Deserts Are Not Empty

Colonial and imperial powers have often portrayed arid lands as "empty" spaces ready to be occupied, exploited, extracted, and polluted. Despite the undeniable presence of human and nonhuman lives and forces in desert territories, the "regime of emptiness" has inhabited, and is still inhabiting, many imaginaries. Deserts Are Not Empty challenges this colonial tendency, questions its roots and ramifications, and remaps the representations, theories, histories, and stories of arid lands--which comprise approximately one-third of the Earth's land surface. The volume brings together poems in original languages, conversations with collectives, and essays by scholars and professionals from the fields of architecture, architectural history and theory, curatorial studies, comparative literature, film studies, landscape architecture, and photography. These different approaches and diverse voices draw on a framework of decoloniality to unsettle and unlearn the desert, opening up possibilities to see, think, imagine it otherwise. With contributions from Saphiya Abu Al-Maati, Menna Agha, Asaiel Al Saeed, Aseel AlYaqoub, Yousef Awaad Hussein, Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, Danika Cooper, Brahim El Guabli, Timothy Hyde, Jill Jarvis, Bongani Kona, Dalal Musaed Alsayer, Observatoire des armements, Francisco E. Robles, Paulo Tavares, Alla Vronskaya, and XqSu.

Winner of the 2019 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize Natalie Diaz, judge i say / my mother's name, / cristina & desert marigolds / crack through a boulder. / i say my father's name, martin / & all the novena candles / in the bed of the truck are aglow. These lines from the book's titular poem "On This Side of the Desert" encapsulate the dominant themes of the collection: the power and meaning derived from the act of naming; the deep interconnectedness of Latinx cultures, a product of strong family traditions and an intimate relationship with the natural world; and a profound spirituality rooted in the sacraments of Catholic orthodoxy. This poem, like many of those in Aguilar's collection is written from the perspective of a young boy growing up along the Mexican border. As Aguilar chronicles the unique challenges faced by border communities where surviving the desert is a perpetual struggle, and the distress of finding "an entire skeleton in torn clothes" is muted by frequency, he also modernizes the traditional pastoral form to encompass both beauty and trauma. This debut book of poetry describes the experience of being raised in southern California as a child of Mexican immigrants in the shadow of the borderlands. Just as the borderlands are defined by the desert, so, too, are its inhabitants defined by their families, their culture shaped from the clay of the Sonoran desert and given life by the nourishing water of their ancestors. In these poems, the desert is recognized for what it truly is--a living, breathing body filled with both joy and pain.

First published in 2006. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Jay Griffiths is a tour guide for anyone who has ever wished to commune with the side of our human psyche that remains in touch with the wild. Equally at home among the "sea gypsy" Bajo people who live off the coast of Thailand and forage their food from the ocean floor, drinking the psychedelic ayahuasca plant with Amazonian shamans, or joining an Inuit whale hunt at the northern tip of Canada, Griffiths takes readers on an adventure both charted and un–chartable. She divides her meditations on these travels into sections named after the ancient elemental properties of the universe—Earth, Air, Fire, Ice, and Water—because her subject matter is not merely the places traveled to but the depths of mind and the cultural narratives revealed by place. It is a universal story told of far–flung groups of humans, with vastly different ways of life, connected through the varied wilderness that sustains them. By describing the ways in which human societies and the human mind have developed in response to the wilder elements of our homelands, Savage Grace reveals itself as a benediction for the emotional, intellectual, and physical nourishment that people continue to draw from the natural world. Under the sway of Griffiths' charisma, her poetic prose, and her deeply learned and persuasive case for the wild roots of our shared human being, we learn that we are all, each and every one of us, a force of nature.

What role does 'place' have in a world marked by increased mobility on a global scale? What strategies are there for representing 'place' in the age of globalization? What is the relationship between 'place' and the varied mobilities of migrancy, tourism, travel and nomadism? These are some of the questions that run through the ten essays in this collection. The combined effect of these essays is to participate in the contemporary project of subjecting the links between place, mobility, identity, representation and practice to critical interdisciplinary scrutiny. Such notions are not the property of particular disciplines. In the era of globalization, transnationalism and readily acknowledged cultural hybridity these links are more important than ever. They are important because of the taken-for-grantedness of: the universal impact of globalization; the receding importance of place and the centrality of mobile identities. This taken-for-grantedness masks the ways place continues to be important and ways in which mobility is differentiated by race, gender, ethnicity, nationality and many other social markers. This book is a concerted attempt to stop taking for granted these themes of the age. Material discussed in the essays include the creation of cultural routes in Europe, the video's of Fiona Tan, artistic and literary representations of the North African desert, the production of indigenous videos in Mexico, mobile forms of ethnography, the film Existenz, Jamaica Kincaid's writing on gardens, the video representation of sex tourism and ways of imagining the global. Authors include: Tim Cresswell, Ginette Verstraete, Ernst van Alphen, Ursula Biemann, Laurel C. Smith, Nick Couldry, Isabel Hoving, Renée van de Vall, Inge E. Boer and Kevin Hetherington.

Desperate for new ideas to inspire sermons, Bible studies, or private meditation? Here's the book for you. Living Faith: Through the Church's Year offers fifty-two lively reflections for group or individual use, including resources for further study. Part One leads you through the seasons of the church's year from Advent to Trinity. Starting with the Big Bang, you're taken to Bethlehem for Christmas and into the desert for Lent. Christmas cribs, Easter gardens, and a large crucifix illustrate some of the most important Christian festivals. Bible texts, literature, architecture, poetry, and music all help fill out the picture. Part Two takes you into some crucial aspects of being a Christian. Jesus's question to his disciples at Caesarea Philippi ("Who do you say that I am?") helps you think about some important Gospel stories such as the stilling of the storm and the Samaritan woman. Key saints, such as Francis, Benedict, and Dominic, appear, as do C. S. Lewis, J. S. Bach, Mother Teresa, Simon and Garfunkel, and Paddington Bear! A sumptuous feast of exploration and insight, Living Faith is an exciting and stimulating adventure in Christian life--a must for anyone taking the journey of faith seriously.

In the classic literary tradition of Bruce Chatwin and Geoff Dyer, and for readers of Ryszard Kapuscinski and Rory Stewart, a rich and exquisitely written account of travels in eight deserts on five continents that evokes the timeless allure of these remote and forbidding places and their inhabitants. One-third of the earth's land surface is classified as desert. Restless, unhappy in love, and intrigued by the Desert Fathers who forged Christian monasticism in the Egyptian desert, William Atkins decided to travel in six of the world's driest, hottest places: the Empty Quarter of Oman, the Gobi and Taklamakan Desert of northwest China, the Great Victoria Desert of Australia, the man-made desert of the Aral Sea in Kazkahstan, and the Black Rock and Sonoran Deserts of the American Southwest, and Egypt's Eastern Desert. Each of his travel narratives effortlessly weaves aspects of natural history, historical background, and present-day reportage into a compelling tapestry that reveals the human appeal of these often inhuman landscapes.