Nature And Culture

Author : Philippe Descola
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022614500X
Total Pages : 486 pages
Book Rating : 4.06/5 ( download)

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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

Author : Barbara Novak Altschul Professor of Art History Barnard College and Columbia University (Emerita)
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0195345665
Total Pages : 328 pages
Book Rating : 4.67/5 ( download)

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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

Author : Prof. Alan H. Goodman
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520929977
Total Pages : 330 pages
Book Rating : 4.75/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Genetic Nature/Culture written by Prof. 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: The so-called science wars pit science against culture, and nowhere is the struggle more contentious—or more fraught with paradox—than in the burgeoning realm of genetics. A constructive response, and a welcome intervention, this volume brings together biological and cultural anthropologists to conduct an interdisciplinary dialogue that provokes and instructs even as it bridges the science/culture divide. 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. An invaluable resource and a provocative introduction to new research and thinking on the uses and study of genetics, Genetic Nature/Culture is a model of fruitful dialogue, presenting the quandaries faced by scholars on both sides of the two-cultures debate.

Author : Alexander Wilson
Publisher : Between The Lines
ISBN 13 : 0921284527
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.29/5 ( download)

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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.

Author : Rebecca Zorach
Publisher : Reaktion Books
ISBN 13 : 1780236131
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.31/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Gold written by Rebecca Zorach and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2016-04-15 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gleaming and perfect, gold has beguiled humankind for many millennia, attracting treasure hunters, adorning the living and the dead, and symbolizing wealth, power, divinity, and eternity. This book offers a lively, critical look at the cultural history of this most regal metal, examining its importance across many cultures and time periods and the many places where it has been central, from religious ceremonies to colonial expeditions to modern science. Rebecca Zorach and Michael W. Phillips Jr. cast gold as a substance of paradoxes. Its softness at once makes it useless for most building projects yet highly suited for the exploration of form and the transmission—importantly—of images, such as the faces of rulers on currency. It has been the icon of value—the surest bet in times of uncertain markets—yet also of valuelessness, something King Midas learned the hard way. And, as Zorach and Phillips detail, it has been at the center of many clashes between cultures all throughout history, the unfortunate catalyst of countless blood lusts. Ultimately, they show that the questions posed by our relentless desire for gold are really questions about value itself. Lavishly illustrated, this book offers a shimmering exploration of the mythology, economy, aesthetics, and perils at the center of this simple—yet irresistible—substance.

Author : Lester G. Crocker
Publisher : JHU Press
ISBN 13 : 1421435799
Total Pages : 578 pages
Book Rating : 4.94/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Nature and Culture written by Lester G. Crocker and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2019-12-01 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1963. Perhaps the most generative ethical question of eighteenth-century France was how to live a virtuous and happy life at the same time. During the Age of Enlightenment, Christianity fell out of vogue as the dominant and authoritative moral code. In place of Christianity's emphasis on sin and redemption in light of a supposed afterlife, present happiness became recognized as an appropriate end goal among French Enlightenment thinkers. French intellectuals struggled to find equilibrium between nature (a person's individual goals and needs) and culture (the political, economic, and social organization of humans for a collective good). Enlightenment discourse generated a unique cultural moment in which thinkers addressed the problems of humans' moral coexistence through the dichotomy of nature and culture. Lester Crocker addresses these questions in an overview of ethical thought in eighteenth-century France.

Author : Klaus Dodds
Publisher : Reaktion Books
ISBN 13 : 1780239475
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.77/5 ( download)

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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 224 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.

Author : Rodney James Giblett
Publisher : Intellect (UK)
ISBN 13 : 9781841504018
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.17/5 ( download)

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Download or read book People and Places of Nature and Culture written by Rodney James Giblett and published by Intellect (UK). This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using the rich and vital Australian Aboriginal understanding of country as a model, "People and Places of Nature and Culture "affirms the importance of a sustainable relationship between nature and culture. While current thought includes the mistaken notion perpetuated by natural history, ecology, and political economy that humans have a mastery over the Earth, this book demonstrates the problems inherent in this view.In the current age of climate change, this is an important appraisal of the relationship between nature and culture, and a projection of what needs to change if we want to achieve environmental stability."

Author : Sarah Pilgrim
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136532005
Total Pages : 298 pages
Book Rating : 4.09/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Nature and Culture written by Sarah Pilgrim and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-09-23 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is a growing recognition that the diversity of life comprises both biological and cultural diversity. But this division is not universal and, in many cases, has been deepened by the common disciplinary divide between the natural and social sciences and our apparent need to manage and control nature. This book goes beyond divisive definitions and investigates the bridges linking biological and cultural diversity. The international team of authors explore the common drivers of loss, and argue that policy responses should target both forms of diversity in a novel integrative approach to conservation, thus reducing the gap between science, policy and practice. While conserving nature alongside human cultures presents unique challenges, this book forcefully shows that any hope for saving biological diversity is predicated on a concomitant effort to appreciate and protect cultural diversity.

Author : Emily Brady
Publisher : Global Aesthetic Research
ISBN 13 : 9781786610768
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.60/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Between Nature and Culture written by Emily Brady and published by Global Aesthetic Research. This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a systematic, philosophical account of the main issues that pertain to the aesthetics of modified environments, as well as new insights concerning the generation and appreciation of landscapes and environments that fall between (non-human) nature and (human) culture, including gardens and ecologically restored landscapes.