scholarly journals Human Geography and Islands

Geography ◽  
2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Critical Role ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Derek Walcott ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Kamau Brathwaite ◽  
Indigenous Perspectives ◽  
Indigenous Geographies

Work on islands has long played a critical role in the development of many academic disciplines that overlap and are intimately connected with the discipline of geography. Islands were central to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and have subsequently been for the development of ecological, sustainability, and resilience approaches that are prevalent in geography in the 2020s. Islanders were the focal points for Margaret Mead’s and Marylin Strathern’s developments of the discipline of anthropology, concerns for Indigenous geographies, and the counterpositioning of nonmodern reasoning to European or Western frameworks of reasoning. Islands and islanders have also long been a key focus for many who have critiqued the forces of colonialism, such as Édouard Glissant, Kamau Brathwaite, Sylvia Wynter, and Derek Walcott, whose work is extremely influential for Critical Black Geographies. More recently, engaging islands and islanders shaped Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s and Epeli Hau‘ofa’s influential reappraisal of how academic research itself can and should do better, reorienting toward more geographically appropriate Indigenous perspectives. What this is already telling us is that any bibliography compiled under the title of “Geography and Islands” needs to work beyond the boundaries of neatly defined academic disciplines. The focus is the geographical form, the island, and associated island cultures, and thus geographers who study islands regularly step outside fixed disciplines. Thus, this article presents a range of references that are categorized by way of key early-21st-century island themes and topics that will be of particular concern to geographers. Here, the decades since the late 20th century have seen the rise of a more distinct or focused field of academic inquiry, which has come to be known as “island studies.” The key characteristics of this field are its diversity, interdisciplinarity, openness, and extremely rapid growth—geographically, intellectually, and in the broad range of topics and subjects being engaged with in the 2020s. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, the term “island studies” did not have much purchase. In the 2020s, due to the strong repositioning of islands within broader concerns—such as human-nature relations, current developments in environmental and resilience approaches, the ongoing legacies and effects of colonialism, Indigenous geographies, migration patterns, mobilities and movements of humans and nonhumans, geopolitical tensions and strategies, and the Anthropocene, as just some examples—the figure of the island has moved considerably more to the center of many debates (and particularly those debates that concern geographers). This article therefore also reflects the sense of dynamism, as well as the interdisciplinary nature, of work with islands as an exponentially developing field of research.

V.S. Naipaul, Caribbean Writing, and Caribbean Thought

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Ghosh
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Development ◽  
Public Intellectual ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Derek Walcott ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Kamau Brathwaite ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
History Of ◽  
Principal Subject ◽  
Intellectual Formation

This book presents a new portrait of V.S. Naipaul, one of the twentieth-century’s most controversial writers about colonialism and its aftermath, by looking at his relationship with the Caribbean, the region of his birth. It argues that whilst Naipaul presented himself as a global public intellectual—a citizen of nowhere—his writing and thought was shaped by his Caribbean intellectual formation, and his investment in Caribbean political debates. Focusing on three key forms of Caribbean writing—the novel, the historical narrative, and the travel narrative—it shows how the generic, stylistic, and formal choices of writers had great political significance. Telling the story of his creative and intellectual development at three crucial points in Naipaul’s career, it offers a new intellectual biography of its principal subject. By showing Naipaul’s crucial place in the history of Caribbean ideas, it also provides new perspectives on a number of major writers and thinkers from the region, including C.L.R. James, Eric Williams, Kamau Brathwaite, Sylvia Wynter, George Lamming, Derek Walcott, Maryse Condé, and David Scott.

Wonder, Horror, Mystery: Letters on Cinema and Religion in Malick, Von Trier, and Kieślowski

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morgan Meis ◽  
J.M. Tyree
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Film Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Life Meaning ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Lars Von Trier ◽  
Creative Writer ◽  
Film Critic

