Download or read book Beyond Nature and Culture written by Philippe Descola and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-08-01 with total page 486 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Gives to anthropological reflection a new starting point and will become the compulsory reference for all our debates in the years to come.” —Claude Lévi-Strauss, on the French edition Beyond Nature and Culture has been a major influence in European intellectual life since its French publication in 2005. Here, finally, it is brought to English-language readers. At its heart is a question central to both anthropology and philosophy: what is the relationship between nature and culture? Culture—as a collective human making, of art, language, and so forth—is often seen as essentially different from nature, which is portrayed as a collective of the nonhuman world, of plants, animals, geology, and natural forces. Philippe Descola shows this essential difference to be not only a Western notion, but also a very recent one. Drawing on ethnographic examples from around the world and theoretical understandings from cognitive science, structural analysis, and phenomenology, he formulates a sophisticated new framework, the “four ontologies” —animism, totemism, naturalism, and analogism—to account for all the ways we relate ourselves to nature. By thinking beyond nature and culture as a simple dichotomy, Descola offers a fundamental reformulation by which anthropologists and philosophers can see the world afresh. “A compelling and original account of where the nature-culture binary has come from, where it might go—and what we might imagine in its place.” —Somatosphere “The most important book coming from French anthropology since Claude Lévi-Strauss’s Anthropologie Structurale.” —Bruno Latour, author of An Inquiry into Modes of Existence “Descola’s challenging new worldview should be of special interest to a wide range of scientific and academic disciplines from anthropology to zoology . . . Highly recommended.” —Choice
Download or read book Genetic Nature Culture written by Alan H. Goodman and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2003-11-06 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Individual essays address issues raised by the science, politics, and history of race, evolution, and identity; genetically modified organisms and genetic diseases; gene work and ethics; and the boundary between humans and animals. The result is an entree to the complicated nexus of questions prompted by the power and importance of genetics and genetic thinking, and the dynamic connections linking culture, biology, nature, and technoscience. The volume offers critical perspectives on science and culture, with contributions that span disciplinary divisions and arguments grounded in both biological perspectives and cultural analysis.
Download or read book Water written by Veronica Strang and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2015-04-15 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As any scientist will tell you, there is no substance more vital than water. Our history is necessarily a history with water, whether we have irrigated our fields with it, cooled our machines, washed ourselves, drank it down deeply, or even worshipped it. In Water, Veronic Strang ladles through the rich history of our interaction with water, offering an accessible examination of the crucial properties that make water so unique alongside the complex story of our evolving relationship with it. As Strang shows, our attitudes about water and the things that we rely on it for have changed dramatically over time. Once a mystical source of regenerative powers, it has since played various roles as our attitudes about hygiene, health, and disease have developed; as it has become useful to our industry; as agriculture has become ever more complex; and, of course, as we have learned to make money from it. Today water—who controls it, and how—is one of the largest issues facing our society, influencing everything from the welfare of the billions of people living on earth to the vitality of its natural habitats. Balancing history, science, and environmental and cultural studies, Strang offers an important, multi-faceted view of a critical resource.
Download or read book What is Nature written by Kate Soper and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Culture of Nature written by Alexander Wilson and published by Between The Lines. This book was released on 1991 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this celebrated work, Alexander Wilson examines environments built over the past fifty years, as humans have continued to discover, exploit, protect, restore, and sometimes re-enchant a natural world in convulsion. Extensively illustrated.
