Author: Alan Marshall
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 1783261161
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289
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Book Description
The idea behind The Unity of Nature is a strong theoretical theme in a number of scientific and environmental fields from ecosystems ecology, through quantum physics to environmental philosophy and ecopolitics giving rise to an inspiring, optimistic, socially-responsive and environment-friendly worldview. The fields of science and environmentalism have inherited this theme of natural unity through an intellectual lineage that encompasses many non-scientific and non-environmental fields such as sociology, theology and political philosophy. Many of these fields have used natural unity in a way which is in stark opposition to the metaphysical and political desires of those who promulgate the unity of nature for progressive social change.This book discusses how this has transpired and examines the social and intellectual processes that have been at work. These include the social construction of the Organicism versus Mechanicism debate in ecology, the intellectual links between neo-classical economic principles and the ‘New Sciences’, the techno-scientific background of Gaia theory, and the social conservatism of ecological functionalism.
Author: Lance Newman
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1403973539
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 263
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Book Description
OurCommonDwelling explores why America's first literary circle turned to nature in the 1830s and '40s. When the New England Transcendentalists spiritualized nature, they were reacting to intense class conflict in the region's industrializing cities. Their goal was to find a secular foundation for their social authority as an intellectual elite. New England Transcendentalism engages with works by William Wordsworth, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and others. The works of these great authors, interpreted in historical context, show that both environmental exploitation and conscious love of nature co-evolved as part of the historical development of American capitalism.
Author: George P. Stamou
Publisher: Bentham Science Publishers
ISBN: 160805280X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 140
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Book Description
Discussions on historical and philosophical issues in ecology have been rather limited. This volume presents an enriched and comprehensive review on ecological issues. The topics covered in this e-book include the emergence of the field of life-history st
Author: Graham Harris
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521695329
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 380
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Book Description
Seeking Sustainability in an Age of Complexity explains the difficulties of sustainability and why 'collapse' can occur. In the last twenty years the theory of complexity has been developed - complex systems science (CSS) speaks to natural systems and particularly to ecological, social and economic systems and their interaction. Due to the growing concern over the huge changes occurring in the global environment, such as climate change, deforestation, habitat fragmentation and loss of biodiversity, Graham Harris sets out what has been learned in an attempt to understand the implications of these changes and suggests ways to move forward. This book discusses a number of emerging tools for the management of 'unruly' complexity which facilitate stronger regional dialogues about knowledge and values, which will be of interest to ecologists, sociologists, economists, natural resource managers and scientists in State and local governments and those involved in water and landscape management.
Author: Patrick Keyzer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317661125
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 281
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Book Description
There is much debate about the scope of international law, its compatibility with individual state practice, its enforceability and the recent and limited degree to which it is institutionalized. This collection of essays seeks to address the issue of access to justice, the related element of domestic rule of law which does not yet figure significantly in debates about international rule of law. Even in cases in which laws are passed, institutions are present and key players are ethically committed to the rule of law, those whom the laws are intended to protect may be unable to secure protection. This is an issue in most domestic jurisdictions but also one which poses severe problems for international justice worldwide. The book will be of interest to academics and practitioners of international law, environmental law, transitional justice, international development, human rights, ethics, international relations and political theory.
Author: Joseph Hodge
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526110865
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 546
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Book Description
This book investigates development in British, French and Portuguese colonial Africa during the last decades of colonial rule. During this period, development became the central concept underpinning the relationship between metropolitan Europe and colonial Africa. Combining historiographical accounts with analyses from other academic viewpoints, this book investigates a range of contexts, from agriculture to mass media. With its focus on the conceptual side of development and its broad geographical scope, it offers new and unique perspectives. An extensive introduction contextualises the individual chapters and makes the book an up-to-date point of entry into the subject of colonial development, not only for a specialist readership, but also for students of history, development and postcolonial studies. Written by scholars from Africa, Europe and North America, Developing Africa is a uniquely international dialogue on this vital chapter of twentieth-century transnational history.
