To generate empathy in the care of vulnerable older persons requires care providers to reflect critically on their care practices. Ethics education and training must provide them with tools to accomplish such critical reflection. It must also create a pedagogical context in which good care can be taught and cultivated. The care-ethics lab ‘sTimul’ originated in 2008 in Flanders with the stimulation of ethical reflection in care providers and care providers in training as its main goal. Also in 2008, sTimul (...) commenced the organization of empathy sessions as an attempt to achieve this goal by simulation. The empathy session is a practical and fairly straightforward way of working to provoke care providers and care providers in training to engage in ethical reflection. Characteristic of the empathy session in the care-ethics lab is the emphasis on experience as a basis for ethical reflection. (shrink)

Native food production in the Eastern Woodlands of North America before, and at the time of, European contact has been described by several writers as “slash-and-burn agriculture,” “shifting cultivation,” and even “swidden.” Select quotes from various early explorers, such as John Smith of Pocahontas fame, have been used out of context to support this position. Solid archaeological evidence of such practices is next to non-existent, as are ethnographic parallels from the region. In reality, the best data are documentary. Unlike (...) previous assessments, this paper evaluates sixteenth and seventeenth century ethnohistorical references to anything that can be even remotely construed as supportive of previous claims. Analyzed as a group these sources reveal something completely different from what common knowledge would have us believe. References to the slashing, the burning, and the shifting of fields are reasonably abundant. Rarely, however, are all three activities mentioned in a single passage, or by one chronicler. Furthermore, subtleties often overlooked in these quotes reveal great insight into native practices. This paper assesses explorers' and early settlers' descriptions in the context of the larger body of literature dealing with the ecology of swidden agriculture today. Indigenous fields in the Eastern Woodlands tended to be large, numerous, contiguous, and cleared of roots and stumps. Fields previously cleared of trees were covered with grass prior to preparation for planting. They were permanently cultivated. This condition stands in marked contrast to present-day swidden fields in other parts of the world that tend to be small, few, scattered, partially cleared of trees, and cultivated for only a year or two before being abandoned. Slash-and-burn shifting cultivation became common only after European settlers introduced steel axes. It was then practiced on uplands, not the formerly cultivated floodplains that were usurped by interlopers. (shrink)

The reasons why upland farmerson the Indonesian island of Sulawesi areengaged in a cacao boom and its long termimplications are addressed in the context ofprotected area management regulations, andpolitical and economic conditions inPost-Suharto, Indonesia. In the remote casestudy village of Moa in Central Sulawesi, wefound that while few households cultivatedcacao in the early 1990s, all had planted cacaoby 2000. Furthermore, the vast majoritycultivate cacao in former food-crop focusedswidden fields under full-sun conditions.Farmers cultivate cacao to establish propertyrights in light of a (...) land shortage driven inpart by the prohibition of farming and forestproduct collecting in a nearby national park,and to secure a future source of income, aconcern that has been exacerbated byIndonesia's economic crisis. However,conversion of swidden fields to sun-grown cacaoconstrains future food productionopportunities, increases susceptibility todrought stress and potential soil nutrient andorganic matter losses, and increases householddependence on a commodity that is subject toextreme price volatility. These factors raisesignificant concerns for local food securityand agricultural sustainability. (shrink)

The function of law and of constitutional law is to make determinate what we ought to do. And in constitutional law, that is true of both structural provisions and rights provisions. It is not the function of constitutions to establish our real moral rights. We possess those independently of the constitution, which cannot affect them. And all organs of government are bound morally if not legally by those rights. I have taken no position on the relative competence of legislatures and (...) courts to ascertain the content of real moral rights, and it is possible that the judiciary is well-equipped to be our wise Platonic guardians. However, if the game is interpretation, all that can be interpreted are authored rules, and what those rules mean can only be what their authors meant by them. Anything else is reauthoring—that is, creating new rules. There is no “living tree” constitutional interpretation. The only “living trees” are the judges. So you’d better hope that they are well cultivated. And you may conclude that a bit of pruning is in order. (shrink)