Download or read book Cultural Sustainability and the Nature Culture Interface written by Inger Birkeland and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-03-14 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As contemporary socio-ecological challenges such as climate change and biodiversity preservation have become more important, the three pillars concept has increasingly been used in planning and policy circles as a framework for analysis and action. However, the issue of how culture influences sustainability is still an underexplored theme. Understanding how culture can act as a resource to promote sustainability, rather than a barrier, is the key to the development of cultural sustainability. This book explores the interfaces between nature and culture through the perspective of cultural sustainability. A cultural perspective on environmental sustainability enables a renewal of sustainability discourse and practices across rural and urban landscapes, natural and cultural systems, stressing heterogeneity and complexity. The book focuses on the nature-culture interface conceptualised as a place where experiences, practices, policies, ideas and knowledge meet, are negotiated, discussed and resolved. Rather than looking for lost unities, or an imaginary view of harmonious relationships between humans and nature based in the past, it explores cases of interfaces that are context-sensitive and which consciously convey the problems of scale and time. While calling attention to a cultural or ‘culturalised’ view of the sustainability debate, this book questions the radical nature-culture dualism dominating positive modern thinking as well as its underlying view of nature as pre-given and independent from human life.
Download or read book Nature and Culture in the Andes written by Daniel W. Gade and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text reveals the intimate and unexpected relationships of plants, animals and people in western South America. Daniel Gade encourages the reader to look beyond the obvious to see the true complexity of ecological relationships.
Download or read book Cave written by Ralph Crane and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2015-04-15 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shortlisted for the Tratman Award 2015 To enter caves is to venture beyond the realm of the everyday. From huge vaulted caverns to impassable, water-filled passages; from the karst topography of Guilin in China to the lava tubes of Hawaii; from tiny remote pilgrimage sites to massive tourism enterprises, caves are places of mystery. Dark spaces that remain largely unexplored, caves are astonishing wonders of nature and habitats for exotic flora and fauna. This book investigates the natural and cultural history of caves and considers the roles caves have played in the human imagination and experience of the natural world. It explores the long history of the human fascination with caves, across countries and continents, examining their dual role as spaces of both wonder and fear. It tells the tales of the adventurers who pioneered the science of caves and those of the explorers and cave-divers still searching for new, unmapped routes deep into the earth. This book explores the lure of the subterranean world by examining caving and cave tourism and by looking to the mythology, literature, and art of caves. This lavishly illustrated book will appeal to general readers and experts alike interested in the ecology and use of caves, or the extraordinary artistic responses earth’s dark recesses have evoked over the centuries.
Download or read book Colors of Nature written by Alison H. Deming and published by Milkweed Editions. This book was released on 2011-02-01 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An anthology of nature writing by people of color, providing deeply personal connections to—or disconnects from—nature.” —NPR From African American to Asian American, indigenous to immigrant, “multiracial” to “mixed-blood,” the diversity of cultures in this world is matched only by the diversity of stories explaining our cultural origins: stories of creation and destruction, displacement and heartbreak, hope and mystery. With writing from Jamaica Kincaid on the fallacies of national myths, Yusef Komunyakaa connecting the toxic legacy of his hometown, Bogalusa, LA, to a blind faith in capitalism, and bell hooks relating the quashing of multiculturalism to the destruction of nature that is considered “unpredictable”—among more than thirty-five other examinations of the relationship between culture and nature—this collection points toward the trouble of ignoring our cultural heritage, but also reveals how opening our eyes and our minds might provide a more livable future. Contributors: Elmaz Abinader, Faith Adiele, Francisco X. Alarcón, Fred Arroyo, Kimberly Blaeser, Joseph Bruchac, Robert D. Bullard, Debra Kang Dean, Camille Dungy, Nikky Finney, Ray Gonzalez, Kimiko Hahn, bell hooks, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, Pualani Kanaka’ole Kanahele, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Jamaica Kincaid, Yusef Komunyakaa, J. Drew Lanham, David Mas Masumoto, Maria Melendez, Thyllias Moss, Gary Paul Nabhan, Nalini Nadkarni, Melissa Nelson, Jennifer Oladipo, Louis Owens, Enrique Salmon, Aileen Suzara, A. J. Verdelle, Gerald Vizenor, Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, Al Young, Ofelia Zepeda “This notable anthology assembles thinkers and writers with firsthand experience or insight on how economic and racial inequalities affect a person’s understanding of nature . . . an illuminating read.” —Bloomsbury Review “[An] unprecedented and invaluable collection.” —Booklist
Download or read book Methodological Challenges in Nature Culture and Environmental History Research written by Jocelyn Thorpe and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-11-10 with total page 495 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the challenges and possibilities of conducting cultural environmental history research today. Disciplinary commitments certainly influence the questions scholars ask and the ways they seek out answers, but some methodological challenges go beyond the boundaries of any one discipline. The book examines: how to account for the fact that humans are not the only actors in history yet dominate archival records; how to attend to the non-visual senses when traditional sources offer only a two-dimensional, non-sensory version of the past; how to decolonize research in and beyond the archives; and how effectively to use sources and means of communication made available in the digital age. This book will be a valuable resource for those interested in environmental history and politics, sustainable development and historical geography.
