Download or read book Transitory Gardens Uprooted Lives written by Diana Balmori and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1995-01-01 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jimmy's garden on the Lower East Side of Manhattan--an assortment of stones and garbage bags, five tires, a chair, a skid, a refrigerator shelf, some ailanthus trees and goldfish, a wooden fence, and a pond with water carried by hand from a nearby fire hydrant--was recently bulldozed by the city. Jimmy then disappeared. Anna's garden is surrounded by a tall chainlink fence and filled with a menagerie of dolls and stuffed animals. The animals are whole, the dolls are maimed. Anna is a recluse who speaks to no one. The neighbors say she was in a concentration camp as a child. Gardens have always been associated with wealth and leisure, viewed as an addition to home. In this remarkable book a landscape architect and a photographer show us, in word and pictures, gardens built by homeless or impoverished New York City inhabitants. Like traditional gardens, these spaces are designed for pleasure, social activity, or private retreat. Unlike traditional gardens, they are connected to a more active and ephemeral use of the land. Transitory gardens speak the language of our times: here we find the reuse of nearly everything discarded, a sparing use of water and plant materials, an economical treatment of space, and a penchant for icons, toys, flags, and symbols of freedom and nationality. The gardens expand our definition of what makes a garden and what its design means for its creator. Diana Balmori's commentary and Margaret Morton's photographs combine with the garden-makers' own descriptions to encourage us to take note of gardens grown in unlikely places, on abandoned, littered lots, bounded by debris. By focusing on what homeless people make not for material comfort but from social and spiritual need, the book offers insight into both the meaning of landscape and the place of a garden in the life of an individual under duress.
Download or read book The Ecological Life written by Jeremy Bendik-Keymer and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2006-01-26 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written as a series of lectures, The Ecological Life offers a humanistic perspective on environmental philosophy that challenges some of the dogmas of deep ecology and radical environmentalism while speaking for their best desires. The book argues that being human-centered leaves us open to ecological identifications, rather than the opposite. Bendik-Keymer draws on analytic and continental traditions of philosophy as well as literature and visual media. He argues for a sense of ecological justice consonant with human rights, and shows how humanistic thinking is committed to deepening respect for life and our ecological orientation. In a clear, jargon-free and conversational tone, The Ecological Life presents a timely and important contribution to civic engagement in an ecological century.
Download or read book A Taste for Gardening written by Lisa Taylor and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-16 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is the garden a consumption site where identities are constructed? Do gardeners make aesthetic choices according to how they are positioned by class and gender? This book presents the first scholarly analysis of the relationship between media interest in gardening and cultural identities. With an examination of aesthetic dispositions as a symbolic mode of communication closely aligned to peoples' identities and drawing on ethnographic data gathered from encounters with gardeners, this book maps a typology of gardening taste, revealing that gardening - how plants are chosen, planted and cared for - is a classed and gendered practice manifested in specific types of visual aesthetics. This timely and original book develops a new area within cultural studies while contributing to debates about lifestyle and lifestyle media, consumption, class and methodology. A must read for anybody concerned with or intrigued by the cultural construction of identification practices.
Download or read book Waste Management and Sustainable Consumption written by Karin M. Ekström and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-12-17 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The accelerated pace of global consumption over the past decades has meant that governments across the world are now faced with significant challenges in dealing with the dramatically increased volume of waste. While research on waste management has previously focused on finding technological solutions to the problem, this book uniquely examines the social and cultural views of waste, shedding new light on the topic by emphasising the consumer perspective throughout. Drawing on a wide variety of disciplines including environmental, economic, social and cultural theories, the book presents philosophical reflections, practical examples and potential solutions to the problem of increasing waste. It analyses and compares case studies from countries such as Sweden, Japan, the USA, India, Nigeria and Qatar, bringing out valuable insights for the international community and generating a critical discussion on how we can move towards a more sustainable society. This book will be of great interest to post-graduate students and researchers in environmental policy, waste management, social marketing and consumer behaviour, as well as policymakers and practitioners in consumer issues and business.
Download or read book Special Issue written by and published by Emerald Group Publishing. This book was released on 2014-05-16 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Beautiful Prison incarcerated Americans and prison critics seek to imagine the prison as something better than a machinery of suffering. From personal testimony to theoretical meditation these writers explore and confront the practical and cultural limits the prison places on its transformation into a socially constructive institution.