The artist understands his work as intimately connected with the life and symbolism of plants. Art, thus, demands an attunement to life’s elemental operations, the thrust “into dimensions far removed from the conscious process.” The first part of the present essay aims at recovering what is implied in the imagery of trees, delving into ancient archives of dormant collective memories and immemorial imaginal stratifications. The second and third parts, deploying the re-energized figure of the tree, explore the theme of (...) the relation between art and life, indeed, what Klee calls the “art of life.” By reference to Klee’s 1924 Jena lecture and the artist’s diaries, the discussion addresses the intersecting themes of artistic formation, mindful self-formation, the vital importance of worldly roots, and the transcendent fragrance of flowers and fruits. (shrink)

During the mid-1970s the extraordinarily dangerous style of free solo climbing emerged in the collective practice of a small community of “Stonemaster” climbers actively developing new climbing routes and the new “free” style of roped climbing in what is now Joshua Tree National Park, California. While its emergence might be interpreted as an affectively-driven, macho embodied social semiotic or ethnomotricity, in actuality the evolution of free soloing in the case of Stonemaster-era climbing at Joshua Tree may be more (...) accurately understood as the logical consequence of an intensive regime of practice in which climbers developed a near absolute bodily familiarity with certain climbing routes. Eventually, the reasonableness of climbing with little and even no protection on a subset of these routes became self-evident and conventional. Free soloing, in the semiotic perspective of the later Peirce, manifested as a Normal Logical Interpretant in the Joshua Tree landscape. It embodied the living definition of self-controlled conduct, and the Symbols it cultivated testified persuasively to the growth of a creative corporeal intelligence actualizing near absolute degrees of free will. (shrink)

One of the many topics discussed in texts of kāmaśāstra is the ideal material environment for the pursuit of sensory pleasures. Later medieval texts describing the pursuit of pleasure and the typical lifestyle of the cultivated urban man focus in increasing detail on the informed consumption of certain luxury commodities, such as perfumes and gemstones. This pleasure-expertise was increasingly valued, such that by the twelfth century one encyclopedia of royal life, the Mānasollāsa, was effectively a vast textual monument to the (...) masterful king’s capacity to enjoy the world. Not only were luxury raw materials subject to a discourse of connoisseurship, but in many cases the exotic nature of these materials was equally celebrated. This preoccupation with the exotic nature of luxury materials displays wide-ranging power at the center of consumption, whilst betraying a truly cosmopolitan fascination with remote, possibly unconquered lands of plenty, whose foreign and beautiful products were essential to the pursuit of erudite pleasures in temple and court alike. (shrink)

This dissertation is a collection of three papers – “Knowing Oneself for Others,” “Stereotype Threat and the Value of Self-Knowledge,” and “Self-Knowledge, Epistemic Work, and Injustice” – in which I address the connections between self-knowledge production and social inequality. I explain, using a variety of contemporary political and cultural examples, that marginalized individuals are more likely to be required to know certain things about themselves than socially privileged individuals, especially about those aspects of their lives and identities which are essential (...) to their being marginalized. I argue that this should make us rethink our basic understanding of epistemic injustice, which is typically thought of as involving the prevention of marginalized individuals from producing knowledge. More specifically, in “Knowing Oneself for Others,” I introduce the notion of “compulsory self-disclosure,” a social phenomenon in which an individual is forced to reveal things about themselves, often in ways that further contribute to their oppression. “Stereotype Threat and the Value of Self-Knowledge” addresses how self-ignorance can actually be desirable for individuals facing stereotype threat, and I argue that treating stereotype threat as an epistemic injustice issue can actually harm rather than help individuals in certain cases. Finally, in “Self-Knowledge, Epistemic Work, and Injustice,” I assess the reasoning behind the assumption that marginalized people are self-ignorant; I argue that we need to appreciate the central role that epistemic work plays in self-knowledge production to understand why the standard assumption about marginalized self-ignorance is misguided. Ultimately, I would have us think of self-knowledge production as not just epistemic work but as work that is often emotionally difficult and even metaphysically transformative – coming to have self-knowledge in certain ways can quite literally change who you are. In light of this, the overarching aim of this work is to argue for there being an inextricable link between an individual’s knowledge of themselves and their social status, as well as to discourage readers from thinking of the production of self-knowledge as inherently desirable or as a wholly epistemic issue. (shrink)

