Scientific Progress Doubts and Hopes

Abstract

Our scientific and technological world must be accepted, whatever the reservations guarding above all the preservation of a genuinely humane existence on this Earth. The most difficult problem facing humanity is the present population explosion which appears at present insoluble, as humanity shows itself unequal to this challenge. Equally daunting is the prospect of nuclear war, and only if we can make reason and responsibility the yardsticks of our actions, is there any hope.     

A cohort of trees,photographs, scientists,an artist and a curator: the collaborative study of environmental change

ABSTRACT

I explore how a historic image archive can be re-worked through collaborative artistic-scientific practice, and how photography can be ‘re-performed’ as a strategy to observe an environmental change. The focus is on a project by the photographer Chrystel Lebas, who between 2011 and 2017 worked in collaboration with botanists from the Natural History Museum, London. The collaborators used historic and contemporary photographs for seasonal observations in the field. Their specific interest was in the potential for using historic visual ecological records to investigate environmental change as observed now.

The paper explores the hybridization of technical, aesthetic and embodied knowledge, the application of montage and the tacit creation of a visual framework for observation. It draws attention to the potential inflexibility in interpretation inherent in the accepted systematic practice of placing ecological records within a herbarium in a natural history collection. Secondly, it illustrates the neglected potential of photographic collections within scientific research.     

Drones,Hobbes, and Liberal Enchantment

ABSTRACT

This article reconceptualizes military drones by drawing on early-modern debates about the sanctity of political power. Ian Shaw has claimed that the proliferation and automation of drones threatens to subject humanity to a robotic regime of control, which he describes as the ultimate instantiation of Thomas Hobbes’s artificial sovereignty. I argue instead that the United States’ drone strategy is closely informed by a liberal political theology that can be traced back to Hobbes’s seventeenth- and eighteenth-century opponents, Samuel Clarke and Nehemiah Grew. These physico-theologians held that constitutionally balanced polities such as Britain were important vessels for divine providence. Today, a parallel faith that the United States represents humanity’s best hope is used to justify the extralegal and secretive bombing of territories that are deemed to be profane in comparison with America. Hobbes’s demystification of politics in Leviathan provides the platform for a critique of this modern form of liberal enchantment.     

The Postholocaust Landscape of Chelmno on the Ner (Kulmhof an der Nehr): An Ecological Perspective

ABSTRACT

This article shows how the ecology and nature of the Rzuchów Forest (in the Rzuchów district of the Ko?o forestry inspectorate in Greater Poland) was indirectly affected by the extermination of the Jewish population as a result of it being used to camouflage evidence of the crimes. Tracing the environmental history of commemoration in the forested part of the former death camp at Che?mno on the Ner (Che?mno nad Nerem/ Kulmhof an der Nehr) will give an indication of the ecological consequences of efforts to preserve the material traces of the camp and its natural surroundings. These efforts continued into the late 1980s. The ecology of commemoration and environmental commemoration form the two poles of this ecological continuum. It is possible to bring them closer together by furthering debates on the relationship between genocide and ecocide, while also expanding existing narratives on the Holocaust by turning to environmental aspects. This research is guided by the idea that it is necessary to rethink existing (and planned) forms of commemoration of crimes against humanity in the context of environmental ethics, with this approach leading to forms of commemoration at killing sites that give more consideration to the environment.     

Strength without Mercy: Winston Churchill on Technology and the Fate of Civilization

Abstract

Churchill's lifelong meditation on scientific progress led him to search for ways in which its transformative power could be moderated and guided for the preservation of civilization. The increasing role of scientific discovery and technological innovation in maximizing the destructive potential of warfare, Churchill believed, had brought a moment of decision for humanity: Whether to foster and maintain the moral and political principles that formed the foundation of civilized life or to trust wholly in an amoral science. He found guidance in the study of the humanities, Anglo-American constitutionalism, and Christian ethics.     

