spite of the variety of theories and views about the essence and value of art, it is unquestionable that the Artistic has transformational power over humans, which points to art’s connection with ethics. Therefore, following Levinas, instead of asking the general ontological questions about the gist of art “What is art?” or “Why is there art instead of something else?” we should seek an answer to the ethical question about the meaning of art: “How can the existence of art be justified?”The answers could be sought in two directions. The first already quite well beaten path explores Levinas’s own vision on art, which most critics find hesitant or even ambiguous.2 The impression of this hesitation is significant on the background of Levinas’s rigorous clarity about the Ethical. Overlooking this impression would lead to conclusions that would deviate our attention from the main question about how the existence of art can be justified. A possible explanation would be that Levinas’s seemingly fragmentary thoughts about art are woven into the fabric of his ultimate meta-ethical project — that is, his approach to art is instrumental, subjected to the Ethical. For example, commentators agree that Levinas’s early article “Reality and Its Shadow” (1948) is the only one exclusively focused on art and use it as a starting point to assemble the fragments of his aesthetic views into an aesthetic theory. Although this move might be justified methodologically, Levinas is clear that the discussion of art in this article is subordinated to the more general (and more serious) question about the nontruth of being (LR 132). Positing art as mythological and mystical, thus incapable of transmitting a meaningful message if separated from philosophical criticism (142), Levinas puts “in brackets” the discussion about the artistic and focuses on the reason qua knowledge (philosophy) and its relation with the Other. The impression of his hesitation about art’s [End Page 196] independent capability to dephase the instant, to breach the ontological gravity, and to expose the human spirit to the Ethical comes from those texts where Levinas applies his own vision about the integrative role of philosophical criticism — i.e., texts that work as philosophical criticism of art: “Transcendence through poetry — is this serious?”3 (PN 175n12), “if poetry can contain teachings” (165; emphasis added). Therefore, on one hand, Levinas exhaustively scrutinizes all possibilities of ethics of philosophy and comes to the clear position that in order for reason to function humanly it should be dethroned by the Other. He is... (shrink)

Numinous Fields has its roots in a phenomenological understanding of perception. It seeks to understand what, beyond the mere sensory data they provide, landscape, nature, and art, both separately and jointly, may mean when we experience them. It focuses on actual or potential experiences of the numinous, or sacred, that such encounters may give rise to. This volume is multi-disciplinary in scope. It examines perceptions of place, space, nature, and art as well as perceptions of place, space, and nature in (...) art. It includes chapters written by art curators, and historians and scholars in the fields of landscape, architecture, cultural geography, religious studies, philosophy, and art. Its chapters examine ideas, objects, and practices from the ancient time of Aboriginal Australians' Dreaming through to the present. The volume is also multi-cultural in scope and includes chapters focussed on manifestations of the sacred in indigenous culture, in cultures influenced by each of the world's major religions, and in the secular, contemporary world. Contributors: Samer Akkach, James Bennett, Veronica della Dora, Alasdair Forbes, Virginia Hooker, Philip Jones, Russell Kelty, Muchammadun,Tracey Lock, Ellen Philpott-Teo, John Powell, Rebekah Pryor, Wendy Shaw. (shrink)

Three approaches to scholarship are “scholarship as a way,” which aims at perfection of character; “scholarship as a method,” which clearly limits objects and methods in order to achieve precise perception and new knowledge; and “scholarship as an expression,” which takes various approaches to questions and inquiry. The “humanities” participate deeply and broadly in all three of these approaches. In relation to this view of the humanities, Japanese Shinto is a field of study that yields rich results. As a religion (...) of awe, shrine groves, community, arts, and entertainment, it offers a research field that joins together the study of human beings, nature, society, and expression. Though we elucidate the characteristics of Shinto and its differences with Buddhism, we also draw attention to the seven dimensions of “place, way, beauty, festival, technique, poetry, and ecological wisdom,” and then finally take up “research on techniques of body and mind transformation” as a comprehensive and creative development in the “humanities.”. (shrink)