The discourse marker use of the word like is considered by many to be superfluously sprinkled into talk, a bad habit best avoided. But a comparison of the use of like in successive tellings of stories demonstrates that like can be anticipated in advance and planned into stories. In this way, like is similar to other words and phrases tellers recycle during story telling. The anticipation of like contrasted with the uses of other discourse markers such as oh, you know, (...) and well, which almost never re-occurred in similar locations across tellings. Um and uh did sometimes re-occur; these uses are contrasted with like. Although discourse markers are generally used on the fly to handle various issues that come up in coordinating talk as it unfolds, like can be used as an integral part of the story -a marked contrast to the prevalent idea that likes are speech tics. (shrink)

Words like well, oh, and you know have long been observed and studied in spontaneous speech. With the proliferation of on-line dialogues, such as instant messaging between friends or back-and-forth postings at websites, there are increasing opportunities to observe them in spontaneous writing. In Experiment 1, the interpretation of discourse markers in on-line debates was compared to proposed functions of those markers identified in other settings. In Experiment 2, the use of discourse markers in spontaneous speech was compared to their (...) uses in spontaneous writing. Results support the conclusion that although they vary in frequency in spoken versus written domains, discourse markers are used similarly across domains, but with particular communicative functions that make them non-interchangeable. (shrink)

Observing others in conversation is a common format for comprehending language, yet little work has been done to understand dialog comprehension. We tested whether overhearers use addressee backchannels as predictive cues for how to integrate information across speaker turns during comprehension of spontaneously produced collaborative narration. In Experiment 1, words that followed specific backchannels were recognized more slowly than words that followed either generic backchannels or pauses. In Experiment 2, we found that when the turn after the backchannel was a (...) continuation of the narrative, specific backchannels prompted the fastest verification of prior information. When the turn after was an elaboration, they prompted the slowest, indicating that overhearers took specific backchannels as cues to integrate preceding talk with subsequent talk. These findings demonstrate that overhearers capitalize on the predictive relationship between backchannels and the development of speakers’ talk, coordinating information across conversational roles. (shrink)

We explored the differential impact of auditory information and written contextual information on the recognition of verbal irony in spontaneous speech. Based on relevance theory, we predicted that speakers would provide acoustic disambiguation cues when speaking in situations that lack other sources of information, such as a visual channel. We further predicted that listeners would use this information, in addition to context, when interpreting the utterances. People were presented with spontaneously produced ironic and nonironic utterances from radio talk shows in (...) written or auditory form, with or without written contextual information. When the utterances were read without written contextual information, all utterances were rated as equally ironic. But when they were heard as opposed to read, or when they were presented in irony-biasing contexts, originally ironic utterances were rated as more sarcastic than originally nonironic utterances. This evidence suggests both acoustic and contextual information are used when inferring ironic intent in spontaneous speech, and validates previous manipulations of intonation in studies of irony understanding. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a global threat to physical and mental health worldwide. Research has highlighted adverse impacts of COVID-19 on wellbeing but has yet to offer insights as to how wellbeing may be protected. Inspired by developments in wellbeing science and guided by our own theoretical framework, we examined the role of various potentially protective factors in a sample of 138 participants from the United Kingdom. Protective factors included physical activity, tragic optimism, gratitude, social support, and nature connectedness. (...) Initial analysis involved the application of one-sample t-tests, which confirmed that wellbeing in the current sample was significantly lower compared to previous samples. Protective factors were observed to account for up to 50% of variance in wellbeing in a hierarchical linear regression that controlled for a range of sociostructural factors including age, gender, and subjective social status, which impact on wellbeing but lie beyond individual control. Gratitude and tragic optimism emerged as significant contributors to the model. Our results identify key psychological attributes that may be harnessed through various positive psychology strategies to mitigate the adverse impacts of hardship and suffering, consistent with an existential positive psychology of suffering. (shrink)

