Geography Commons^™

Informing Responders Using Gis And Gps, Deidre Mccarthy

CHAR

Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast in August 2005 and created the single largest disaster for cultural resources that the United States has witnessed since the inception of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) in 1966. Notably, the NHPA created the National Register of Historic Places, our nation’s catalog of important cultural resources. The NHPA also stipulates that any federal undertaking which may adversely affect National Register eligible resources be mitigated. For the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Katrina created the largest compliance project ever under Section 106 of the NHPA.

Although causing a great deal of damage, Katrina also …

Keynote Address: Climate Change: From Global To New York Scale, Christopher D. Thorncroft

CHAR

This talk is concerned with the science and impacts of climate change from global to New York scales. It will provide an assessment of how the climate has changed over the past Century based on a purely observational perspective. The scientific basis for anthroprogenic climate change will be explained and discussed including a description of the “greenhouse effect” and why it is important for life on this planet. We will briefly discuss global and local consequences of a warmer climate and what we need to be prepared for going forward in the coming decades.

Opening Keynote Address: Using Data To Understand Cultural Destruction, Brian I. Daniels

CHAR

Brian I. Daniels, Ph.D, Penn Cultural Heritage Center, University of Pennsylvania Museum.

Why is cultural heritage targeted in conflict? Under what circumstances? By whom? Today, due in part to the recent notorious instances of cultural destruction in the Middle East and North Africa, there is perhaps more attention among the broader scientific community than ever before about the phenomenon of cultural loss. At the same time, there are many significant data and analytical gaps. Little social science literature about cultural destruction exists and many critical questions—and avenues of research—are, as of yet, unstudied. A primary reason for this lack …

Housing Diversity In Children’S Literature, Carla Earhart

Charleston Library Conference

Previous studies have examined diversity in children’s literature: Gender diversity, racial diversity, religious diversity, and diversity in family composition. This project examines an often overlooked diversity issue in children’s literature: Housing diversity. In the stories they read and the accompanying images, children need to see a variety of housing environments and need to see the settings and the people portrayed in a positive manner.

Renting an apartment is an increasingly popular housing option for many families. However, many children’s books glamorize living in a traditional house. Using a rubric designed by the course instructor, students in a university immersive learning …

Geopolitics Of Rare Earth Elements, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Rare earth elements (REE) contain unique chemical physical properties such as lanthamum, are found in small concentrations, need extensive precise properties to separate, and are critical components of modern technologies such as laser guidance systems, personal electronics such as IPhones, satellites, and military weapons systems as varied as Virginia-class fast attack submarines, DDG-51 Aegis destroyers, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and precision guided munitions. The U.S. has some rare earth resources, but is heavily dependent on access to them from countries as varied as Afghanistan, Bolivia, and China. Losing access to these resources would have significant adverse economic, military, and …

You Are What You Eat: Gastronomy & Geography Of Southern Spain, Katherine F. Perry

The Catalyst

Using empirical and numeric data, this study explores the use of food as a proxy to understand the cultural-historical geography of southern Spain. After spending three months in Granada, Spain, I compiled the most commonly used thirty-five ingredients from a selection of Spanish cookbooks and contextualized them within the broader history of Spain. The elements of traditional Andalucían cooking fit into three primary chapters of Iberian history: Roman occupation, the Moorish invasion beginning in the 8^th century, and the Columbian exchange, or the exchange of goods that took place between the Americas and Old World following European discovery of …

How Useful Is Gsv As An Environmental Observation Tool? An Analysis Of The Evidence So Far., Katherine Nesse, Leah Airt

SPU Works

Researchers in many disciplines have turned to Google Street View to replace pedestrian- or carbased in-person observation of streetscapes. It is most prevalent within the research literature on the relationship between neighborhood environments and public health but has been used as diverse as disaster recovery, ecology and wildlife habitat, and urban design. Evaluations of the tool have found that the results of GSV-based observation are similar to the results from in-person observation although the similarity depends on the type of characteristic being observed. Larger, permanent and discrete features showed more consistency between the two methods and smaller, transient and judgmental …

All In - And More! Gambling In The James Bond Films, Pauliina Raento

UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal

Scholarly analysis of gambling in the James Bond films is rare, despite the multitude of topics in Bondology and the fictional agent’s global fame. The odd commentary in gambling scholarship criticizes the franchise from the perspective of harm prevention. This article counters both groups of scholars with a qualitative interpretation of Bond’s gambling habits and the role of gambling and risk taking in the film series. A basic toolkit of visual methodologies is applied to the 24 EON-produced Bond films released in 1962–2015. The examination shows the critical importance of gambling to character identity, power hierarchies and communication, atmosphere, and …