Download or read book The Urban Garden City written by Sandrine Glatron and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-03-24 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an interdisciplinary overview of the role of gardens in cities throughout different historical periods. It shows that, thanks to various forms of spatial and social organisation, gardens are part of the material urban landscape, biodiversity, symbolic and social shape, and assets of our cities, and are increasingly becoming valued as an ‘order’ to follow. Gardens have long been part of the development of cities, serving different purposes through the ages: shaping neighborhoods to promote health or hygiene, introducing aesthetic or biological elements, gathering the citizens around a social purpose, and providing food and diversity in times of crisis. Highlighting examples that can serve as the basis for comparisons, the chapters offer a brief panorama of experiences and models of gardens in the city – in the European context and in various periods of history – while also discussing issues related to garden cities, urban agriculture and community gardens. The contributors are university staff from various disciplines in the human and life sciences, in discourse with other academics but also with practitioners who are interested in experiences with urban gardens and in promoting an awareness of their spatial, social and ‘philosophical’ goals throughout history. The book will appeal to urban geographers, sociologists and historians, but also to urban ecologists dealing with ecosystem services, biodiversity and sustainable development in cities. From a more operational standpoint, landscape planners and architects are sure to find many of the projects enlightening and inspirational.
Download or read book Glass House written by Margaret Morton and published by Penn State University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of a small community of homeless young people living in an abandoned Manhattan glass factory describes the people and personalities that made up the well-organized commune and the courageous and tragic stories of their lives.
Download or read book Splintering Towers of Babel written by Liora Bigon and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-07-21 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Splintering Towers of Babel focuses on and redefines soft infrastructures and critical infrastructure projects. It explores key issues in contemporary urban studies including town planning histories, architecture, heritage, colonialism and postcolonialism, philosophy, and ethics. The book combines transdisciplinary perspectives on the key historical, philosophical, and political issues associated with urban experiences, built forms, and infrastructure networks. It explores uneven dimensions in contemporary urbanisms and develops spatial phenomenological thinking with reference to the northern and southern hemispheres. This book connects the past and the present, in addition to Western and global South geographies, with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa. Its main contribution is to broaden readers' understanding of infrastructure through the lens of the humanities and to engage with political, poetical, and ethical perspectives. This book is tailored to scholars working in the fields of urban planning, urban geography, architectural history, urban design, infrastructure studies, colonial and postcolonial studies, African studies, and philosophy.
Download or read book Gardens written by Robert Pogue Harrison and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2010-10 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humans have long turned to gardens - both real and imaginary - for sanctuary from the frenzy and tumult that surrounds them. Those gardens may be as far away from everyday reality as Gilgamesh's garden of the gods or as near as our own backyard, but in their very conception and the marks they bear of human care and cultivation, gardens stand as restorative, nourishing, necessary havens. With Gardens, Robert Pogue Harrison graces readers with a thoughtful, wide-ranging examination of the many ways gardens evoke the human condition. Moving from the gardens of ancient philosophers to the gardens of homeless people in contemporary New York, he shows how, again and again, the garden has served as a check against the destruction and losses of history. The ancients, explains Harrison, viewed gardens as both a model and a location for the laborious self-cultivation and self-improvement that are essential to serenity and enlightenment, an association that has continued throughout the ages. The Bible and Qur'an; Plato's Academy and Epicurus's Garden School; Zen rock and Islamic carpet gardens; Boccaccio, Rihaku, Capek, Cao Xueqin, Italo Calvino, Ariosto, Michel Tournier, and Hannah Arendt - all come into play as this work explores the ways in which the concept and reality of the garden has informed human thinking about mortality, order, and power. Alive with the echoes and arguments of Western thought, Gardens is a fitting continuation of the intellectual journeys of Harrison's earlier classics, Forests and The Dominion of the Dead. Voltaire famously urged us to cultivate our gardens; with this compelling volume, Robert Pogue Harrison reminds us of the nature of that responsibility - and its enduring importance to humanity.
Download or read book Gardening Philosophy for Everyone written by Dan O'Brien and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-01-13 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosophy and gardens have been closely connected from the dawn of philosophy, with many drawing on their beauty and peace for philosophical inspiration. Gardens in turn give rise to a broad spectrum of philosophical questions. For the green-fingered thinker, this book reflects on a whole host of fascinating philosophical themes. Gardens and philosophy present a fascinating combination of subjects, historically important, and yet scarcely covered within the realms of philosophy Contributions come from a wide range of authors, ranging from garden writers and gardeners, to those working in architecture, archaeology, archival studies, art history, anthropology, classics and philosophy Essays cover a broad spectrum of topics, ranging from Epicurus and Confucius to the aesthetics and philosophy of Central Park Offers new perspectives on the experience and evaluation of gardens
Download or read book Where Mortals Dwell written by Craig G. Bartholomew and published by Baker Academic. This book was released on 2011-09-01 with total page 595 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Place is fundamental to human existence. However, we have lost the very human sense of place in today's postmodern and globalized world. Craig Bartholomew, a noted Old Testament scholar and the coauthor of two popular texts on the biblical narrative, provides a biblical, theological, and philosophical grounding for place in our rootless culture. He illuminates the importance of place throughout the biblical canon, in the Christian tradition, and in the contours of contemporary thought. Bartholomew encourages readers to recover a sense of place and articulates a hopeful Christian vision of placemaking in today's world. Anyone interested in place and related environmental themes, including readers of Wendell Berry, will enjoy this compelling book.
