18,426 research outputs found
Adam Bobbette - The Pulse of the Earth
No full textDr. Philip Gooding (IOWC, McGill) is joined by Adam Bobbette (Glasgow) to discuss his 2023 book, The Pulse of the Earth: Political Geology in Java, published by Duke University Press. Their conversation covers the history of plate tectonic theory, human-earth systems relationships, and how to live and do research in the Anthropocene
A Javanese Anthropocene?
No full textAren’t we overlooking important traditions when we assert the novelty of a geology that deals with human forces? Geographer and writer Adam Bobbette describes the reciprocal and porous relationship between society and geology in early twentieth-century Java, where volcanological activities were seen as a fundamental expression of social history and vice versa
The spiritual geographies of plate tectonics: Javanese Islam, volcanology, and earth’s new history
No full textNo abstract available
Cosmological Reason on a Volcano
No full textThis chapter is about how the populated slopes of the active volcano, Mt. Merapi, in Java, are a battle ground of ideas about what geology is. I show that understanding this battle helps us grasp the processes that make geology a political entity. What occupies this chapter, then, are the spaces of encounter between people and geological materials, the meeting grounds, as multiple and complexly constituted as they are, in which geology comes to shape how people can relate to one another. This battle ground is a social space in which the power to define and describe is at stake but at the same time geological materials do not sit idly by, ordered and manipulated by their human cohabitants but dramatically, and sometimes spectacularly deform, slide, explode, or unpredictably rest in quietude for years. In doing so they are in a rhythm that has its own share in ordering the conflicts of those who live on the slopes and try to predict and understand those materials. They are subject to its explosions and the volatile debris that both destroys and creates new conditions for growth and economic activity. Here, the battle is over how to define and explain what the volcano is made of, and therefore, what causes it. Living with such a volatile entity has compelled the mobilisation of technologies of measure, observation, appeals to gods, spirits, and fate, as a way to get in advance of, control, manage, and make sense of living in that space. These competing modes of knowing have produced controversies that unfold at the intersection of technological mediation and non-human energies that shape what can be known and how
The Spirituality of Coal
No full textAdam Bobbette’s The Spirituality of Coal contemplates the influence of carbon-based industrialisation on the modern sense of self. The writer invokes the life story of John G. Bennett, a British scientist, industrial research director, and coal miner who, in the mid-twentieth century, developed a theory locating energy in the human self, that, if tapped into and released, might allow the mind to evolve, just as unleashing fossil fuel energy allowed society to progress. Highlighting how Bennett’s thinking evidences a relationship between fossil-fuel systems and the mind, Bobbette asks: how will our contemporary transition towards post-carbon societies reconfigure the self
Decolonizing geology: a discussion
No full textDecolonizing geology was a discussion held on July 3, 2020, hosted by the New Earth Histories Research Program at the University of New South Wales. It was moderated by Adam Bobbette and included Ruth Gamble (La Trobe University), Cin-Ty Lee (Rice University), and Christopher Wilson (Flinders University). The discussion was about how researchers from different fields—history, earth sciences, and archeology—understand the relationship between geology and society, time, cosmology, Indigenous knowledges, and what it means to decolonize geology. The discussion began with a welcome to country, the convention of recognizing Aboriginal land and its traditional custodians in Australia. Because the event was held over Zoom, with speakers in four locations on two continents, welcome to country acknowledged the Aboriginal and Indigenous land of each place
ADAM SMITH'S OPTIMISTIC TELEOLOGICAL VIEW OF HISTORY
No full textAdam Smith's four-stage theory provides the framework for his writings on history. The fourth stage is the commercial epoch; the culmination of history in this stage is a key component in the conventional interpretation of Adam Smith as a prophet of commercialism. In two historical case studies Smith shows the capacity of commercial society to regenerate itself. This potent capacity suggests that commercial society is inevitable. At a certain point in time it also overcomes the major obstacles to its permanence. Smith's philosophy of history anticipates the end of history views of Kant and Hegel.Political Economy,
Encountering the Earth: Political Geological Futures?
No full textThis chapter summarises some of the key ideas that have emerged in this volume, and seeks to do so by looking forward to future research. What kinds of research might follow on from the work in this book and elsewhere in the published literature? What themes are starting to emerge? The chapter initially reflects on the three sections that were selected for this volume and then suggests a number of other cross-cutting themes that span multiple disciplines and that will continue to develop as political geology moves forwards. These relate to geopolitics, the Anthropocene, histories and cartographies, technologies and the physical sciences more explicitly. Ultimately, the chapter aims to provoke debate and discussion about ways in which political geological studies can develop and influence policy, politics and philosophy
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