Interrupting Augustine: Hermeneutics,Allegory, and Irony in El perro del hortelano

Whatever else El perro del hortelano might be, it is a deeply ironic text about the difficulties of reading. The play not only stages acts of reading and writing where irony disrupts understanding, it is itself an ironic reading of Augustine's moment of conversion that shows the difficulty of allegorical and programmatic readings.     

Attending to grape vines: perceptual practices,planty agencies and multiple temporalities in Australian viticulture

This article considers the agency of crop plants within sociocultural processes by examining how grape vines influence seasonal labour patterns in Australian viticulture and wine production. Drawing on ethnographic research within a large Australian wine company, I examine how vineyard managers and winemakers coordinate the timing of the grape harvest with the ripening of grapes. I argue that by making the harvest's approach perceptible to humans, chemical and sensory tests of grape ripeness precipitate seasonal changes in viticultural work—rendering grape vines active participants in patterning social time. Practices of attention to ripening grapes thus render the social agency of grape vines perceptible. I analyse these time-reckoning practices as a ‘learning to be affected’, in which human viticulturists actively strive through multiple sensory practices to become attuned to plants' activities. However, attending to the multiple practices used to reckon the ‘right’ time to harvest grapes also emphasises that these ways of enacting the times and agencies of crop plants may interfere or conflict with one another. Highlighting the emotional stresses and tensions between viticultural workers that this may generate, I suggest that agricultural time is both more conflicted and more suffused with power relations than theoretical accounts have typically indicated.     

On Narco‐coyotaje: Illicit Regimes and Their Impacts on the US–Mexico Border

Many have debated whether or not human smugglers, known as coyotes, are involved with drug trafficking organizations. Scholars have largely rejected so‐called “narcocoyotaje”, however; we hope to problematize this narrative by adding a new theoretical layer to the discussion. Namely, we explore the ways in which different criminal activities produce hierarchies and control illicit activities within the clandestine geography of the US–Mexico border. These “illicit regimes” operate against the State, creating a hierarchy that dominates other illicit activities in order to maximize profit, avoid detection and consolidate power. While other studies have explored the relationships between the State and illicit practices this article takes the relationship between two illicit industries as its object of study. Doing so will help us move past the simply binary question about whether or not coyotes are involved with drug cartels, and allows us to understand what is being produced by this relationship, and its consequences for everyone involved.     

Mining,morality and the obligations of fossil fuel exporting countries

In this article I argue that countries exporting fossil fuels, such as Australia, have an obligation to bear some of the costs of the harms caused by the use of those fuels. I argue that there is an analogy between other harmful exports – medical waste, tobacco, unsafe jobs, uranium – and fossil fuels. If this is the case, then current methods for allocating emissions and responsibilities for their harms are inadequate and more complex than they appear. I consider several counter-arguments to this claim, such as that it does not recognise the benefits of coal and that exporters are not really responsible. Finally, I consider some of the consequences of this argument and claim that Australia and other fossil fuel exporters ought to have a higher ‘carbon budget’ if this argument is true and that exporters ought to bear a higher share of the costs of climate harms.     

Redesigning Physical Geography 101: bringing students into the discussion

This article analyses student-learning outcomes from the redesign of Introduction to Physical Geography 101. Among the purposes of the redesigned course were to enhance student learning by providing rich interactive online content, provide more meaningful instructor–student and peer–peer exchanges, and to promote attitudes that facilitate student opportunities to construct new knowledge. Through empirically testing two of the redesigned course’s key components on students’ learning, we determine the positive effects on students’ exam scores. We offer, despite the additional work required from instructors and teaching assistants for such a redesigned course, that with further refinement these pedagogical changes may offer potential longer term impact on students’ learning behaviors.