Wonder, Horror, Mystery is a dialogue between two friends, both notable arts critics, that takes the form of a series of letters about movies and religion. One of the friends, J.M. Tyree, is a film critic, creative writer, and agnostic, while the other, Morgan Meis, is a philosophy PhD, art critic, and practicing Catholic. The question of cinema is raised here in a spirit of friendly friction that binds the personal with the critical and the spiritual. What is film? What’s it for? What does it do? Why do we so intensely love or hate films that dare to broach the subjects of the divine and the diabolical? These questions stimulate further thoughts about life, meaning, philosophy, absurdity, friendship, tragedy, humor, death, and God. The letters focus on three filmmakers who challenged secular assumptions in the late 20th century and early 21st century through various modes of cinematic re-enchantment: Terrence Malick, Lars von Trier, and Krzysztof Kieślowski. The book works backwards in time, giving intensive analysis to Malick’s To The Wonder (2012), Von Trier’s Antichrist (2009), and Kieślowski’s Dekalog (1988), respectively, in each of the book’s three sections. Meis and Tyree discuss the filmmakers and films as well as related ideas about philosophy, theology, and film theory in an accessible but illuminating way. The discussion ranges from the shamelessly intellectual to the embarrassingly personal. Spoiler alert: No conclusions are reached either about God or the movies. Nonetheless, it is a fun ride.

scholarly journals Role of the Undergraduate Student Research Assistant in the New Millennium

2004 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 235-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thais Dutra Nascimento Silva ◽  
Lúcia Cristina da Cunha Aguiar ◽  
Jaqueline Leta ◽  
Dilvani Oliveira Santos ◽  
Fernanda Serpa Cardoso ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Undergraduate Student ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Scientific Data ◽  
Research Assistant ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Research Careers ◽  
New Research

In this study, we analyze the contribution of the undergraduate student who participates in the process of generating scientific data and developing a research project using Brazilian research as an example. Historically, undergraduate students have performed the critical role of research assistants in developing countries. This aspect has been underappreciated as a means of generating scientific data in Brazilian research facilities. Brazilian educational institutions are facing major age-related generational changes among the science faculty within the next 5–10 yr. A lack of adequate support for graduate students leads to a concern that undergraduates will not be interested in choosing research assistant programs and, subsequently, academic research careers. To remedy this situation it is important to focus on ways to encourage new research careers and enhance university–industry collaborations.

In combat against viruses

2021 ◽  
pp. 43-49
Author(s):  
Irina Shirokova ◽  
◽  
Yuliya Prozherina ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Influenza Virus ◽  
Viral Infections ◽  
Viral Diseases ◽  
Virus Infections ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
High Incidence ◽  
Persistent Virus ◽  
Further Development ◽  
New Mutations

The late 20th century and the early 21st century have been marked by the explosive development of virology due to activation of viral infections. New mutations of the influenza virus, high incidence of persistent virus infections in humans, as well as respiratory viral diseases that have not yet been eradicated has boosted further development of this direction [1].

What is “Toxic Masculinity” and Why Does it Matter?

2020 ◽  
pp. 1097184X2094325
Author(s):  
Dr. Carol Harrington
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Gender Politics ◽  
Gender Inequalities ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Gender Hierarchies ◽  
The Early 21St Century ◽  
Men's Movements

Coined in late 20th-century men’s movements, “toxic masculinity” spread to therapeutic and social policy settings in the early 21st century. Since 2013, feminists began attributing misogyny, homophobia, and men’s violence to toxic masculinity. Around the same time, feminism enjoyed renewed popularization. While some feminist scholars use the concept, it is often left under-defined. I argue that talk of toxic masculinity provides an intriguing window into gender politics in any given context. However, feminists should not adopt toxic masculinity as an analytical concept. I consider the term’s origins, history, and usage, arguing that it appears in individualizing discourses that have historically targeted marginalized men. Thus, accusations of toxic masculinity often work to maintain gender hierarchies and individualize responsibility for gender inequalities to certain bad men.

