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Heritage and Romantic Consumption in China
No full textThe drums beat, an old man in a grand robe mutters incantations and three brides on horseback led by their grooms on foot proceed to the Naxi Wedding Courtyard, accompanied, watched and photographed the whole way by tourists, who have bought tickets for the privilege. The traditional wedding ceremonies are performed for the ethnic tourism industry in Lijiang, a World Heritage town in southwest China. This book examines how heritage interacts with social-cultural changes and how individuals perform and negotiate their identities through daily practices that include tourism, on the one hand, and the performance of ethnicity on the other. The wedding performances in Lijiang not only serve as a heritage 'product' but show how the heritage and tourism industry helps to shape people's values, dreams and expectations. This book also explores the rise of 'romantic consumerism' in contemporary China. Chinese dissatisfaction with the urban mundane leads to romanticized interests in practices and people deemed to be natural, ethnic, spiritual and aesthetic, and a search for tradition and authenticity. But what, exactly, are tradition and authenticity, and what happens to them when they are turned into performance
Chapter Racconti di paesaggi ordinari. Gioco e narrazione per l’interpretazione di un sistema culturale
No full textImages, Gestures, Voices, Lives
No full textThe concept of ‘Palaeolithic art’ and its study have changed considerably in recent decades. The modern notion of ‘art’ is cross-culturally and diachronically problematic. The phenomenon cannot be reduced to material visual culture, but also has acoustic, haptic and other dynamic aspects. It must be understood as a variety of processes that can encompass both the everyday and the extraordinary. In this volume, archaeologists, philosophers and anthropologists approach ‘Palaeolithic art’ from different perspectives, including its conceptualisation, aesthetics, relations to art history and art brut. The contributions deal with the challenge of materiality, evolutionary aspects, physical re-enactment by actors, digital technologies as a means of interpreting art objects, and the protection of cultural heritage. The volume offers innovative insights into past practices and contemporary ideas and approaches related to Palaeolithic art, based on careful empirical research combined with reflective and sophisticated theoretical approaches
How Modern Science Came into the World
No full textOnce upon a time 'The Scientific Revolution of the 17th century' was an innovative concept that inspired a stimulating narrative of how modern science came into the world. Half a century later, what we now know as 'the master narrative' serves rather as a strait-jacket — so often events and contexts just fail to fit in. No attempt has been made so far to replace the master narrative. H. Floris Cohen now comes up with precisely such a replacement. Key to his path-breaking analysis-cum-narrative is a vision of the Scientific Revolution as made up of six distinct yet narrowly interconnected, revolutionary transformations, each of some twenty-five to thirty years' duration. This vision enables him to explain how modern science could come about in Europe rather than in Greece, China, or the Islamic world. It also enables him to explain how half-way into the 17th century a vast crisis of legitimacy could arise and, in the end, be overcome. Building forth on his earlier The Scientific Revolution. A Historiographical Inquiry (1994), his new book takes the latest researches duly into account, while connecting these in highly innovative ways. It is meant throughout as a constructive effort to break up all-too-deeply frozen patterns of thinking about the history of science
Elements of Seismic Hazard in Mines
No full textThe main and first objective of this well-illustrated open access book is to introduce, define and explain common terms and concepts in earthquake and mine seismology. In seismology diverse fields, ranging from mathematics, classical mechanics, geology, rock and fracture mechanics to statistical physics with their specific jargon and terminology are brought together. Therefore, the language of earthquake and mine seismologists includes terms which may not be familiar to many geotechnical and mining engineers. For example, the proliferation of different earthquake magnitude scales has caused confusion about even this presumably simple concept and statistical physics brought in a plethora of new terms into the seismological parlance. The second aim of this volume is to clarify some of the misconceptions, in particular related to the analysis and interpretation of mining related seismicity and to seismic hazard assessment for mines. As third aim the book stresses the need for testing the quality and integrity of the data before any analysis and assessment is attempted, the importance of quantifying observations and estimating the associated uncertainties. This book is primarily intended for mine seismologists and for mine geotechnical engineers who are, or plan to become, involved in advising mining companies on how to manage the seismic rock mass response to mining. The book will also be of interested to mining and geotechnical engineering students
The European Repository Landscape 2008
No full textIt is widely acknowledged that a common knowledge base for European research is necessary. Research repositories are an important innovation to the scientific information infrastructure. In 2006, digital repositories in the 27 countries of the European were surveyed, covering 114 repositories from 17 European countries. In follow-up, this book presents the results of the 2008 survey. It shows an increasing number of respondents, but also a further diversification in the character of a repository.,Repositories may be institutional or thematically based, and as such non-institutional as well. 178 Institutional research repositories and 14 thematic and other noninstitutional repositories from 22 European countries took part actively. European practices should be harmonized and the development of state-of-the-art technology facilitated. Authors, institutes and information users are stakeholders in this process. In presenting a state-of the art of developments, this book is a valuable guide for them in developing their policy on research repositories without losing contact with others. The ongoing process of widespread and diversification of digital repositories puts urgency on coherent approach, as a basic feature of repositories is the retrievability of information that may be dispersed over many of them. Continued monitoring of developments will be necessary
Hunting and Extinctions in Southwest Asia and North America
No full textHunting and Extinctions in Southwest Asia and North America: The Silent Testimony of Communal Game Traps explores communal game traps for harvesting ungulate herds in two continents, utilizing a comparative approach addressing settings, species, and the hunters’ societies. The kites of Southwest Asia have been known to archaeologists for almost one hundred years but with the advent of high‑resolution satellite images, thousands of sites have been found. Using the rich data from the Southwest and Central Asia and North America, this book addresses some of the important questions that arise concerning the social, economic and environmental implications of ancient and recent use of large game traps. This book has four major parts. The first introduces the book and reviews the evolution of human hunting. The second part presents examples of desert kites from various areas of Southwest and Central Asia. Detailed case studies are included that use a variety of evidence such as aerial surveys, field surveys, excavations, eye witnesses accounts, and petroglyph depictions. Environmental and geographical settings of the isolated traps, the clusters of traps, and the long chains are explored to provide conceptual models regarding past herd behavior and their seasonal migrations. The third part presents examples of communal game traps in various regions in North America, addressing the same issues discussed in the second part. The fourth part provides a comparative study of game traps in North America with the kites of Southwest Asia, focusing on the settings, species, and social organization of the hunters. With the research on communal game traps increasing rapidly, this book provides the first inclusive synthesis on the subject and is for archaeologists, anthropologists, zoologists, ecologists, and environmentalists who are interested in past interactions between humans and their environments, and the impact of past human communities on the landscape and on target game populations, as well as the consequences that are still relevant today
Chapter Spazio latente della rappresentazione e rappresentazione dello spazio nell’epoca dell’èkphrasis artificiale
No full textFrom Grain to Pixel
No full textIn From Grain to Pixel, Giovanna Fossati analyzes the transition from analog to digital film and its profound effects on filmmaking and film archiving. Reflecting on the theoretical conceptualization of the medium itself, Fossati poses significant questions about the status of physical film and the practice of its archival preservation, restoration, and presentation. From Grain to Pixel attempts to bridge the fields of film archiving and academic research by addressing the discourse on film's ontology and analyzing how different interpretations of what film is affect the role and practices of film archives. By proposing a novel theorization of film archival practice, Fossati aims to stimulate a renewed dialogue between film scholars and film archivists. Almost a decade after its first publication, this revised edition covers the latest developments in the field. Besides a new general introduction, a new conclusion, and extensive updates to each chapter, a novel theoretical framework and an additional case study have been included