Author: Jopi Nyman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317415914
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 216
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Book Description
In recent years, animals have entered the focus of the social and cultural sciences, resulting in the emergence of the new field of human–animal studies. This book investigates the relationships between humans and animals, paying particular attention to the role of affect, space, and animal subjectivity in diverse human–animal encounters. Written by a team of international scholars, contributions explore current debates concerning animal representation, performativity, and relationality in various texts and practices. Part I explores how animals are framed as affective, through four case studies that deal with climate change, human–bovine relationships, and human–horse interaction in different contemporary and historical contexts. Part II expands on the issue of relationality and locates encounters within place, mapping the different spaces where human–animal encounters take place. Part III then examines the construction of animal subjectivity and agency to emphasize the way in which animals are conscious and sentient beings capable of experiencing feelings, emotions, and intentions, and active agents whose actions have meaning for the animals themselves. This book highlights the importance of the ways in which affect enables animal agency and subjectivity to emerge in encounters between humans and animals in different contexts, leading to different configurations. It contributes not only to debates concerning the role of animals in society but also to the epistemological development of the field of human–animal studies.
Author: Clara A.B. Joseph
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9401203091
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 352
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Book Description
The essays in this volume examine the tensions between two major political and intellectual structures: the global and the postcolonial, charting the ways in which such tensions are constitutive of changing power relations between the individual, the nation-state and global forces. Contributors ask how postcolonialism, with its emphasis on cultural difference and diversity, can respond to the new, neo-imperialist imperatives of globalization. Signalling the discursive grounds for debate is the fissures/fusions title, suggesting alternative categorizations of stereotypes like ‘global homogenization’ and ‘postcolonial resistance’. Interwoven are considerations of the intellectual or writer’s position today. Literary texts from a wide range of countries are analysed for their resistance to global hegemony and for representations of manipulative power structures, in order to highlight issues such as environmental loss, nationality, migrancy, and marginality. Specific topics covered include ‘westernizing’ the Indian academy, ecotourism and the new media of computer technology, the corporatization of creativity in ‘re-branding’ New Zealand (including film), and the hybrid forms of Latin American photography. Writers discussed include Chinua Achebe, Samuel Beckett, Hafid Bouazza, Bei Dao, Mahmoud Darwish, Witi Ihimaera, James Joyce, Yann Martel, Rohinton Mistry, Ellen Ombre, Michael Ondaatje, George Orwell, Arundhati Roy, Salman Rushdie, and Edward Said. Different essays stress the hegemony of global networks; the technological revolution’s revitalizing of niche marketing while marginalizing postcolonial resistance; the implications of the internationalization of culture for the indigene; and the potential of cultural hybridity to collapse cultural hierarchies.
Author: Kathleen Renk
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136582312
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 223
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Book Description
This book examines the ways in which contemporary British and British postcolonial writers in the after-empire era draw connections between magic (defined here as Renaissance Hermetic philosophy) and science. Writers such as Tom Stoppard, Zadie Smith, and Margaret Atwood critique both imperial science, or science used in service to empire, and what Renk calls "imperical science," a distortion of rational science which denies that reality is holistic and claims that nature can and should be conquered. In warning of the dangers of imperical science, these writers restore the connection between magic and science as they examine major shifts in scientific thinking across the centuries. They reflect on the Copernican Revolution and the historic split between magic and science, scrutinize Darwinism, consider the relationship between Victorian science and pseudo-science, analyze twentieth-century Uncertainty theories, reject bio/genetic engineering, call for a new approach to science that reconnects science and art, and ultimately endeavor to bring an end to the imperial age. Overall, these writers forge a new discourse that merges science with the arts and emphasizes a holistic philosophy, a view shared by both Hermetic philosophy and recent scientific theories, such as chaos or complexity theory. Along with recent books that focus on the relationship between contemporary literature and science, this work focuses on contemporary British literature’s critique of science and the ways in which postcolonial literature addresses the relationship between magic, science, and empire.
Author: Keith Newlin
Publisher: Oxford Handbooks
ISBN: 0190642890
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 733
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Book Description
"The Oxford Handbook of American Literary Realism offers 35 original essays of fresh interpretations of the artistic and political challenges of representing life accurately. Organized by topic and theme, essays draw upon recent scholarship in literary and cultural studies to offer an authoritative and in-depth reassessment of major and minor figures and the contexts that shaped their work. One set of essays explores realism's genesis and its connection to previous and subsequent movements. Others examine the inclusiveness of representation, the circulation of texts, and the aesthetic representation of science, time, space, and the subjects of medicine, the New Woman, and the middle class. Still others trace the connection to other arts--poetry, drama, illustration, photography, painting, and film--and to pedagogic issues in the teaching of realism"--
