Environmental Studies Commons^™

Deep Ecology And Postmodernity: Making Space For Conversation, Chris Drinkwater

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[Fourth paragraph]

I begin with the fact of ecology's virtual exclusion from cultural studies. Cultural studies are centrally concerned with issues of meaning, subjectivity, objectivity and knowledge. They attempt to describe their production, conditions and complex structural effects. They are particularly interested in effects of inclusion and exclusion: for instance, "What is a legitimate object of attention within a particular discourse?" Why do cultural studies not attend to ecology? Why is negligible attention paid to a discourse and cultural movement, which are so challenging to dominant values and ways of life? I suggest that the omission is not accidental. Cultural …

Albert Bierstadt's Images Of The American West: An Eco-Critical Reflection On Nature Painting, Sabine Wilke

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

In the Pacific Northwest we encounter images of the American West as place of utmost grandeur, i.e., picturesque images of spectacular Western landscapes that have circulated throughout history in specific ways that I wish to explore. These images of the American West - adopted, among others, by environmental organizations and the tourist industry - were, to some extent at least, shaped artistically by German-American painter Albert Bierstadt who lived and worked in the latter half of the nineteenth century and who was one of the first artists after the first generation of expedition painters who traveled West repeatedly and transformed …

Early Days In The Green Movement: A Personal Account, Rosemarie Rowley

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

From someone who from an early age had wanted to be a poet, and whose favourite poet was Wordsworth, it is not difficult to imagine that in some way I would relate to nature as a mature woman. For me it was not the difficulty of being a woman poet which offered the greatest challenge, since my father, a traditional musician, and my aunt who was a songwriter in America had encouraged me to write poetry, but the difficulty was of combining political activism with poetry.

Review Of Restoring The Connection To The Natural World: Essays On The African American Environmental Imagination, Uwe Küchler

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

In her introduction to The Ecocriticism Reader from 1995, a landmark in the short and dynamic development of this new field of knowledge, Cheryl Glotfelty anticipated that "Ecocriticism has been predominantly a white movement. It will become a multi-ethnic movement when stronger connections are made between the environment and issues of social justice, and when a diversity of voices are encouraged to contribute to the discussion" (Glotfelty 1996, xxv). The collection of essays reviewed here, published in 2003, fills this gap in ecocritical research. The nine contributors to Sylvia Mayer's edition have critically evaluated various aspects of African …

Norris - A Growing Plant, Gayle Goldstick

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

'Industriehafen' is the ugliest place it's possible to find in the beautiful German city of Bremen. The first time I saw it, it reminded me of some of the more offensive eyesores around the Los Angeles Harbor or Wilmington where so many chemicals are stored in large tanks along the hills.

Introduction, Alexandra Ganser, Vibha Arora

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

At the time of finalizing EcoCultures for publication, nearly all discussions in mass media remind us that climate change has been caused by anthropogenic excesses in the last three centuries. Environmental concern, intertwined with a critical and scholarly perspective, is also at the heart of EcoCultures: Culture Studies and the Environment. The twelve academic articles comprising this issue were written by scholars based in the North and South, speaking different languages yet living in a multicultural global world, and positioned in disciplines ranging from landscape and environmental history, literature and gender studies to visual studies and art. …

Women Of The New Walden: Gender In Sound Culture, Now And Then, Phylis Johnson

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

Sonic diversity in the midst of wilderness, as original and untamed, can confound and discomfort the novice listener who becomes overwhelmed by its plethora of mysterious languages. Transcendentalist Margaret Fuller, author of Summer on the Lakes (1844), expressed sensory overload when she was confronted with the sights and sounds of Niagara Falls. Sound permeates our life, from conception, birth, and varied sonic spheres of influence that penetrate our physical space. Sound acknowledges its relevance as a cultural influence within the socialization of the individual. For instance, high-powered car stereos and subwoofers swimming in bass overtones have become associated with masculinity. …

Gestures Toward Cross-Species Reciprocal Relations In Contemporary Poetics, Mary Newell

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

In this essay, I explore some embodied bases of ethical attitudes toward human/ animal exchanges in the texts of three contemporary authors: Mary Oliver, Heller Levinson, and Adrienne Rich. Since other species share with humans varieties of agency, sentience, and purposive activity, I suggest that reciprocity is a fundamental aim in cross-species relations. Phenomenological philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty depicts the correlation between embodied actions and attitudes, for example, between the hand movement of grasping and an appropriative attitude toward the natural world. His concept of reciprocity, grounded in the experience of one hand touching another, provides a reference for encounters that …

