Naturebot

Naturebot: Unconventional Visions of Nature presents a humanities-oriented addition to the literature on biomimetics and bioinspiration, an interdisciplinary field which investigates what it means to mimic nature with technology. This technology mirrors the biodiversity of nature and it is precisely this creation of technological metaphors for the intricate workings of the natural world that is the real subject of Naturebot. Over the course of the book, Barilla applies the narrative conventions of the nature writing genre to this unconventional vision of nature, contrasting the traditional tropes and questions of natural history with an expanding menagerie of creatures that defy conventional categories of natural and artificial. In keeping with its nature writing approach, the book takes us to where we can encounter these creatures, examining the technological models and the biotic specimens that inspired them. In doing so, it contemplates the future of the human relationship to the environment, and the future of nature writing in the 21st century. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of biomimetics, environmental literary studies/ecocriticism, and the environmental humanities.

Peter Goin and the Photography of Environmental Change narrates the forty-year quest of award-winning and internationally exhibited contemporary photographer Peter Goin to document human-altered landscapes across America and beyond. It is a collaborative work between an artist and a literary critic, a retrospective of an accomplished environmental photographer, and an innovative education in visual reading. Enduring howling wind, pounding rain, and blistering sun, Goin bears witness to radioactive landscapes, abandoned mines, simulated swamps, rechanneled rivers, controlled burns, overgrown ruins, industrialized agriculture, shrinking reservoirs, feral spaces in the city, architected wilderness, sacred wastelands, contested borderlands, and more. Based on more than seventy hours of taped interviews with the artist spanning over a decade, trailblazing ecocritic Cheryll Glotfelty narrates the arc of Goin's career, sharing excerpts from their conversations that reveal his brilliant mind and piquant personality while situating his work within the broader context of environmental thinkers. This beautifully illustrated volume, with 200 images in color and black-and-white showcasing Goin’s work, will be a fascinating and insightful read for upper-level students, academics, and researchers in photography, environmental history and culture, landscape studies, and environmental humanities.

An understanding of the mineral nutrition of plants is of fundamental importance in both basic and applied plant sciences. The Second Edition of this book retains the aim of the first in presenting the principles of mineral nutrition in the light of current advances. This volume retains the structure of the first edition, being divided into two parts: Nutritional Physiology and Soil-Plant Relationships. In Part I, more emphasis has been placed on root-shoot interactions, stress physiology, water relations, and functions of micronutrients. In view of the worldwide increasing interest in plant-soil interactions, Part II has been considerably altered and extended, particularly on the effects of external and interal factors on root growth and chapter 15 on the root-soil interface. The second edition will be invaluable to both advanced students and researchers. Key Features * Second Edition of this established text * Structure of the book remains the same * 50% of the reference and 50% of the figures and tables have been replaced * Whole of the text has been revised * Coverage of plant (soil interactions has been increased considerably)

A new history that overturns the received wisdom that science displaced magic in Enlightenment Britain--named a Best Book of 2020 by the Financial Times In early modern Britain, belief in prophecies, omens, ghosts, apparitions and fairies was commonplace. Among both educated and ordinary people the absolute existence of a spiritual world was taken for granted. Yet in the eighteenth century such certainties were swept away. Credit for this great change is usually given to science - and in particular to the scientists of the Royal Society. But is this justified? Michael Hunter argues that those pioneering the change in attitude were not scientists but freethinkers. While some scientists defended the reality of supernatural phenomena, these sceptical humanists drew on ancient authors to mount a critique both of orthodox religion and, by extension, of magic and other forms of superstition. Even if the religious heterodoxy of such men tarnished their reputation and postponed the general acceptance of anti-magical views, slowly change did come about. When it did, this owed less to the testing of magic than to the growth of confidence in a stable world in which magic no longer had a place.

The object of this work is not to describe all the many races of animals which have been domesticated by man, and of the plants which have been cultivated by him; even if I possessed the requisite knowledge, so gigantic an undertaking would be here superfluous. It is my intention to give under the head of each species only such facts as I have been able to collect or observe, showing the amount and nature of the changes which animals and plants have undergone whilst under man's dominion, or which bear on the general principles of variation. In one case alone, namely in that of the domestic pigeon, I will describe fully all the chief races, their history, the amount and nature of their differences, and the probable steps by which they have been formed. I have selected this case, because, as we shall hereafter see, the materials are better than in any other; and one case fully described will in fact illustrate all others. But I shall also describe domesticated rabbits, fowls, and ducks, with considerable fullness.

Reproduction of the original: Confessio Amantis by John Gower

A systemic analysis of anti-Black racism in the work of political philosopher Hannah Arendt. While acknowledging Hannah Arendt’s keen philosophical and political insights, Kathryn T. Gines claims that there are some problematic assertions and oversights regarding Arendt’s treatment of the “Negro question.”Gines focuses on Arendt’s reaction to the desegregation of Little Rock schools, to laws making mixed marriages illegal, and to the growing civil rights movement in the south. Reading them alongside Arendt’s writings on revolution, the human condition, violence, and responses to the Eichmann war crimes trial, Gines provides a systematic analysis of anti-black racism in Arendt’s work. “Hannah Arendt: political progressive and committed anti-racist theorist? Think again. As Kathryn Gines makes inescapably clear, for Arendt the “Negro” was the problem, whether in the form of savage “primitives” inseparable from Heart-of-Darkness Africa, social climbers trying to get their kids into white schools, or unqualified black university students dragging down academic standards. [Gines’s] boldly revisionist text reassesses the German thinker’s categories and frameworks.” —Charles W. Mills, Northwestern University “Takes on a major thinker, Hannah Arendt, on an important issue—race and racism—and challenges her on specific points while raising philosophical and methodological shortcomings.” —Richard King, Nottingham University “Gines carefully moves through Arendt scholarship and Arendt’s texts to argue persuasively that explicit discussions of the “Negro question” point up the limitations of her thinking.” —Kelly Oliver, Vanderbilt University “Gines has delivered an intellectually challenging book, that presents one of the most important figures in Western philosophy of the 2nd half of the 20th century in a different and, perhaps, somewhat less favorable perspective.” —Philosophia “Offers a wealth of research that will be valuable to scholars and graduate students interested in how racial bias operates in Arendt’s major works. Gines’s writing style is lucid and to the point, and her engagement with secondary sources is comprehensive.” —Hypatia