Download or read book Ice written by Klaus Dodds and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2018-06-15 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Ice, Klaus Dodds provides a wide-ranging exploration of the cultural, natural, and geopolitical history of this most slippery of subjects. Beyond Earth, ice has been found on other planets, moons, and meteors—and scientists even think that ice-rich asteroids played a pivotal role in bringing water to our blue home. But our outlook need not be cosmic to see ice’s importance. Here today and gone tomorrow in many parts of the temperate world, ice is a perennial feature of polar and mountainous regions, where it has long shaped human culture. But as climates change, ice caps and glaciers melt, and waters rise, more than ever this frozen force touches at the core of who we are. As Dodds reveals, ice has played a prominent role in shaping both the earth’s living communities and its geology. Throughout history, humans have had fun with it, battled over it, struggled with it, and made money from it—and every time we open our refrigerator doors, we’re reminded how ice has transformed our relationship with food. Our connection to ice has been captured in art, literature, movies, and television, as well as made manifest in sport and leisure. In our landscapes and seascapes, too, we find myriad reminders of ice’s chilly power, clues as to how our lakes, mountains, and coastlines have been indelibly shaped by the advance and retreat of ice and snow. Beautifully illustrated throughout, Ice is an informative, thought-provoking guide to a substance both cold and compelling.
Download or read book Writing the Land written by Lis McLoughlin and published by . This book was released on 2021-09-11 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this anthology, 40 poets offer poems inspired by protected lands in New England, and 11 land trusts tell the stories of how and why they do this vital work. From farmland trusts to wilderness preserves, from community land trusts to those protecting vital environmental systems, each organization has a vital piece of the puzzle of how humans can live in harmony with the rest of Nature. Writing the Land is an attempt to honor nature and our relationship with it in a way that is as equitable and transparent as it is deep and entangled. We intend to be as inclusive-to humans and places-as we hope the mantle of protection that land trusts offer can be. Our work will never be complete but gains strength, depth, beauty, and energy in a multitude of voices.
Download or read book Placing Nature written by Joan Nassauer and published by Island Press. This book was released on 1997-08 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Landscape ecology is a widely influential approach to looking at ecological function at the scale of landscapes, and accepting that human beings powerfully affect landscape pattern and function. It goes beyond investigation of pristine environments to consider ecological questions that are raised by patterns of farming, forestry, towns, and cities. Placing Nature is a groundbreaking volume in the field of landscape ecology, the result of collaborative work among experts in ecology, philosophy, art, literature, geography, landscape architecture, and history. Contributors asked each other: What is our appropriate role in nature? How are assumptions of Western culture and ingrained traditions placed in a new context of ecological knowledge? In this book, they consider the goals and strategies needed to bring human-dominated landscapes into intentional relationships with nature, articulating widely varied approaches to the task. In the essays: novelist Jane Smiley, ecologist Eville Gorham, and historian Curt Meine each examine the urgent realities of fitting together ecological function and culture philosopher Marcia Eaton and landscape architect Joan Nassauer each suggest ways to use the culture of nature to bring ecological health into settled landscapes urban geographer Judith Martin and urban historian Sam Bass Warner, geographer and landscape architect Deborah Karasov, and ecologist William Romme each explore the dynamics of land development decisions for their landscape ecological effects artist Chris Faust's photographs juxtapose the crass and mundane details of land use with the poetic power of ecological pattern. Every possible future landscape is the embodiment of some human choice. Placing Nature provides important insight for those who make such choices -- ecologists, ecosystem managers, watershed managers, conservation biologists, land developers, designers, planners -- and for all who wish to promote the ecological health of their communities.