‘F&#% autonomy’: Houellebecq,Submission, and Enlightenment’s ‘last dismaying dregs’

ABSTRACT

This article examines the evolution of Houellebecq’s treatment of History across the span of his novels. Focusing in particular on The Elementary Particles, The Map and the Territory, and Submission, I explore a gradual but discernible movement away from a broadly Comtean understanding of historical destiny, which anticipated the decline of theology and metaphysics and the rise of positivism. Over the course of Houellebecq’s novels, this account of historical evolution yields to a circular rendering of history in which theology and metaphysics alternate as religious and secular dispensations trade power. While The Elementary Particles imagines the techno-utopian fantasy of a genetically perfected humanity, Submission abandons these Comtean-inspired utopian ambitions for a religiously grounded social order maintained under Islam. Crucially, I contend that François’ journey towards conversion in Submission, foreshadowed by the character Houellebecq’s conversion to Catholicism in The Map and the Territory, may be read as a narrative of the West’s exhaustion with Enlightenment and the burdens of personal autonomy. Submission is a novel that doubts the positivist pretention that humanity can move beyond religion and metaphysics, and instead suggests that metaphysics and its attendant doctrine of individual rights and freedom inevitably collapses back into theology.     

Making an Edgier Interpretation of the Gold Rushes: Contrasting Perspectives from Australia and New Zealand

This article examines the interaction between changing interpretations of history and visitor interpretation provided at heritage tourist sites. Generally, the literature distinguishes between history (which is seen as objective and fixed) and heritage interpretation (which is characterised as biased, selective and serving parochial interests). It is argued that history is actually far more dynamic and subjective and that this requires an ongoing revision of interpretation for visitors as historical interpretations change. To illustrate these processes, Goodman's concept of a new ‘edgier history of Gold’ is applied to interpretation at Sovereign Hill and the Mount Alexander Diggings in Australia and the Central Otago Heritage Trail in New Zealand.     

The Suez Canal Revisited Ferdinand de Lesseps: The Genesis and Nurturing of Macroengineering Projects for the Next Century

Abstract

In commemoration of the centenary of Ferdinand de Lesseps' death on 7 December 1894, an expanded version of the 1993 MIT BruneI Lecture delivered by Jean-Paul Calon is here reproduced. The benefits that humanity has derived from innovative large scale projects such as the Suez Canal – the product of Lesseps' imagination and perseverance – are affirmed and the technological progress born out of this massive constructional effort is reviewed. Finally, a plea is made for a more visionary and enlightened outlook among contemporary engineers in the light of several macroengineering projects that are ripe for development and exploitation.     

Adventures in happy land

Abstract

Interpretation proved to be a key to the successful outcome of three overseas aid projects in Asia and the Pacific. In Vanuatu, interpretation games were used to interest and involve local villagers in writing a management plan to protected a recently protected Pacific Kauri (Agathis macrophylla.) forest. The rapid establishment of national parks in Indonesia required staff to be trained in a variety of disciplines including interpretation. Park interpretation manuals were also written. Small scale tourism ventures in Fiji, where locals are the interpreters, are part of a management plan to protect a private forest park forest from logging.     

Teaching visualised geographies: towards a methodology for the interpretation of visual materials

Abstract

This paper suggests a number of questions which can be used to structure a small‐group discussion about the interpretation of visual images. As many geographers now are demonstrating, geographical knowledges are very often visualised. However, there is currently little on offer methodologically to help students approach the interpretation of visual images critically. This paper hopes to start to remedy this situation. It begins by sketching a theoretical understanding of the meanings of visual images. It then suggests a number of questions that flow from that understanding, which can be addressed to a particular visual image in order to facilitate a discussion about its possible meanings.     