This essay interprets the controversy over Richard Serra's monumental sculpture, Tilted Arc , which was designed for a public plaza in downtown Manhattan in 1979 and then torn down five years later after intense public outcry. Levine reads this controversy as characteristic of contemporary debates over the arts, which continue the tradition of the nineteenth century avant-garde, pitting art against a wider public, and insisting that art must deliberately resist mainstream tastes and values in favor of marginality and innovation. This (...) definition of art has posed a lasting dilemma for democratic societies: how, after all, should a democracy deal with art that represents an intentional rejection of the majority? The problem becomes even more intractable when it comes to avant-garde art commissioned for public spaces, where the art object can challenge public tastes and movements in a way that is inescapable for those who must live and work in the space. Disturbed by the imposition of a massive and incomprehensible art object in a public plaza, Serra's opponents argued that Tilted Arc frustrated a whole range of socially beneficial activities, labor and leisure alike. And they claimed that Serra's supporters were dangerously anti-democratic. But despite the avant-garde's challenge to majority tastes, this essay makes the case that it remains a democratic value to continue to sponsor avant-garde art in public spaces. (shrink)

What is creativity and who exactly is creative? In this insightful and highly readable book, the author attempts to answer these questions by arguing that geographical millieux are hotbeds for creativity and renewal - places where pioneers in art, technology and science have gathered and developed their special abilities. In light of ongoing social and economic transformations, special attention is paid to the institutional settings in firms and universities. The goal is to identify those features which facilitate and those which (...) impede the creative process. Individual lives are illustrated through the autobiographies of hundreds of Nobel Laureates. Their life paths reveal the importance of geographic mobility and contact patterns for the development of creativity and international prestige. From these biographies we can also see how local millieux and schools have influenced many scientists"--Back cover. (shrink)

As befits an emerging field of enquiry, there is on-going discussion about the scope, role and future of the medical humanities. One relatively recent contribution to this debate proposes a differentiation of the field into two distinct terrains, ‘medical humanities’ and ‘health humanities,’ and calls for a supersession of the former by the latter. In this paper, we revisit the conceptual underpinnings for a distinction between ‘the medical’ and ‘health’ by looking at the history of an analogous debate between ‘medical (...) geography’ and ‘the geographies of health’ that has, over the last few years, witnessed a re-blurring of the distinction. Highlighting the value of this debate within the social sciences for the future development of the medical humanities, we call for scholars to take seriously the challenges of critical and cultural theory, community-based arts and health, and the counter-cultural creative practices and strategies of activist movements in order to meet the new research challenges and fulfill the radical potential of a critical medical humanities. (shrink)

The author of the Orphic Argonautica was, except by personal election, no poet. He was, however, a very devout reader of poetry and, had he only been Irradiated by the same Celestial Light, might well have been a Milton, for he went to work in very much the same way. Books, and not personal experience, were his guides. His mind was stored with the lines and phrases of other poets; he read his authors attentively: but he did not always understand (...) them, and he lacked the Miltonic art of giving borrowed gems new value from their setting. (shrink)

Marking a ground-breaking moment in the debate surrounding bodies and "body politics," Elizabeth Grosz's Space, Time and Perversion contends that only by resituating and rethinking the body will feminism and cultural analysis effect and unsettle the knowledges, disciplines and institutions which have controlled, regulated and managed the body both ideologically and materially. Exploring the fields of architecture, philosophy, and--in a controversial way--queer theory, Grosz shows how these fields have conceptually stripped bodies of their specificity, their corporeality, and the vestigal traces (...) of their production as bodies. Her tour de corpe investigates the work of Michel Foucault, Teresa de Lauretis, Gilles Deleuze, Judith Butler and Alphonso Lingis. Grosz considers their work by examining the ways in which the functioning of bodies transforms understandings of space and time, knowledge and desire. Begining with an exposition of the epistemological implications of bodily and sexual difference, Grosz examines the effects such knowledge have on the reception of meaning. She looks at the relationship between the knowledge of difference and the way that knowledge validates, affirms, avows and valorizes subjects. Grosz then extends this analysis to an investigation of the relationship between space, time, bodies and the spatial "arts" such as architecuture, urban planning and geography. In the last section, Grosz moves toward a radical consideration of bodies and their relationship to transgression and perversity. Controversially showing the ways in which "queer" theory fails to offer a truly transformative conception of bodies and their politics, Grosz finds "queer" a reactive category "which sees itself in opposition to a straight norm and thus defines itself in terms of this norm." Consequentially, "queer" theory inherits the acceptance of an entire range of sexual practices, without "asking what they share and without taking into account the profound tension that may exist among these practices." Grosz's Space, Time and Perversity is a diverse and incisive collection of essays from a renowned feminist philosopher. (shrink)

