Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Life And Times Of Landfills, Joshua O. Reno

Joshua Reno

American landfills are primarily understood as distinctly human and spatial creations, when in practice they are as much temporal as spatial and as much non-human as human. Based on a large landfill on the rural periphery of Detroit, this paper explores the emergent and polychronic forms of life fostered by controlled dumping. Landfill employees work with their ecological surroundings to satisfy regulatory directives and assemble ever-growing mountains of waste. The paper introduces the complex, practical negotiations that result by isolating and diagraming the distinct temporal scales at which nonhuman beings and powers aid in and disrupt the process of landfilling.

Stone: Walking Through The Burren, Nancy Ellen Miller

The Goose

Poetry by Nancy Ellen Miller

Blank Five, Elizabeth Anne Godwin

The Goose

Poetry by Elizabeth Godwin

Cerdded, Fay Stevens

The Goose

Poetry by Fay Stevens

Searching Cézanne’S Provence, Robert M. Girvan

The Goose

This personal essay describes the author's visit to Provence to see the sites where Cézanne painted a number of well-known landscape paintings. He compares the paintings with the landscape as it existed when the paintings were painted, and as exist today, to trace the connections between landscape, and art, and in particular, Cézanne's artistic techniques. Finally, the author suggests that Cézanne's close observation of the natural world, and commitment to studying the old masters still has something important to teach us today in our digital age.

The Life And Times Of Landfills, Joshua O. Reno

Journal of Ecological Anthropology

American landfills are primarily understood as distinctly human and spatial creations, when in practice they are as much temporal as spatial and as much non-human as human. Based on a large landfill on the rural periphery of Detroit, this paper explores the emergent and polychronic forms of life fostered by controlled dumping. Landfill employees work with their ecological surroundings to satisfy regulatory directives and assemble ever-growing mountains of waste. The paper introduces the complex, practical negotiations that result by isolating and diagraming the distinct temporal scales at which nonhuman beings and powers aid in and disrupt the process of landfilling.

Archaeological Predictive Modeling Along The Central Savannah River, J. Christopher Gillam

Faculty & Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

The Prehistoric Economics Of The Kautz Site: A Late Archaic And Woodland Site In Northeastern Illinois, Peter John Geraci

Theses and Dissertations

The Kautz Site (11DU1) is a multi-component archaeological site located in the DuPage River Valley in northeastern Illinois. It was inhabited at least six different times between the Late Archaic and Late Woodland periods ca. 6000-1000 B.P. The site was excavated over the course of three field seasons between 1958 and 1961, but the results were never made public. This thesis seeks to document the archaeology of the Kautz Site in order to better understand the site’s economic history. An environmental catchment analysis was conducted to evaluate the level of time and energy needed to acquire important resources like water, …

Mississippi College Towns: Assessing The Geography Of Collegiate Culture, Jordan Glynn Moore

Master's Theses

This study assesses the appearance of collegiate culture on the landscape of college towns in Mississippi. The research will add to the understanding of this phenomenon by contributing more focused studies of college towns not yet explored. Refining and adding to the concept of a “college town” by identifying physical and cultural factors that characterize it will open opportunities and provide options that will serve as a gateway for more pointed cross-disciplinary research. Not only are these towns havens for geographic research, but also for cross-disciplinary research pursuits due to their unique cultural characteristics. Using U.S. Census-derived maps and a …

The Battle Of Hastings: A Geographic Perspective, Christopher E. M. Hewitt

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The Battle of Hastings (1066) is one of the most widely studied battles in medieval history. Yet despite the importance that research shows geography to play in the outcome of such conflicts, few studies have examined in detail the landscape of the battle or the role the landscape played in its eventual outcome. This study, consequently, seeks to assess the impact of geographic factors in understanding the events that shaped the Battle of Hastings. The analysis was undertaken using a geographic information system (GIS) with qualitative and quantitative techniques. Historical and current data combined in a series of detailed state …

The Making And Remaking Of Portland: The Archaeology Of Identity And Landscape At The Portland Wharf, Louisville, Kentucky, Michael J. Stottman

Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology

The town of Portland, Kentucky was founded over 200 years ago as a speculative venture to profit from its advantageous location at the base of the Falls of the Ohio River. The Portland Wharf was the economic and cultural heart of the town. Throughout its history, the community has experienced much change. These changes are visible in the landscape of the Portland Wharf which reflected changes in the community’s identity.