Download or read book Armchair Book of Gardens written by Jane Billinghurst and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2011-04-01 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Armchair Book of Gardens is a collection of indiviual essays focused on understanding gardens in a different light/perspective. The book concentrates on the emotional, social, spiritual, and politicial aspects of the garden.
Download or read book City Bountiful written by Laura J. Lawson and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2005-05-30 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The social history of American cities would not be complete without a full account of the rise of community open spaces. Lawson does exactly this by providing a compelling and poetic account of the history and making of urban gardens. Combining solid scholarship with engaging images of the gardens and stories of their makers, this book sheds new light on the value of urban open space. More important, it explains why community gardens need to stand alongside city parks as permanent open spaces. Essential reading for community developers and landscape architects as well as anyone who ventures outside, enthusiasm and shovel in hand, to improve their local environment.—Mark Francis, author of Urban Open Space and Village Homes "The definitive history of the past hundred years of America's experience with community gardens. A labor of love by a garden activist, the book appears at a most appropriate time—today our city dwellers and suburbanites are retreating onto carpets of passive open space tended by homeowner associations and lawn care outfits. Lawson thoughtfully analyzes the weaknesses of community gardens when used as a response to social crises and, by contrast, investigates community gardens as an alternative to today's managed care of open space. Her history clearly presents a way of community living that we can elect if we choose her wisdom."—Sam Bass Warner, Jr, author of To Dwell Is to Garden "An important book about how the urban gardening movement is transforming our landscape and reconnecting us to the land."—Alice Waters, Owner, Chez Panisse
Download or read book Public Space and the Ideology of Place in American Culture written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We typically take public space for granted, as if it has continuously been there, yet public space has always been the expression of the will of some agency (person or institution) who names the space, gives it purpose, and monitors its existence. And often its use has been contested. These new essays, written for this volume, approach public space through several key questions: Who has the right to define public space? How do such places generate and sustain symbolic meaning? Is public space unchanging, or is it subject to our subjective perception? Do we, given the public nature of public space, have the right to subvert it? These eighteen essays, including several case studies, offer convincing evidence of a spatial turn in American studies. They argue for a re-visioning of American culture as a history of place-making and the instantiation of meaning in structures, boundaries, and spatial configurations. Chronologically the subjects range from Pierre L’Enfant’s initial majestic conceptualization of Washington, D.C. to the post-modern realization that public space in the U.S. is increasingly a matter of waste. Topics range from parks to cities to small towns, from open-air museums to airports, encompassing the commercial marketing of place as well as the subversion and re-possession of public space by the disenfranchised. Ultimately, public space is variously imagined as the site of social and political contestation and of aesthetic change.
Download or read book Sonic Wilderness Wild Vinyl Records written by Mark Harris and published by AADR – Art Architecture Design Research. This book was released on 2021-12-08 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sonic Wilderness accesses the critical value of unusual vinyl records that concern our relationship with nature. These wild records reveal unconventional perspectives on the entanglements of human life with animals, gardens and plants. They form a lyrical unconscious exposing the conventions and ideologies of popular music, their warped perspectives and acoustic radioactivity comprising a resistance to enduring social, psychological and political conditions.
Download or read book Understanding Ordinary Landscapes written by Paul Groth and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1997-01-01 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How does knowledge of everyday environments foster deeper understanding of both past and present cultural life? Traditional studies in this field have been of rural life. Here, contributors explore aspects of the emergent field of urban cultural landscape studies--with the challenging issues of class, race, ethnicity, and subculture--to demonstrate the value of investigating the many meanings of ordinary settings. 67 illustrations.
Download or read book Romanticism on the Road written by T. Benis and published by Springer. This book was released on 2000-03-02 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Romanticism on the Road challenges critical orthodoxy by arguing that Wordsworth rejected the political dogmas of his age. Refusing to ally with either radicals or conservatives after the French Revolution, the poet seizes on vagrants to attack the binary thinking dominating public affairs and to question the value of the Georgian domestic ideal. Drawing on current and historical discussions of homelessness, the study offers a cultural history of vagrancy and explains why Wordsworth chose the homeless to bear his message.