In this paper we will address the following points: (1) we will question the general belief that Kant’s philosophical approach has a geographical character, by showing how critical philosophy and physical geography establish, in their respective systems, two inverse relationships between the rational and the aesthetic form of spatiality; (2) we will argue that cartography still plays a role in the realization of a scientific system of cognition, and that this role consists in guiding this very realization; (3) lastly, we (...) will develop the hypothesis that the map of the cognitive faculties, exemplified by the transcendental topic, is part of a device aimed at keeping the subject from the adventures of thought typical of dogmatism. (shrink)

Mirrors for princes, in general, give advices to the rulers about the subtleties of political art. Another aim of these books is to define and explain the administration of the state and the duties of rulers based on experience. In consequence of this they reflect the practical ethics of the period in which they were written. As such, they resemble practical handbooks written for rulers. Another point regarding the mirrors for princes works in which the political understanding of the era (...) can be observed is that they generally use sacred texts in order to prove the political legitimacy or invalidity of the power, as well as the rightfulness or the unlawfulness of the claims to the throne. Evidences from the Qurʾān and the ḥadīth literature was almost always used to support such advocated opinions. In fact, during the Middle Ages when religion and politics were considered coupled, it was unthinkable that religious elements should not be included in the works of state administration. The important point here is that the verses and ḥadīths were sometimes removed from their contexts and interpreted and explained in a way to support the ideology of the author or the ruler whom the author presented his work. In this study, we will try to reveal the subjects in which the verses and ḥadīths used in the mirrors for princes, which is a genre that has emerged within the Islamic culture and civilization. Thus, we aim to prepare a background for the future studies, which will focus on a specific verse or ḥadīth.Summary: The first political splits in Islamic history occurred immediately after the death of prophet Muḥammad. These differences were resolved by the agreement of the majority of Muslims on Abu Bakr's name. Until the second half of the rule of the third caliph ʿUthmān, Muslims came together around the unifying power of the idea of conquest. Nevertheless, substantially as a result of economically based problems the period of tranquility in Islamic society came to an end and was replaced by disputes. Disputes turned into conflict and ultimately seperation fused with the massacre of ʿUthmān in the capital Medina turned into a big fire with the Battles of the Camel and Ṣiffīn, the emergence of Khārijīs, the formation of the Shia and the deepening of the intellectual divisions after the all of these. Islamic history has witnessed a clash of different religious views and beliefs. along with deepening of intellectual disagreements as a result of political debatesIn the Islamic political thought, especially the first two centuries process was formed around the views of the jurists, muḥaddiths and theologians. The first sources used by those who tried to justify their opinion in the differences of opinion experienced during this period were the Qurʾān and ḥadīth literature which Muslims accepted as the determining factor in all their acts. The views based on the Qur'an and the hadiths, which are the two main sources of Islamic religion, had been used to influence the people, legitimize the actions and refute the claims of the opponents. On the other hand the sort who gave direction to political thought changed and political thought adhered a new path with Turks and Persians served as bureaucrats and soldiers and took an active position in the state. Especially Persians carried the culture of advice to Islamic thought, which is the product of both Greek and Hind civilization. Such books had brought in the İslamic society with translation movements began in the Umayyad period and peaked with the Bayt al-Ḥikma in the Abbasid period. Together with these books, the ideas of these civilizations on ideal state administration, politics and morality were recognized by Muslim scholars.These type of works, which are famous in terms of Islamic thought as mirrors for princes, have been written by Muslim scholars since the middle of the eighth century. Mirrors for princes are political, moral and religious content books that gives the rulers practical advice to maintain their power in accordance with the religious orders and prohibitions, and to the consent of Allāh’s who grant them this authority and people which appointed for their administration. Mirrors for princes are mostly theoretical books since they are mostly focused on what should be. In addition, since they are written for names that currently hold power, they are centered on how the rulers can maintain and increase their power and with which practices the state will maintain its existence for a longer period. The basic point of political thought and political interpretation are concepts and definitions. When the concept meaning of a word is mentioned, it is generally considered that there is a general definition. However, the concepts reflect the meaning that the user assigns to him in the context of his thoughts, perceptions, criticisms, explanations and analyzes. Concepts such as fair, honest, brave, hero, beautiful, rich, good and clean express what the person imposes on the meaning. In other words, everyone’s experience determines the content of the concept so far. The meaning of the concepts varies with the age and its user of that concept. Even concepts such as justice, merit and consultation can change meaning in different periods and geographies. The concepts, which are often used to facilitate understanding, are sometimes used to judge, to mold or mislead the interlocutor. In this context, it is imperative to enter the mind of the user in order to make concept analysis.In Islamic civilization, the principles of management are explained with concepts. The idiosyncrasies that Muslims expect from an ideal ruler are defined as justice, consultation, merit, trust and legitimacy and a broad corpus has been written about the concepts related to the administration, especially those mentioned. One type of this corpus is mirrors for princes.In Islamic history, there are many Mirrors for princes who are written in different time periods by names coming from different geographies and different backgrounds. Although the advice given in Mirrors for princes indicate a great similarity to each other, the preferred arguments and examples in the foundation of the counsel are different. While the persons in active politics mostly based their opinions on political arguments, scholars with scientific tradition supported their advices with religious arguments.Verses are the leading religious elements highlighted in Mirrors for princes. While explaining the concepts and emphasizing the importance of the advices, many verses have been exploited. Some verses are used only by one author, while some verses are the subject of their work by many authors. In the same way, ḥadīths and the sentences accepted as ḥadīths were also used to reinforce the emphasis and meaning. At this point, sometimes the context of the verses and ḥadīths were not taken care of. In this study, we aim to address the use of religious elements.In the literature, different opinions have emerged about who is ülü’l-emr and the limits of obedience to ülü’l-emr that used describe the names of senior executives and leaders of society. The reason for the difference is that each sect or religious school provides an interpretation on the basis of grounding its own views in explaining the verse. Justice is the most emphasized concept among the advices given to the rulers in mirrors for princes. Justice, which is shown as the most important feature of a sovereign, has been regarded as extremely important for the state to existences until the Doomsday. In addition, justice has been described as the most important condition for the maintenance of the state/sovereign authority. Consultation was important to make the right decision.Verses and ḥadīths were used in the explanations about the personal characteristics of the sovereign. Some features such as being compassionate, keeping promise, controlling anger, patience, honesty, blessing, extravagance, self-esteem, break a promise, revoke a promise and arrogance have become the subject of politics. When the mirrors for princes are considered as a whole, it is seen that religion and state are considered as inseparable twin brothers, taken one step further the understanding that accepts religion and the world as brothers especially is a product of the old Persian tradition. In this understanding, religion was accepted as the root and was given the duty of its patronage to political authority. It is seen that in the Mirrors for princes verses and ḥadīths hold a significant amount. As the reason for this can be said that along with religion takes place on the basis of morality, the authors of the Mirrors for princes, which put deep meanings on the relationship between religion and the state in the period that we are dealing with, consider both institutions to be complementary and integrative. (shrink)