Translating Ecocriticism: Dialoguing With Michel Serres, Stephanie Posthumus

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

Since its humble beginnings in the Western United States, ecocriticism has grown under the banner of the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment into an organization of over 1000 members with international affiliates in Australia-New Zealand, Canada, Europe, India, Japan, Koria and the UK. At first sight, it would seem that ecocriticism has achieved global status. But as Ursula Heise remarks in her assessment of ecocriticism, this process of globalisation has been mainly a process of becoming known internationally. In truth, ecocriticism has remained strongly rooted in Anglophone literary studies even as it has been exported to …

Reconciling Ethnicity, Subalternity And Chinese Eco-Aesthetics: Human And Animal Subjects In Lu Chuan's Kekexili: Mountain Patrol, Chia-Ju Chang

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

An ecological discourse has not yet arisen in the mainstream of Chinese film studies. Lu Chuan's Kekexili: Mountain Patrol (2004) is the first transnational feature film in China about the endangered Tibetan Antelope. This "eco-thriller" is based on a true event and is about a group of Tibetan volunteers trying to capture the leader of a poaching group who is responsible for mass-slaughtering and skinning the endangered Tibetan Antelope. The film engages a complicated politics of transnational capitalism, ethnicity, animal rights and aesthetics. In this paper, I first survey the history of animal poaching in the Kekexili area and the …

Can Nature's Language Be Written, Spoken, And Heard? Mahasweta Devi's "Pterodactyl" And Marlene Nourbese Philip's Looking For Livingstone, Lori Martindale

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

How do traditional western epistemologies affect natures' subjectivity? This essay deconstructs the status of nature as silent Other. I argue Mahasweta Devi's The Pterodactyl and Marlene Nourbese Philip's epic Looking for Dr. Livingstone translate nature, or the radical Other, as subject. Scientific, xenophobic, and imperial behaviors have affected the status of natures' subjectivity in the naming, mapping, and exploitation of land, during colonial and commodity enterprise. As a result, nature’s language has become increasingly radical and is one to be translated for an awareness and avoidance of imposition; nature is a language yet to be understood.

Bird Watching: Global-Natural Worlds And The Popular Reception Of Winged Migration, Lisa Uddin

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

This paper examines the contemporary visual cultures of economic globalization and natural history by considering the popular French wildlife film, Winged Migration (dir. Perrin 2001). Through the small-scale of a single film's reception, the paper offers a critique of the Euro-American tendency to conceptualize the global world and the natural world in totalizing and mutually constitutive terms. How have images of a timeless and universal global world become a way of imagining the natural world, and vice versa? How has Winged Migration's circulation amongst an American popular audience reproduced, but also undermined, these joint constructions? Analyzing the film's central theme …

Review Of One Sun, Two Worlds: An Ecological Journey, P. S. Ramakrishnan Et Al., N. Kipgen

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

One Sun, Two Worlds: An Ecological Journey is an exceptional piece of research by a group of scientists, headed by the noted ecologist P.S. Ramakrishnan. The volume is styled in the form of a dialogue between two knowledge systems, i.e. the 'Traditional Knowledge' represented by a villager with a rich experiential traditional knowledge heritage, and the 'Formal Knowledge' represented by a scientist with his text-book based formulations in the area of natural resource management. This ecological journey is through the Great Divide that persists between the Two Worlds - the rural poor with rich traditional wisdom on the …

The World Is White And Slow And Infinitely Flat, Rob Baum

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

Eco-feminism, cultural study and the environment coalesce in the form of poetic cultural commentary, originally fieldnotes. I draw exclusively from my years in the Alaskan Arctic among the Iñupiat Eskimo, who call themselves "the People of the Whale." The striking and severe natural environment, a landscape of endless ice, is central to the poetry, which richly portrays a vision of the Arctic absent from tourist travel guides, National Geographic and anthropological volumes. These magazines vend the Far North's beautiful austerity, including at times the physical beauty of its animal inhabitants, including humans, while disregarding human specificity and violence …

Greening The Campus: Contemporary Student Environmental Activism, Ashley Dawson

Publications and Research

In November 1992, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) issued a report entitled "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity." Written by UCS Chair Henry Kendall and signed by 1,700 of the worlds leading scientists, including the majority of Nobel laureates in the sciences, the report's admonition was conveyed in the strongest terms.