There has been little previous scholarship regarding the aims, options and impact of ethics education on residential care‐givers. This manuscript details findings from a pragmatic cluster trial evaluating the impact of three different approaches to ethics education. The focus of the article is on one of the interventions, an immersive simulation experience. The simulation experience required residential care‐givers to assume the profile of elderly care‐recipients for a 24‐hr period. The care‐givers were student nurses. The project was reviewed favourably by a (...) university ethics committee, and participants provided informed consent. Data from six postsimulation experience focus groups were analysed thematically and three themes were identified: the experience of vulnerability, dignity in care and the organisation of care. Findings suggest that the immersive simulation experience had a powerful immediate impact as participants described epiphanous insights relating to their care experiences. It is suggested that reflecting on and recording epiphanous events has the potential to sustain ethical care practices. Further research is required to evaluate the impact of different ethics education interventions in different cultural contexts. Exploration is also required regarding the meaning and significance of care epiphanies, those “most delicate and evanescent of moments,” for the sustainability of ethical care. (shrink)

This article discusses ways to operationalise the concept of culturally appropriate computer-mediated communication, utilising information systems (IS) development methodologies and adopting a postmodern and postcolonial perspective. By way of illustration, it describes progress on the participative development of the Ieramugadu Cultural Information System. This project is designed to develop and evaluate innovative procedures for elicitation, analysis, storage and communication of indigenous cultural heritage information. It is investigating culturally appropriate IS design techniques, multimedia approaches and ways to ensure protection of secret/sacred (...) information. Ethical issues are foregrounded. (shrink)

Backchannel choices affect conversational development. Some backchannels invite interlocutors to continue to the next part of what they are saying and others invite them to elaborate on what they have just said. We tested how communicative modality (audiovisual, audio, text), environmental setting (wholly in-lab, partially in the wild), and conversational goals (on-task, off-task) influenced backchannel usage by participants. We found that backchannel production depends on modality, setting, and goals. For example, we found that specific backchannels played a more prominent role (...) in self-motivated dialogue. Knowledge of how backchannels are used has both theoretical and practical implications. (shrink)

Bilingualism has been identified as a potential cognitive factor linked to delayed onset of dementia as well as boosting executive functions in healthy individuals. However, more recently, this claim has been called into question following several failed replications. It remains unclear whether these contradictory findings reflect how bilingualism is defined between studies, or methodological limitations when measuring the bilingual effect. One key issue is that despite the claims that bilingualism yields general protection to cognitive processes, studies reporting putative bilingual differences (...) are often focused on domain specific experimental paradigms. This study chose a broader approach, by considering the consequences of bilingualism on a wide range of cognitive functions within individuals. We utilised 19 measures of different cognitive functions commonly associated with bilingual effects, to form a “cognitive profile” for 215 non-clinical participants. We recruited Welsh speakers, who as a group of bilinguals were highly homogeneous, as means of isolating the bilingualism criterion. We sought to determine if such analyses would independently classify bilingual/monolingual participant groups based on emergent patterns driven by collected cognitive profiles, such that population differences would emerge. Multiple predictive models were trained to independently recognise the cognitive profiles of bilinguals, older adults and higher education attainment. Despite managing to successfully classify cognitive profiles based on age and education, the model failed to differentiate between bilingual and monolingual cognitive ability at a rate greater than that of chance. Repeated modelling using alternative definitions of bilingualism, and just the older adults, yielded similar results. In all cases then, using our “bottom–up” analytical approach, there was no evidence that bilingualism as a variable indicated differential cognitive performance – as a consequence, we conclude that bilinguals are not cognitively different from their monolingual counterparts, even in older demographics. We suggest that studies that have reported a bilingual advantage could well have confounded other key variables that may be driving reported advantages. We recommend that future research refine the machine learning methods used in this study to further investigate the complex relationship between bilingualism and cognition. (shrink)

The tropical lowlands of southern Mexico and Central America are composed of a complex mosaic of landscapes that presented a variety of possibilities and challenges to the subsistence practices of the ancient Maya. The Yalahau Regional Human Ecology Project has been investigating ancient Maya agricultural practices and use of resources in a unique fresh-water wetland zone located in the northeast corner of the Yucatán Peninsula. While containing only a sparse population today, the Yalahau region once supported numerous Maya communities and (...) civic-ceremonial centers, particularly during the Late Preclassic and Early Classic periods, between approximately 100 B.C. and A.D. 450. Our investigations have developed evidence that the ancient Maya manipulated and cultivated the wetland landscape of the region, used soil or algae from the wetlands to enrich upland garden plots, and cultivated trees within their communities. We suggest that the study of ancient Maya agricultural practices can contribute to sustainable development of the area today and in the future. (shrink)