The idea that research should become more interdisciplinary has become commonplace. According to influential commentators, the unprecedented complexity of problems such as climate change or the social implications of biomedicine demand interdisciplinary efforts integrating both the social and natural sciences. In this context, the question of whether a given knowledge practice is too disciplinary, or interdisciplinary, or not disciplinary enough has become an issue for governments, research policy makers and funding agencies. Interdisciplinarity, in short, has emerged as a key political (...) preoccupation; yet the term tends to obscure as much as illuminate the diverse practices gathered under its rubric. This volume offers a new approach to theorising interdisciplinarity, showing how the boundaries between the social and natural sciences are being reconfigured. It examines the current preoccupation with interdisciplinarity, notably the ascendance of a particular discourse in which it is associated with a transformation in the relations between science, technology and society. Contributors address attempts to promote collaboration between, on the one hand, the natural sciences and engineering and, on the other, the social sciences, arts and humanities. From ethnography in the IT industry to science and technology studies, environmental science to medical humanities, cybernetics to art-science, the collection interrogates how interdisciplinarity has come to be seen as a solution not only to enhancing relations between science and society, but the pursuit of accountability and the need to foster innovation. Interdisciplinarity is essential reading for scholars, students and policy makers across the social sciences, arts and humanities, including anthropology, geography, sociology, science and technology studies and cultural studies, as well as all those engaged in interdisciplinary research. It will have particular relevance for those concerned with the knowledge economy, science policy, environmental politics, applied anthropology, ELSI research, medical humanities, and art-science. (shrink)