Retail Districts

Urban Studies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Conrad Kickert
Keyword(s):  
Consumer Behavior ◽  
English Language ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Analytical Models ◽  
Urban Experience ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Macro Scale ◽  
Physical Attributes ◽  
Operational Processes

Retail districts are key elements of the urban experience, reflecting and reinforcing the economic, social, political and physical attributes of their environments. Vibrant cities and neighborhoods depend on similarly vibrant retail cores and districts, and vice versa. Furthermore, retail districts strongly influence the urban experience by facilitating the exchange of goods and culture, encouraging social capital, and enabling entrepreneurship. It is therefore surprising how peripherally urban retail districts are discussed in the academic literature, as few geographers, economists, urbanists and sociologists study them as interconnected economic, social, political and physical systems. In many Western countries, urban retail districts have struggled to keep pace with trends toward efficiency, consolidation, and decentralization of retailers, and academic research has similarly moved on. While urban retail districts represent uniquely fine-grained physical settings and conditions, the majority of contemporary retail research has shifted its focus toward macro-scale or operational processes of marketing, consumer behavior, and distribution. As a result, many relevant works on urban retail are rather dated, with any recent works written in countries where retailers have remained urbanized. In this English-language bibliography, many works are therefore British, although many foreign works exist. Over recent decades, a revival of research interest in urban vitality at the scale of the retail district has prompted advances in qualitative and quantitative insights. Analytical methods to study the external and internal structure of retail districts are similarly evolving. Contemporary scholarly debates on urban retail focus on the role of retail districts as social hubs, with authors confirming their positive effect on economic vitality and cultural transfer, while acknowledging the threat of gentrification and homogenization. An increasing number of studies focus on the withdrawal of retailers from underprivileged urban districts, resulting in a dearth of affordable access to healthy food options for their residents—coined “food deserts.” As government involvement in urban retail has diminished in many countries in the late 20th century, an increasing number of retail districts have adopted the self-taxed and governed Business Improvement District model, which has prompted significant academic inquiry and debate over the past decades. The globalization of retail corporations has prompted growing academic interest in retailing in the Global South, connecting the typically local condition of retail districts to global flows of capital and culture. This bibliography presents overview works on the current condition and evolution of urban retail, common analytical models of retail distribution and consumer behavior, and current scholarly debates.

Louise Rosenblatt

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Shook
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Creative Writing ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
William James ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
New York University ◽  
New Criticism ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Louise Rosenblatt ◽  
The Impact

Louise Rosenblatt (b. 1904–d. 2005) was a highly influential thinker in literary and critical theory, reading pedagogy, and education. She was professor of education at New York University from 1948 until 1972, and she continued to teach for many years at other universities. The impact of her writings extends to aesthetics, communication and media studies, and cultural studies. Her transactional theory of reading literature earned a permanent place among methodologies applied to the study of reader comprehension and improving the teaching of reading, from preschool to college-age years. She is most widely known for her “reader response” theory of literature. The process of reading is a dynamic transaction between the reader and the text, in which meaningful ideas arise for readers from their own thoughtful and creative interpretations. Her first book, Literature as Exploration, which was published in 1938, has gone through five editions and remains in print in the early 21st century. Her last book, Making Meaning with Texts: Selected Essays, was published in 2005 and contained selected essays from each decade of her career. Rosenblatt’s view of literary experience threw down a challenge to a dominant paradigm during the 1940s and 1950s, namely the New Criticism. New Criticism held that authentic meanings of a piece of creative writing—a novel, story, drama, poem, and so on—are already within the text itself, requiring attention to that somewhat concealed yet objective truth. Rosenblatt took the pragmatist approach, starting from the aesthetics of reading. As a member of the Conference on Methods in Philosophy and the Sciences at Columbia University during the 1930s, she studied John Dewey, Charles Peirce, and William James. During this time, she married the pragmatist philosopher Sidney Ratner. Rosenblatt applied her knowledge of pragmatism to the question of understanding creative writing. For pragmatism, all experiences are creative fusions of intersecting processes, some from within and some from without. Any comprehension of a text blends the reader’s particular approach for appreciating it together with the capacity of the text to provoke a variety of stimulating ideas. The emotional and the factual are rarely found in pure forms; only a gradual range from the affective to the cognitive can characterize lived experience. Understanding the process of reading in its fundamental experiential situation has been a revolutionary philosophical position, impacting both childhood education and literary theory. Rosenblatt’s work continues to inspire fresh academic research and curricular innovations.