Nicole Ludwig, Tsos, Nicole Ludwig

TSOS Interview Gallery

In September 2016, Nicole Ludwig led a group of her neighbors in Germany to assist newly-arrived Syrian and Afghani refugees. The volunteers collected clothing and toys, organized activities and field trips for the refugee children, and taught them German. Later, the volunteers offered homework support and led library reading groups. For the adult refugees, the volunteers provided cultural assimilation instruction and cooking classes. While there were occasional challenges to working together, the volunteers and refugees fostered a collaborative system and even hosted a Christmas party, during which one elderly Syrian man said, “This is one of the best memories I …

Layla, Layla, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Layla left Ethiopia 10 years ago to look for work opportunities. She left behind a father and three brothers. She went to Syria on a three-year work contract. She worked in a house and learned Arabic. She then went to Turkey by boat and then went on to Greece for 5 years. She worked and learned the Greek language. When she became pregnant she had to stop working. She travelled to Serbia to Macedonia to Austria all on foot. Then the Red Cross moved Layla and her daughter to Giessen, Germany where a roommate periodically beat her baby. Seeking safety …

Fadel, Tsos, Fadel

TSOS Interview Gallery

Fadel's family was originally from Palestine. However, for reasons he couldn’t recall, they moved to Libya, where Fadel was born, and he grew up there. He recalled that life inLibya used to be good, but that it became dangerous. Fadel came to Italy alone. His parents died and left him nothing seven years ago. His siblings died as well. He came to Italy 6 months ago seeking asylum by way of Tripoli to Sabratha, and then to Sardinia and Calabria. He has been living on the streets, and because he couldn’t provide an address, he was denied asylum

Katja, Ketevahi 'Katje', Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Ketevahi “Katja” is from Georgia. She’s in her late 40’s. She grew up on a farm in the country and became the financial support for her family after her mother died and her father became “emaciated.” When Putin came to power, diplomatic ties deteriorated between Georgia and Russia, which eventually led to war. She fled her country using forged documents and first worked in Turkey but has now lived in Naples for nine years and regularly sends money home to her brother, who cares for their father.

Katja expresses her feelings about war, government, liberty, and what it means to …

Felix, Tsos, Felix

TSOS Interview Gallery

Felix is originally from Nigeria and has now been inItaly under a year. He came from a family with a polygamous father who “married” multiple wives illegally. After returning home from a service mission for his church, which his father supported, Felix began to study engineering. At some point conflict arose within the family that causedFelix to have to flee.He was smuggled through Niger to Libya, losing several friends along the way.There he was held for ransom, before taking a treacherous voyage across the sea in an overfilled boat, where he witnessed several drown. Now he lives in a camp …

Momo, Momo, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

When Momo was only nine years old, he returned home to find his parents and his six sisters and four brothers had been killed in their own home. Sometime after that, he and his uncle left Somalia together to live in Yemen. He stayed in Yemen until he was sixteen, but when things became unsafe there, he moved to Libya. He had hoped to get on a boat in Libya to go somewhere for a new life, but he was thrown in prison instead. He was harassed and told to ask his family to send money so that he could …

Hermeneutic Philosophies Of Social Science: Introduction, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

No abstract provided.

Syrian Refugees’ Lived Experiences In Morocco, Hannah Chenok

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

As the Syrian refugee crisis unfolds, those fleeing the country’s civil war are seeking refuge across the world. According to official numbers from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Syrians make up about 68% of Morocco’s documented refugee population. This ISP studies Syrian refugees’ lives in Morocco, using direct-quote, short-form narratives to highlight lived experiences. It begins with an in-depth analysis of the refugee policies in place here, and then features reflections from refugees themselves. It highlights how factors such as the amount of time spent here, refugee status, residency status, occupation, and cultural differences affect what Syrians think …

Man And Land: Competing Ontologies, Colonial Legacies, And The Quest For Food Sovereignty, Savannah Smith

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Land is an ontological reality, which is at the center of different relationships to land. These relationships are situated in and a product of historical and spatial process that have an under lying power geometry. These different understandings of land tenure can create conflict when they intersect with competing interests in the same space. In Cameroon, this is currently the case in the form of large-scale land acquisitions, which often conflict with local communities as multinational corporations and local elites acquire land concessions with facilitation by the government in the name of development. This paper aims to understand this issue …

Prison Labor, Andrew Weisbach, Chad O'Connell, Jake Roberts, Trenton Newlin

Fall 2017 Projects

This group explores the history and continuing existence of prison labor.