The Riga Charter on Authenticity and Historical Reconstruction in Relationship to Cultural Heritage: Riga,Latvia, October 2000

Abstract

Global warming is recognised as an important environmental, and consequently political, issue. Rising global temperatures have demonstrated the potential for raising sea levels and increasing surface temperatures, with wide-reaching implications for habitats and biodiversity. While this remains high on the priority list for ecological sciences and coastal management, the implications for archaeological resource management remain unexamined. This is surprising given the increasingly close relationship between ecological and archaeological site management. This paper aims to focus attention on the issue of archaeology and global warming, and presents an outline of the possible consequences and approaches that may be considered, particularly in relation to the archaeology of wetlands.     

Artists' Impressions of Aberdulais Mill

Abstract

During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Aberdulais Falls was occupied by a corn and grist mill, and became a popular subject for topographical artists and painters. Since almost no archaeological evidence for the mill complex can be discovered, these illustrations are an invaluable source for reconstructing that period of the site's history. This article discusses the approaches to, and the problems inherent in, interpreting this kind of material for strictly archaeological purposes, and concludes by suggesting that expertise should be sought from other disciplines before any proper interpretation is attempted.     

The Moral Theologian,Oliver O'Donovan and International Law

Abstract

Oliver O'Donovan renders a singular contribution to the theory and history of international law by identifying the spiritual impoverishment of the discipline following the triumph of state-centred contractarianism in the theory of international relations, with Hobbes, Locke, Kant and, for the present, John Rawls. This contractarian approach to international society has an inherent tendency, which O'Donovan highlights, to ground international order in the hegemonic claim of one or two countries to represent the values of the whole of humanity. With a combination of rational moral theology and biblical interpretation (Revelation), O'Donovan reasserts an international order grounded in the autonomous identities of the nations, which God has recognized as equal. With a theory of political legitimacy which rests upon representation of national identity, O'Donovan points the way to an international order based upon mutual respect among nations under natural law, in the classical medieval sense finally represented by Grotius and Suarez. This article describes again what the natural law tradition meant in the hands of Aquinas and Vitoria, in order to highlight the fact that the ontological dimension of natural law theory provides a way to meet the intolerable insecurities which theories of nationalism appear to generate. Then the article goes on to offer one way to bring natural law thinking up to date for contemporary audiences by drawing upon Paul Ricoeur's phenomenological theory of mutual recognition and respect among the nations as a way of going beyond the contractarian tradition in contemporary international law and relations theory.     

CHALLENGES IN APPROACHES TO SKELETAL STATURE ESTIMATION: AN EXAMPLE FROM PREHISTORIC EASTERN MISSISSIPPI AND WESTERN ALABAMA

Abstract

Although stature is used widely as a bioarchaeological health indicator, its determination and subsequent interpretation are not always straightforward. A study of 77 individuals from eight prehistoric populations from the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway illustrates this issue. Application of three common stature estimation formulae to five Middle/Late Woodland and four Mississippian groups strongly suggests that use of partial versus whole bone, choice of element, and stature estimation method can create disparate patterns in health interpretation, not only for the direction of differences but particularly regarding the degree of differences among groups.     

An Aegean Fire-Stand from Tel Nagila

Abstract

In this short paper we present a detailed study of a unique ceramic vessel fragment that was found in the excavations at Tel Nagila. The interpretation of this fragment as an Aegean fire-stand has implications for our understanding of the origin and development of Philistine material culture in Iron Age Philistia.     

Review Essay

Abstract

This essay is an interpretation of the film No Country for Old Men. Each of the three main characters, it argues, represents a different response to the modern world. It proceeds by examining each character and the final scene.     

Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Theological Critique of Nationalism

Abstract

This paper argues that Han Urs von Balthasar’s work contains a thorough critique of nationalism that is rooted in theological categories. First, it examines the bases of this critique in Balthasar’s theology of history and in his thought on biblical Israel. Then, it outlines four categories of actors included in Balthasar’s notion of a theological drama: Christ, the individual, humanity, and the Church. Both implicitly and explicitly, these four categories displace the nation from the realm of theologically-significant history. Thus, the paper contends, there is a clear and compelling theological rejection of nationalistic ideology running throughout key aspects of Balthasar’s thought.