Archeological Investigations And National Register Testing At 41cv163, Coryell County, Texas, John E. Dockall, Jennifer K. Mcwilliams, Karl W. Kibler

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

Prewitt and Associates, Inc. (PAI), conducted archeological testing of 41CV1636 for the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), Environmental Affairs Division, under Contract No. 575XXSA006 (Work Authorization No. 57530SA006) and Texas Antiquities Permit No. 3980 from the Texas Historical Commission. Site 41CV1636 is situated in northwestern Coryell County, approximately 13 km east of Evant, Texas. The site was located during an archeological survey for a proposed roadway widening project along U.S. Highway 84. Proposed design plans required an additional 5 m of new right of way that would directly impact 41CV1636. Site 41CV1636 is a prehistoric site buried in Holocene alluvium …

The Allure Of Technology: How France And California Promoted Electric And Hybrid Vehicles To Reduce Urban Air Pollution, David Calef, Robert Goble

Sustainability and Social Justice

All advanced industrialized societies face the problem of air pollution produced by motor vehicles. In spite of striking improvements in internal combustion engine technology, air pollution in most urban areas is still measured at levels determined to be harmful to human health. Throughout the 1990s and beyond, California and France both chose to improve air quality by means of technological innovation, adopting legislation that promoted clean vehicles, prominently among them, electric vehicles (EVs). In California, policymakers chose a technology-forcing approach, setting ambitious goals (e.g., zero emission vehicles), establishing strict deadlines and issuing penalties for non-compliance. The policy process in California …

Preserving The Chesapeake: Law, Ecology, And The Bay, Hon. Gerald L. Baliles

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Motorized Obsessions: Life, Liberty, And The Small-Bore Engine, Paul R. Josephson

Faculty Books

From dirt bikes and jet skis to weed wackers and snowblowers, machines powered by small gas engines have become a permanent—and loud—fixture in American culture. But fifty years of high-speed fun and pristine lawns have not come without cost.

In the first comprehensive history of the small-bore engine and the technology it powers, Paul R. Josephson explores the political, environmental, and public health issues surrounding one of America's most dangerous pastimes. Each chapter tells the story of an ecosystem within the United States and the devices that wreak havoc on it—personal watercraft (PWCs) on inland lakes and rivers; all-terrain vehicles …

Historical, Archaeological, And Geophysical Investigations At Two Proposed Safety Rest Areas, Interstate Highway (Ih) 10, Chambers County, Texas, Jennifer A. Kelly, Richard A. Weinstein, Joanne Ryan, Bryan S. Haley, Jean L. Epperson, Thurston H.G. Hahn Iii

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

Personnel from Coastal Environments, Inc. (CEI), Moore Archeological Consulting, Inc. (MAC), and the University of Mississippi conducted archaeological and geophysical investigations at the locations of two proposed safety rest areas on opposite sides of Interstate Highway (IH) 10 in Chambers County, Texas. The research was carried out from late August 2006 until late February 2007, under contract to the Environmental Affairs Division of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT). MAC archaeologists had previously examined the two rest area tracts in 2001. Their research indicated that the north tract contained a latenineteenth- through early-twentieth-century cemetery, identified as the Broussard Cemetery site …

Archeological Testing Of The Engstrand Well 41wm1157, In Williamson County, Texas, Bradford Jones, Rachel Feit

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

Under TAC Permit 4347 Hicks & Company undertook archival research and National Register eligibility archeological testing of a historic limestone well (Site 41WM1157) in the US 79 right-of-way in Williamson County, Texas under Texas Antiquities Permit Number 4347. The project was sponsored by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), for regulatory and management purposes under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) and the Antiquities Code of Texas (13 TAC 26). Archival research was conducted in order to establish the history of ownership and land use for the property. Research revealed that the well was likely built during …

Significance Testing Of Site 41km225, Kimble County, Texas, Mindy Bonine, Michael Chavez, Laura Acuña

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

SWCA Environmental Consultants (SWCA) conducted significance testing excavations at site 41KM225, Kimble County, Texas, on behalf of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT). The tested portion of the site is in TxDOT’s right-of-way (ROW) of Farm-to-Market (FM) 2169 on the northern bank of Johnson Fork, a tributary of the Llano River. SWCA performed the investigations under General Services Contract No. 575XXSA007, Work Authorization No. 575 20 SA007, and Texas Antiquities Permit 4183. The final report was written under Work Authorization No. 575 25 SA007.

In the course of the investigations, SWCA conducted shovel testing, hand excavations, special sampling, and other …

Archeological Survey Of A Portion Of Old Velasco (41b0125) For The Village Of Surfside Beach Proposed Boat Ramp Facility, Brazoria County, Texas, Jennifer K. Mcwilliams, Douglas K. Boyd

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

In February 2006 Prewitt and Associates, Inc., conducted an archeological survey of a 5.5-acre property slated for development as a boat ramp and parking lot by the Village of Surfside Beach in Brazoria County, Texas. The property is at the southern end of the Village of Surfside Beach, between City Hall and the U.S. Coast Guard station. The tract overlaps with the western edge of the townsite of Old Velasco (41BO125), which was a prominent port city at the mouth of the Brazos River from the 1820s through 1875. Excavation of 25 trenches revealed historic artifacts associated with Old Velasco …

Historic Caddo Archaeology: An Occasional Meeting Of The East Texas Caddo Research Group, December 2-3, 2006, In Nacogdoches Texas, Timothy K. Perttula, Tom Middlebrook

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

The articles in this issue of the Journal of Northeast Texas Archaeology had their origins in a meeting held in December 2006 of the East Texas Caddo Research Group (ETCRG). The meeting of archaeologists was held on December 2 and 3, 2006 at the Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture on the campus of Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas.