This book is an innovative attempt by a leading film theorist to locate cinema--from the earliest experiments, via the work of Federico Fellini, Alfred Hitchcock, Roberto Rossellini, Orson Welles and many others, to contemporary European art cinema-- alongside philosophy, painting, geography and travel in terms of a history of modernism. The focal point of Promised Lands is a vast collection of geographical and ethnographic films and photographs made around the world, The Archives of the Planet . Based in Paris, the (...) collection was amassed by a French banker, Albert Kahn, in the 1900s, and for a time it was run by the Professor of Geography at the College de France, Jean Brunhes. The collection is, for Sam Rohdie, an astonishing instance of French modernism comparable to the philosophical work of Henri Bergson. Promised Lands weaves a narrative of speculative and analytical fragments around the rich resources of the collection. Each chapter is named for a real or imaginary place and the sum is a study that, in its interdisciplinary range and its attempt to integrate personal and cultural history, redefines modernism as a shifting geography of artforms, desires, and practices of understanding. (shrink)

In the early modern period costume books and albums participated in the shaping of a new visual culture that displayed the diversity of the people of the known world on a variety of media including maps, atlases, screens, and scrolls. At the crossroads of early anthropology, geography, and travel literature, this textual and visual production blurred the lines between art and science. Costume books and albums were not a unique European production: in the Ottoman Empire and the Far East artists (...) and geographers also pictured the dress of men and women of their own and faraway lands hybridizing the Renaissance western tradition. Acknowledging this circulation of knowledge and people through migration, travel, missionary and diplomatic encounters, this Element contributes to the expanding field of early modern cultural studies in a global perspective. (shrink)

Senses and Sensation: Critical and Primary Sources offers a comprehensive collection of key writings essential to anyone wishing to gain a critical understanding of sensory studies. Drawing upon historical and contemporary texts from a wide range of sources, this set is inspired by the sensory turn in the humanities, social sciences and fine arts which has challenged the monopoly that psychology formerly held over the study of senses and sensation. It also builds upon the revolution in psychology and the neurosciences (...) which has led to an increased emphasis on the interaction and integration of the senses, in place of the one-sense-at-a-time approach. The four volumes include 99 essays from the humanities, social sciences, fine arts, biology, psychology and the neurosciences. Ordered by discipline, the volumes cover geography and anthropology, history and sociology, biology, psychology and neuroscience, and art and design. Each volume is separately introduced and the essays structured into coherent sections on specific themes. This work is a major scholarly resource for those working and studying in the multidisciplinary field of sensory studies. (shrink)

Leading scholars in the interdisciplinary field of geo-spatial visual studies examine the social experience of cinema and the different ways in which film production developed as a commercial enterprise, as a leisure activity, and as modes of expression and communication. Their research charts new pathways in mapping the relationship between film production and local film practices, theatrical exhibition circuits and cinema going, creating new forms of spatial anthropology. Topics include cinematic practices in rural and urban communities, development of cinema by (...) amateur filmmakers, and use of GIS in mapping the spatial development of film production and cinema going as social practices. (shrink)

The paper aims to locate the concept of space within Hegel’s philosophy, interrogating the necessity of its subordination in relation to the concept of time within the framework of the Hegelian teleology of history. The first part considers the problem of the relation between space and time, placing each concept in its corresponding systematic location. The second part illustrates how this problem operates within three scenarios: language, art and geography. In the context of a wider research regarding the historical devaluation (...) that space suffered in relation to the categorical preeminence of time, this paper intends to identify one among many conceptual strategies whereby this preeminence acquires legitimation in Hegel´s philosophy. (shrink)

In attending to surfaces, as they wrap, layer and grow within sentient bodies, material formations and cosmological sates, this volume presents a series of ten anthropological studies stretching across five continents and in observation of earthly practices of making, knowing, living and dying. Through theoretically reflecting on time spent with Aymara and Mapuche Andean cultures, the Malagasy people of Madagascar, craftspeople and designers across Europe and Oceania, amongst the architectures of Australia and South Korea, and within the folds of books, (...) screens, landscape and the sea, the anthropologists in this volume communicate diverse ways of considering, working with and knowing surfaces. Together, these writings advance a knowledge of the world which resists any definitive settlement of existential categories and rather seeks to know the world in its emergence and transformation, as entities grow, cohere, shift, dissolve, decay and rebirth through the contact and exchange of surfaces, persisting with varying time, power and effect. The book principally invites readers from anthropology, the creative arts and environmental studies, but also across the wider humanities and social sciences as well as those in neighbouring scientific fields of archeology, biology, geography, geoscience, material science, neurology and psychology interested in the intersections of mind, body, materials and world. (shrink)