Download or read book Silver written by Lindsay Shen and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2017-05-15 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From spoons to bullets to sterling coins, silver permeates our everyday culture and language. For millennia we’ve used it to buy what we need, adorn our bodies, or trumpet our social status, and likewise it’s been useful to vanquish werewolves, vampires, and even our own smelly socks. This book captures all of these facets of silver and more, telling the fascinating story of one of our most hardworking precious metals. As Lindsay Shen shows, while always valued for its beauty and rarity—used to bolster dowries and pay armies alike—silver today is also exploited for its chemistry and can be found in everything from the clothes we wear to the electronics we use to the medical devices that save our lives. Born in the supernovae of stars and buried deep in the earth, it has been mined by many different societies, traded throughout the world, and been the source of wars and the downfall of empires. It is also a metal of pure reflection, a shining symbol of purity. Featuring many glistening illustrations of silver in nature, art, jewelry, film, advertising, and popular culture, this is a superb overview of a metal both precious and useful, one with a rich and eventful history.
Download or read book Culture Man and Nature written by Marvin Harris and published by . This book was released on 1971 with total page 696 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Nature and Culture American Landscape and Painting 1825 1875 With a New Preface written by Barbara Novak Altschul Professor of Art History Barnard College and Columbia University (Emerita) and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2007-01-05 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this richly illustrated volume, featuring more than fifty black-and-white illustrations and a beautiful eight-page color insert, Barbara Novak describes how for fifty extraordinary years, American society drew from the idea of Nature its most cherished ideals. Between 1825 and 1875, all kinds of Americans--artists, writers, scientists, as well as everyday citizens--believed that God in Nature could resolve human contradictions, and that nature itself confirmed the American destiny. Using diaries and letters of the artists as well as quotes from literary texts, journals, and periodicals, Novak illuminates the range of ideas projected onto the American landscape by painters such as Thomas Cole, Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Edwin Church, Asher B. Durand, Fitz H. Lane, and Martin J. Heade, and writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Frederich Wilhelm von Schelling. Now with a new preface, this spectacular volume captures a vast cultural panorama. It beautifully demonstrates how the idea of nature served, not only as a vehicle for artistic creation, but as its ideal form. "An impressive achievement." --Barbara Rose, The New York Times Book Review "An admirable blend of ambition, elan, and hard research. Not just an art book, it bears on some of the deepest fantasies of American culture as a whole." --Robert Hughes, Time Magazine
Download or read book The Nature of Culture written by Miriam N. Haidle and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-01-19 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume introduces a model of the expansion of cultural capacity as a systemic approach with biological, historical and individual dimensions. It is contrasted with existing approaches from primatology and behavioural ecology; influential factors like differences in life history and demography are discussed; and the different stages of the development of cultural capacity in human evolution are traced in the archaeological record. The volume provides a synthetic view on a) the different factors and mechanisms of cultural development, and b) expansions of cultural capacities in human evolution beyond the capacities observed in animal culture so far. It is an important topic because only a volume of contributions from different disciplines can yield the necessary breadth to discuss the complex subject. The model introduced and discussed originates in the naturalist context and tries to open the discussion to some culturalist aspects, thus the publication in a series with archaeological and biological emphasis is apt. As a new development the synthetic model of expansion of cultural capacity is introduced and discussed in a broad perspective.
