The Non-Geographer: Overlooked but not forgotten

This paper is concerned with epistemological and attitudinal problems encountered in communicating geographical concepts to non-geographers. It reflects a Canadian context and offers a case study of a group of non-geographers whose special needs are often overlooked: the teachers of social studies. An inductive approach, using systematic geography only as required in order to understand a case study, is found to be effective in building bridges for those new to the subject. The choice of sequence should be from the empirical to the theoretical, in which fieldwork fulfils a point of entry for non-geographers.     

Faust and Mon Faust

Following is a list of publications by Álvaro Félix Bolaños.     

Critique of Science as Critique of Society: Literary Figurations of Techno-scientific Fetishism (Introduction)

What's Next? Michael Crichtons und Mikhail Bulgakovs Kritik der Fetischisierung in den Lebenswissenschaften . Dieser Beitrag wurde angeregt durch den Thriller Next (2006) von Michael Crichton. Im Gegensatz zu dessen State of Fear (2004), wo die Behandlung eines aktuellen wissenschaftspolitischen Problems – des Klimawandels – mit einer harschen Kritik am Umgang politischer Aktivisten mit wissenschaftlichen Ergebnissen einhergeht, setzt Next Hoffnungen und Ängste ins Zentrum, die im Zusammenhang mit dem ‚Human Genome Project‘ verhandelt wurden. Crichton stellt hier wissenschaftlich-ökonomische Verflechtungen dar, vor denen er schon in seinen Romanen zu Jurassic Park (1990) warnte. Hier wird auf die Gefahr der Fetischisierung im Zusammenhang mit utopisch untermalten wissenschaftlich-technischen Großprojekten und der Phantasie ‚Leben zu machen‘ hingewiesen, und es werden entsprechende Motive und Narrative der ,longue-durée‘ aufgegriffen, z.B. künstliche Menschen, menschliche Hybris und das Außer-Kontrolle-Geraten wissenschaftlich-technischer Großprojekte. Unter der Fragestellung, wie kritische Wissenschaftsreflexion im Medium von Literatur erfolgen kann und was der spezifische Beitrag aus der Wissenschaftsgeschichte wäre, behandelt dieser Essay neben Werken von Michael Crichton (vor allem Next und Lost World, 1997) auch die satirischen Novellen Die verhängnisvollen Eier (1924/1925) und Hundeherz (1926/1968) von Mikhail Bulgakov, da bereits dort die (mögliche) künstliche Hervorbringung von Lebewesen unter der Bedingung eines (versuchten) direkten Zugriffs auf deren Reproduktionsmechanismen fokussiert wurde. Wissenschaftskritik als Gesellschaftskritik zeigt sich hier als Reflexion auf die Grenzen zwischen Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft und auf die Verantwortung der entlang dieser Grenzen agierenden Menschen, aber auch auf strukturelle Gewalt und deren Auswirkungen auf die Verhältnisse zwischen Menschen und Naturdingen sowie unter Menschen. Summary: What's Next? Michael Crichton's and Mikhail Bulgakov's Criticism of Fetishism in the Life Sciences . This paper was first inspired by Michael Crichton's last thriller, Next (2006), which staged hopes and fears triggered by the completion of the Human Genome Project and by the perfection of Polymerase chain reaction techniques, enabling the replication of DNA on a large scale. These developments nourished fantasies about the artificial (re)construction of living beings from DNA. Crichton had already warned of the fetishization of artificially produced living beings in Jurassic Park and in the novels on which the film was based inventing a futuristic scenario where this was happening on a large scale. Here, the topics of hubris and hybrids were center stage. In Next, the fetishization of life is an effect of the growing encroachment of economic actors upon the life sciences. This paper compares Crichton's criticism of techno-scientific fetishism with Mikhail Bulgakov's critical account of human tinkering with the reproductive organs of humans and non-humans in his two satirical novels The Fateful Eggs and Dog's Heart. The works of both authors link criticism of science with criticism of society. They focus the borders between science and society and analyze the responsibilities of humans who are acting along those borders. The thrillers and satirical novels illustrate the – often violent – power relations between humans and nature and also among humans. Comparing two authors who wrote nearly a century apart from each other and focussing different social systems will help compare longue-durée and more specific forms of techno-scientific fetishism.     