Land Insecurity In Gulu, Uganda: A Clash Between Culture And Capitalism, Zachary Slotkin

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper presents the causes and consequences of land insecurity in Gulu, Uganda. In order to address this important and often sensitive issue, the paper analyzes the role of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency and the government’s policy of forced encampment during the insurgency in contributing to land insecurity, causing widespread displacement among former internally displaced persons (IDPs). It further explores the importance of land ownership in providing economic productivity to rural landowners, as well as the nature of customary land tenure in Acholi culture and the government’s efforts to privatize communal land, to give a background on the …

Desert Pool {If Every Desert Was Once A Sea}, Karen Miranda Abel

The Goose

Desert Pool {If every desert was once a sea} is a site-specific art project by Canadian artist Karen Miranda Abel completed in 2016 while artist-in-residence at Joya: arte + ecología, an arts-led research centre situated in an alpine desert within a national park in southern Spain. The elemental installation represents an envisioning of the ancient sea that occupied the Sierra de María-Los Vélez Natural Park millions of years before the current desert ecology, a time when its highest mountain peaks may have been islands.

Wilderness On The Page, John Steffler

The Goose

This essay explores the role that literature can play in a rethinking of Western culture's relationship with the natural environment.

Review Of A Companion To The Works Of Kim Scott By Belinda Wheeler (Ed.), Jose-Carlos Redondo-Olmedilla

The Goose

A review on the book A Companion to the Works of Kim Scott edited by Belinda Wheeler.

Yellowing The Logarithm: How Money Solved The Problem Of Freedom, Neil S. Agarwal

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is on the historical development of a co-constitutive relationship between money as the form of appearance of value and race as the form of appearance of human difference. It demonstrates this relationship through a study of experiments with monetary value in eighteenth-century British America. At a time when Bank of England notes circulated primarily among merchants and within London, colonial freeholders issued paper currencies through representative assemblies and posited a link between this enterprise and the well-being of a larger provincial community within which their bills would circulate. I show how their experiments provided a means for creole …

Walking As Ontological Shifter: Thoughts In The Key Of Life, Bibi (Silvina) Calderaro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

With walking as ontological shifter I pursue an alternative to the dominant modernist episteme that offers either/or onto-epistemologies of opposition and their reifying engagements. I propose this type of walking is an intentional turning towards a set of radical positions that, as integrative aesthetic and therapeutic practice, brings multiplicity and synchronicity to experience and being in an expanded sociality. This practice facilitates the conditions of possibility for recurring points of contact between the interiority perceived as ‘body’ and the exteriority perceived as ‘world.’ While making evident the self’s at once incoherence with it-self, it opens to a space beyond the …

Aesthetic Geographies: Art, Crises, Urban Imaginaries, Erin Siodmak

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Performance art, with its origins in Dada, Futurism, and Surrealism, has long been a political, politicized, and transgressive form of art, posing challenges to art world institutions, political and social norms, and the nature of art itself through practitioners’ unconventional uses of the body, space, and audience/viewer participation. Much of the power of performed art comes from its performative and transitory nature: it does not simply express, represent, or communicate information. Rather, performative art forms such as installation or performance are productive of political aesthetics. Art may not necessarily intervene directly with political, legal, and legislative decisions or acts, but …

Literary Exposures For An Ecological Age, Christy Call

The Goose

This paper argues that exposures through literature to human fragility and vulnerability, which are default modes of life within the relational collective on-page, rehearse critical engagements for life off-page during a time of climate change.

Responding To A Racist Climate: An Editorial, Paul Huebener, Amanda M. Di Battista

The Goose

Editorial introduction to The Goose Volume 16, Issue 1 (2017).

No Time To Defend The Pre-Post-Truth World, Richard Pickard

The Goose

As much as the "post-truth" needs to be challenged and countered, the humanities can play a crucial role in keeping alive the understanding that the pre-post-truth world ought not to be conserved, but transformed positively. After all, this was a world marked by accelerating anthropogenic climate change, by ongoing and transforming colonialism, by racism as a structural pillar, by misogyny and sexism. The environmental humanities must retain their historic radical mission, and they will founder if they surrender such a potential.

Defending Truths, Restoring Worlds, Bart H. Welling

The Goose

The "post" in "post-truth" is premature, and also assigns too much importance to Brexit and the victory of Donald Trump in the US. Worst of all, it can foster the impression that people like Brexit voters and Trump supporters are irredeemably exiled in "alternative fact" bubbles beyond the reach of science, rational thought, and common decency. We have to find ways to work productively with these kinds of citizens, instead of merely condemning them, if we want to trigger both a worldwide alternative energy revolution and the revolution in politics and economics that a truly just and sustainable energy transition …

What Rises Above The White Noise: The Possibility Of Hearing Truth In A Post-Truth World, Harriet Fraser, Rob Fraser

The Goose

This installation in a valley in the UK’s Lake District National Park taps into the idea of communication, the problem of apparent fact and post-truth, and which voices are being heard when it comes to standing up for the environment. In consideration of post-truth and the confusion between fact and fiction, particularly with regard to issues about environment, this art installation explores the possibility of clarity in voices that are heard above the white noise of facts, partial truths and information overload. It is a site-specific installation, created around a single tree and a rapidly flowing river in the Lake …