The ETCRG is an informal group of individuals interested in advancing the general understanding of Caddo archaeology in the East Texas region, and we have attempted to do this by convening meetings at various times to discuss …

Sites In Northern Louisiana With Major Collections Of Historic Caddo And Other Native American Pottery, Jeffery S. Girard

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

Archaeological sites in northern Louisiana that date to the 18th and 19th centuries which have yielded significant amounts of Native American pottery are plotted on the accompanying map, and briefly summarized below. A common feature of ceramic collections from these sites is the prevalence of shell temper, a trait that is rare prior to the late 17th century in the region. The earliest contexts probably date from the late 17th to the early 18th centuries and include utilitarian types that were common during the Late Caddo period (ca. A.D. 1500-1700). By the middle 18th century, these types apparently were no …

Points Of Discussion And Directions For Research On Caddo Historic Archaeology, Timothy K. Perttula

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

I start with the premise that there are considerable gaps remaining in our basic knowledge of the Caddo historic archaeological record for the period from ca. 1670-1850 in East Texas. The period between ca. A.D. 1542-1670 is better known archaeologically, thanks in large measure to some significant work at Late Caddo sites along the Red River, along Big Cypress Creek, and in the Neches-Angelina River basins, but there are considerable gaps there as well in what we think we know about the life and times of the Caddo in the 16th and 17th centuries, especially on the role Europeans may …

Cultural Diversity In The Southern Caddo Region, James E. Corbin

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

The earliest expression of Caddo culture in the southern portion of the Southern Caddo region is well known. That Alto phase Caddo culture had any effect on coeval societies and the subsequent cultural development in the area cannot be demonstrated. What happened after ca. A.D. 1100 has been much discussed, but the realities of that subsequent cultural development are unknown. It can be argued that what followed was a part of a larger cultural phenomenon of regionalization of societies within the broader Caddoan area. Some researchers have argued that. at least in the extreme southern portion of the Caddo area, …

American Indian Pottery From Historic Period Sites In North Louisiana, Hiram F. Gregory, George Avery

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

The following is a revised version of a presentation given at the annual meeting of the Louisiana Archaeological Society (LAS) held in Monroe, Louisiana, on March 4, 2006. The goal of the LAS presentation was to simply show photographs and illustrations of American Indian pottery that dates to the historic period in North Louisiana. Most of the photographs and illustrations are from a manuscript written by H.F. "Pete" Gregory entitled Los Adaes (16NAJ6) American Indian Ceramics. This manuscript was compiled by George A very as part of the Los Adaes Station Archaeology Program, funded entirely by the Louisiana Division of …

Documentation Of A Collection Of Archaeological Materials From The Millsey Williamson Site (41rk3), A Historic Nadaco Caddo Settlement, Timothy K. Perttula, Bo Nelson

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

The Millsey Williamson site (41RK3) is a well known historic 18th century Nadaco Caddo site on Martin Creek in Rusk County, Texas. It is one of a number of 18th and early 19th century Kinsloe phase sites in the middle Sabine River basin apparently affiliated with the Nadaco Caddo settlement of the region.

An unknown number of historic Nadaco Caddo burials have been excavated at the site over the years, especially along the western part of the terrace landform above Martin Creek, now marked by the Martin Lake shoreline. There has been intensive collecting activities at Millsey Williamson since Martin …

Kinsloe Focus Artifact Assemblages And Nadaco Caddo, Timothy K. Perttula

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

The Kinsloe focus (now phase) was defined by Jones on the basis of seven sites in Gregg, Harrison, and Rusk counties in East Texas, in the middle reaches of the Sabine River basin. These sites are Ware Acres (41GG31), Kinsloe (4IGG3), Susie Slade (4IHSI3), Brown I (4IHS26I), C. D. Marsh (4IHS269), Millsey Williamson (4IRK3), and Cherokee Lake (41RK132). As currently understood, these historic Caddo sites were most likely occupied by Nadaco Caddo people between ca. A.D. 1680-1800.

For our purposes here, my interest is in compiling in one place the characteristic material culture items found in the known Kinsloe phase …