Identity and landscape are topics that have been of great interest to archaeologists and this dissertation builds on previous works to examine identity as something that is reflected in the …

Living With Landscape Fire: Landholder Understandings Of Agency, Scale And Control Within Fiery Entanglements, Amanda Edwards, Nicholas J. Gill

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Around the world, debates over how to manage and adapt to bushfires (or wildfires) are increasingly prominent as more and different people, many of whom have little or no experience with landscape fire or land management, inhabit fire-prone environments. But bushfire events represent only the most visible aspect of complex entanglements which operate across huge temporal and spatial scales and over which humans have very limited control. In this article, we focus on how Australian landholders of settler or migrant heritage understand scalar complexities and agency and control within human/landscape fire entanglements. In view of the fact that the learning …

"Discursion And Excursion:" Poetry Of Bodies, Place, And Landscape In The Ecocritical Movement, Haley N. Littleton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My thesis project focuses on the current literary field of Ecocriticism, its historical transmutations, and the correlation of the pastoral genre, as one begins to understand current human understandings of "nature." By applying a deeper understanding of the Deep Ecology movement, along with shifting understandings of the human and the non-human, specifically in our usage and attention to landscape and wilderness, I hope to explore the role that the aesthetic, and the function of the poem, can play a crucial role in the environmental movement. By building a foundational understanding of our cultural context and critical theories of Environmental criticism, …

Impermeable Assemblages: Flooding, Urban Infrastructure, And Stormwater Politics In São Paulo, Brazil, Nate Millington

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

This project analyzes efforts to remake the relationship between water and city in São Paulo, Brazil. Currently experiencing overlapping problems of flooding, scarcity, and pollution, São Paulo illustrates the challenges of managing water in a contemporary mega-city. This dissertation subsequently considers the city’s water management through an approach that borrows from urban political ecology, social studies of science, and post-colonial urban theory. With an epistemological grounding in these literatures, this project analyzes ongoing conversations about water management in São Paulo, and focuses on how water is encountered and engaged with in the landscape by engineers, artists, and activists. This project …

"One Narrow Thread Of Green": The Vision Of May Theilgaard Watts, The Creation Of The Illinois Prairie Path, And A Community's Crusade For Open Space In Chicago's Suburbs, Anne M. Keller

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

Women's environmental activism prior to the early 1960s in America focused on women's roles as municipal housekeepers or emphasized wilderness conservation. I offer in this dissertation the story of the Illinois Prairie Path, the country's first rails-to-trails conversion to apply for National Recreation Trail status, and the innovative women who fought for nature preservation in a suburban setting rather than in a wilderness area. Led by renowned writer and naturalist, May Theilgaard Watts, these women built support for the public footpath project by fostering an ecological awareness throughout their region. I place them in the tradition of Chicago female reformers …

The Language Of Sustainability, Maija Ploof

Student Showcase

This paper seeks to address the importance of understanding the ambiguous term "sustainability" through the study of humanities, chiefly literature. Additionally, the paper explores the emerging genre of climate change fiction, or "cli-fi" and its potential role in presenting the issues of both ecological and human sustainability to a global audience, using Amitav Ghosh's novel The Hungry Tide as a primary example. As a basis for the theory that literature can affect a sustainable future, I also examine the importance of language in shaping both perception and protection of the environment. Language creates familiarity, which in turn creates consciousness. Literature …