Reproducing the Plot: Making Life in the Shadow of Premature Death

A protracted process of policy development has been underway in Jamaica to curtail the widespread incidence of informal settlements. Against the logic of emerging policy, this article aims to reconnect present-time unauthorised use of space to ancestral refusals of plantation land monopoly. Through ethnographic research and a reconsideration of historical texts, the article situates insecure tenure in a long history of conflict over land and livelihood—conflict that produces a boundary around the authorised use of space. That boundary is porous and mobile, the outcome of a palimpsest of colonial violence and its negation. This argument interrogates the gap between “landless” and “ownershipless”, revealing both the role of incomplete dispossession in racialised social reproduction and the spatial practices through which Jamaicans “make life” even in the shadow of premature death.     

James Cowles Prichard and the Linguistic Foundations of Ethnology**

This article examines the English scholar James Cowles Prichard's attention to language and comparative philology within his wider project on the natural history of man. It reveals that linguistic evidence was among the most important elements for Prichard in his overarching scientific aim of investigating human physical diversity, and served as the evidential foundation for his ethnology. His work on Celtic comparative philology made him not only one of the earliest British adopters of German comparative grammar, but a comparative philologist of European stature in his own right. More generally, linguistic evidence helped Prichard to keep his magnum opus, Researches into the Physical History of Mankind, as logically ordered as possible, and therefore to turn ethnology into a discipline with analytical aspirations on a global scale.     

论初唐政风对经学一统之影响

唐初大一统的政治局面,不仅促成经学的统一,也赋予了唐初经学家以自信的人文情怀和开放的经学意识,因而在对经学的整合与融通之中,能融合儒、释、道诸说,突破前人的门户之见和“师法”局限。崇儒尊孔的传统重新回归到文化主流之中,经学正是在此时经唐人的融合与变通,有了相对统一的标准和较为一致的认知。     

中国“文化遗产学”研究文献综述

21世纪初至今,文化遗产的概念日渐为国人所认识、接受并实践,与此同时,文化遗产学的建构不断为学者、业者所关注与探讨,蔡达峰、潘如丹、曹兵武、杨志刚、苑利、孙华、贺云翱、李志超、彭兆荣、徐嵩龄、李军、张廷皓等专家学者发表了诸多论著,探讨了文化遗产学的学科体系、学科性质、研究对象、研究方法以及文化遗产的概念、文化遗产的保护等,有效推动了文化遗产学的学科建设与理论体系的构建。     

彩绘秦俑的考古发掘及相关问题研究

本文通过对秦俑二号坑彩绘秦俑考古发掘的阐述,进一步论证了由此引发的相关问题,通过本文的研究,使我们明晰了彩绘秦俑产生的历史条件、彩绘秦俑所蕴含的历史信息以及彩绘秦俑出土的学术价值与意义。对研究秦俑、秦文化有一定的借鉴作用。     

What happened to provocation in science and technology studies?

Science and technology studies (STS) is an important and often controversial interdisciplinary field which has proved to be provocative and influential. But has its institutionalization and influence occurred at the expense of some of its provocative power? This paper considers the fate of provocative ideas associated with STS as they become appropriated and transformed by new social institutions and audiences. It aims to sketch a preliminary framework for analysing the social dynamics of the persistence and/or attenuation of its ideas and impacts. The argument reviews the main early aspirations and targets of STS. It suggests that changing emphases in STS can be understood as responses to successive versions of the principle of symmetry. It argues that the continual renewal and recruitment of audiences for STS is central to sustaining its capacity for provocation.     

A Review of Cultural Heritage Education in Turkish Schools (1962–2011)

Abstract

Cultural heritage preservation has formed a key component of Turkish Social Studies instruction since the curriculum first was introduced in the 1960s. In this article, we trace changes over time in the way cultural heritage has been presented to students in Turkey. For this study, Turkish Social Studies textbooks for fourth through seventh graders (ages 9–10 to 12–13) published from 1974 to 2011 were examined, including both their texts and illustrations concerning cultural heritage and the closely related topic of tourism. Over nearly four decades, the textbook presentation of cultural heritage has shifte­d from a national focus to a focus on world cultural heritage, both tangible and intangible. The textbooks illustrate the high value placed on monuments and artwork that demonstrate the accomplishments and progress of Anatolian civilizations, specifically, the Seljuk and Ottoman Turks. Notably, the textbooks emphasize the economic value of monuments and sites for tourism revenues.