Crime and Punishment in Colonial Latin America

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Lentz
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Colonial Latin America ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Crime And Punishment ◽  
Ecclesiastical Law ◽  
Cartagena De Indias

Spanish and Portuguese claims to American territories led to the passage of many early laws and the establishment of courts overseas. For the first decade after contact, few regulations restricted the behavior of the earliest Europeans abroad, and no laws governed their treatment of the indigenous inhabitants or, later, enslaved Africans. Questions over the reach and application of laws passed in Spain, specifically Castile, led to thousands of royal laws and decrees guiding jurists in the application of laws in the Americas. This body of law is known as derecho indiano. To bring order to the unruly conquistadors and resistant indigenous inhabitants of the Americas, Spain imposed laws governing relations between Spaniards and indigenous Americans. Abundant documentation on indigenous-Spanish interactions in courts has led to an outpouring of research on the intersection between crime and punishment and indigenous society in colonial Latin America. Compared to France and its territories’ Code Noir, however, no overarching legal code addressed Spanish and Portuguese colonists’ dealings with slaves. Determinations regarding slaves drew from medieval and early modern precedents, such as the Siete partidas. The three American tribunals of the Inquisition intervened into the lives of enslaved people as well. Except for a few studies on enslaved people’s interactions—usually unwilling—with the Inquisition, there are fewer studies of slavery and crime than those covering indigenous, European, and mixed-descent subjects. One key characteristic of the legal regime in Latin America is the tenuous division between ecclesiastical jurisdictions and secular law enforcement. The Inquisition, with seats established in Mexico City, Lima, and Cartagena de Indias, combined elements of both secular and ecclesiastical courts. Its jurisdiction over “sin crimes” has received more coverage than other judicial institutions in the colonial Americas. Studies of civil and ecclesiastical law enforcement skew toward the 18th century, due in part to the abundance of documentation for the later colonial period. In the early 21st century, however, scholars have turned their attention to the second half of the 17th century, beginning to fill a historiographical void. Mid- and late-20th-century scholars worked to reconstruct a comprehensive institutional and philosophical framework of the Iberian law in the Americas, which included both regional studies and empire-wide surveys. Overall, research on crime and punishment in Latin America has shifted away from institutional histories toward social histories of crime that delve more deeply into topics of race and gender, typically more narrow in geographic scope.

Paul Muldoon

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Karhio
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
21St Century ◽  
English Language ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Commitment ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Paul Muldoon ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Irish Poetry

Paul Muldoon was born in Portadown, Northern Ireland, in 1951 and spent his childhood in the village of Moy at the border of County Armagh and County Tyrone—a setting for several of his poems. He studied at Queen’s University Belfast and published his first collections of poetry in the early 1970s. At the time of the publication of his first volumes, Muldoon famously enjoyed the mentorship of Seamus Heaney, and this biographical and literary connection has been a constant reference point in criticism, to an extent that other significant literary exchanges and influences initially remained underexplored. After working for the BBC in Belfast until the mid-1980s, Muldoon moved to the United States in 1987. Now a US citizen, he currently lives in New York and works at Princeton University, where he holds the Howard G. B. Clark ’21 chair in the humanities. Muldoon has published twenty-two major collections of poetry, nineteen chapbooks and interim collections, two volumes of critical essays, three opera libretti, song lyrics, translations, and children’s literature. He has been repeatedly characterized as a shapeshifting figure, whose work simultaneously reaffirms and undermines preheld conceptions of what we mean by “Irish poetry.” Thus, to propose that his idiosyncratic style and the remarkable complexity of his verse resists critical categorization is a case of stating the obvious. A reverse claim, however, might be more appropriate: that his writing embraces such a variety of categories that attempts at classification lose their purpose. Muldoon’s densely referential writing and his technical mastery of poetic language are matched by few poets of his generation, and the issue of how successfully his undeniable dexterity translates into poetic efficacy has been a persistent tendency in his critical reception. Muldoon has been, in turns, praised for his unrivaled skill and technical virtuosity or accused of his poetry’s evasiveness, perceived as a lack of social or political commitment. Yet, few would question that his verse has a place in any overview of modern Irish writing, modern English-language poetry, or experimental 20th- and 21st-century poetics. In the early 21st century, Muldoon’s perceived obliquity, or his distaste for direct political engagement with the crises of late-20th-century Northern Ireland, has made way to a more outspoken approach, in poetry as well as in public life. His work has been highly critical of the US invasion of Iraq, for example, and also tackled problematic aspects of Irish culture and history in an increasingly direct manner.

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