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Cartographies of Catastrophes
No full textDisaster mapping and reconstruction from the 19th century to the present, with European case studies illustrating diverse regional and cultural approaches. Cartographies of Catastrophes is an in-depth exploration of how disasters, caused by war or natural calamity, have been documented and mapped over the past two centuries. This interdisciplinary volume brings together historians, urban planners, and architects to examine the role of maps in understanding, responding to, and rebuilding after catastrophic events. From the Greek War of Independence to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, this book offers a unique perspective on how maps shape our perception of disasters and their aftermath. With case studies spanning Europe, it provides a compelling narrative of resilience, reconstruction, and the enduring impact of catastrophe on cities and landscapes. Essential reading for anyone interested in the intersection of history, cartography, and urban planning
Chapter 28 Information and Mobility
Full text linkThe Routledge Handbook of Information History offers a definitive, inclusive, and far-reaching study of how information practices have influenced—and have been influenced by—society, politics, culture, and technology over millennia. Information is often considered a defining characteristic of modern society, but it is far from a modern phenomenon. In the last decades, historians have started to ask new questions about how information was understood in the past, suggesting that it has a history which is long, complex, and multifaceted. This influential volume is the first large-scale collection to use the term Information History as its titular focus, situating ""information"" within the historiography of the field.The boo showcases a diverse assembly of over forty international contributors who explore information practices from antiquity to the contemporary world, with geographical coverage ranging accoss Europe, Africa, Asia, as well as North and South America. Including overview chapters alongside a wide range of in-depth empirical studies, this ground-breaking collection will appeal to scholars and students across the arts, humanities, and social sciences, offering readers unique insights into how historical practices have influenced the understanding and role of information in our modern world
Chapter 10 The transformative power of art
No full textThis study offers a fresh perspective on Ali Smith’s work, analysing her fiction through a truly interdisciplinary lens. José I. Prieto-Arranz explores Smith’s engagement with contemporary issues such as digital violence, disinformation, pornography, nationalism, climate change, discrimination, and social fracture. Simultaneously, this book examines Smith’s unique stylistic choices, including her use of magical realism, intertextuality, and intermediality, to reveal the intricate connection between the ethical and aesthetic dimensions of her novels. Through close readings of Smith’s novels, from Like to Companion Piece, enriched with insights from her prolific short fiction, the author demonstrates how Smith constructs a “text continuum,” revealing recurrent themes and stylistic choices that underline her firm belief in the transformative power of fiction and, by extension, art. This book will appeal to scholars of contemporary literature, art theory, political science, sociology and cultural studies, and anyone interested in literature and social commentary
Science and the Other
No full textModern science has given us the superpowers that have brought about the 'Anthropocene', but unfortunately not the wisdom to face its existential challenges. We cannot afford to dismiss potentially useful knowledge on mere ideological grounds without due assessment. Science and the Other is an in-depth exploration of what hinders us from engaging in cross-fertilising pluriversal dialogue. The book examines how scientific universalism naturalises the exploitation of both human and non-human nature. Other(-ed) knowledge practices are marginalised and excluded from scientific discourse on the presumption that they are incompatible with scientific evidence. However, an in-depth comparative analysis of the marginalised views and practices of the Brazilian Potiguara nation shows that their cosmology is not contradicted by scientific evidence, and hence a constructive dialogue should be possible. Furthermore, the use of radically different metaphors paints a different picture of 'reality', allowing onto-epistemic shifts and opening up new horizons towards alternative futures beyond the scope of modern/colonial metaphysics. This is an open access book
Articulate Sounds
No full textArticulate Sounds uncovers the complex relationship between music, literature, and religious dissent in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain. While collective song was central to Dissenting identities and culture, James Grande shows how many aspects of music were viewed with suspicion or even hostility by Nonconformist writers. Throughout the Romantic period, Dissenters debated questions of musical meaning and the connections between music and the written word, as well as the vaunted power of music over the emotions and changing ideas about listening, lyric, sound, and voice. Individual chapters focus on a range of canonical and less well-known authors, including Blake, Godwin, Iolo Morganwg, Amelia Opie, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Lamb, and Hazlitt. This book follows their careers across Britain but is grounded in the ‘world city’ of Romantic London, revealing a history of cosmopolitan cultural exchange. Tracing the Dissenting response to a rich variety of musical forms, from opera to oratorio, and from the symphony to popular ballads and hymns, Articulate Sounds demonstrates how Dissenters’ deep ambivalence towards music shaped the literary culture of Romanticism. The neglected history of music and Dissent offers a new understanding of both the evolution of Protestant Nonconformity and the contested place of music in nineteenth-century Britain
Strangers at the Heavenly Court
No full textThis open access book examines the first modern diplomatic contact between Europe and East Asia: the 1517 Portuguese embassy to China. The experience did not end well, for in 1521, the Ming Court decided to cut off relations, and a battle broke out between the Guangdong and Portuguese fleets. This work seeks to explain why this happened. Making extensive use of both Chinese and Western archival sources, it proposes a new interpretation—one that breaks with the traditional “clash of civilizations” viewpoint and focuses instead on the diversity of actors and the complex relationships between them
Philosophy of Science for Machine Learning
No full textThis open access book offers a comprehensive and systematic debate on the key concepts and areas of application of the philosophy of science for machine learning. The current landscape of the debate about the epistemic and methodological challenges raised by machine learning in scientific fields is fragmented and lacks a common thread that helps to understand the complexity of the issue. Against this background, this book brings together expert researchers in the field, structuring the debate in ways that allow readers to navigate quickly in this evolving field of research and pave the way to new paths of philosophical and technical research. Although the book is written from the perspective of philosophy of science and epistemology, it is of interest to philosophers in a myriad of fields, such as philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of neuroscience, and metaphysics of science, STS studies, as well as to researchers working on technical and computational issues such as explainability, trustworthiness, interpretability, transparency