Olive tree cultivation in theMediterranean goes back to ancient times. Evensince the Roman Age, olive cultivation spreadto the entire Mediterranean basin. Thislongevous tree integrates and identifieseconomically, socially, and culturally theinhabitants of this basin and determines itsrural landscape. For the residents of theMediterranean, olive oil constituted the mainsource of nutritional fats, their most valuableexport product, and was identified with theirculture. Even now, olive cultivation has amultiple importance for the Mediterranean. Theolive groves, which grow mostly on inclined,shallow, (...) and low fertility soils, and onhand-made stone terraces, have limited wateringrequirements and sustain the fragile naturalresources of the Mediterranean. Today,olive cultivation in the Mediterranean is anadditional income source and supports thepopulation in rural areas during the winterperiod, which profit from summer and seatourism activity. Although anagro-ecosystem, the olive grove resembles thenatural Mediterranean ecosystem and abandonmenttransforms them into natural Mediterranean typeforests. Their change of use from olivecultivation to pasture degrades the ecosystemand decreases the natural resources, because ofover-grazing. At this time, two major factorsthreaten the traditional olive cultivation (i)the competition of the intensive olive grovesin plain and irrigated areas and (ii) thecheaper seed-oils, which intensify theabandonment of traditional olive groves andchange them into pasture, resulting in thedeterioration of the ecosystem. Olivecultivation has left its mark on life in theMediterranean and has contributed to thesustainability of natural resources.Nevertheless, it succumbs under the pressure ofcurrent socioeconomic situations. Today, theconservation of olives in productionconstitutes a necessity for the fragileMediterranean ecosystems and a challenge foreverybody involved. (shrink)

This paper discusses the methodological relation between natural history and natural philosophy in the case of John Evelyn (1620–1706). I propose to examine Evelyn’s tree cultivation projects and to identify relevant aspects of his attempt to move from descriptive natural history to experimental natural history. My central argument is that Evelyn’s intention in this endeavour was to develop a series of experimental natural history projects that could provide general laws and axioms of nature as foundations for natural philosophy. (...) I suggest that, considering Bacon’s methodological recommendations regarding the relation between natural history and natural philosophy, Evelyn evolved from one “Baconian” role to another. While in the 1650s, Evelyn acted as a “merchant of light,” as he devoted interest to write natural history projects based on collecting data and commonplacing different sources, in the 1660s, he moved to an advanced role, that of a “compiler” or a “lamp,” in which he composed projects of experimental natural history. In Evelyn’s view, the latter kind of natural history would serve as a methodological step in building a natural philosophy. (shrink)

Julie Houts has cultivated a devoted following as "Instagram's favourite illustrator" (Vogue) by lampooning the conflicting messages and images women consume and share with the world every day. A collection of darkly comic illustrated essays, Literally Me chronicles the daily exploits of "slightly antisocial heroines" (Refinery29) in vivid, excruciatingly funny detail, including: -The beauty routine of a deranged bride who aspires to be "truly without flaws" on her wedding day -What happens when Kylie Jenner has an existential crisis and can (...) no longer "step out" -A journey to Coachella by the Four Horsewomen of the Apocalypse -The true dating confessions of a fembot -The terrifying description for Alice Staunch's book How to be the Perfect Feminist -The diary of Fiddle Ficus, a tree that lives inside a CÉLINE store, and much more. Literally Me marks the launch of a brilliant new social satirist. Julie's singular voice and beautiful illustrations reveal the truth about the absurdity of life in the social media age: the line between becoming a total `Girlboss' and a 21st-century American Psycho is razor-thin."--Dust jacket. (shrink)

Oases have served as sacred landscapes and sources of ritual plants in arid regions of the Old and New Worlds. We evaluate the Jesuit mission oases of the Baja California peninsula for their role in agrobiodiversity persistence, and extend theories of sacred landscapes and biodiversity conservation to agricultural species and practices. Jesuit missionaries on the peninsula introduced a suite of crops species and agricultural and water management systems that persist in the oases and have become an integral part of the (...) cultural and religious identity of the peninsula. The sacred landscapes of the oases are defined by elements of the Jesuit mission systems, such as water capture systems and irrigation canals, stone field borders and terraces, field gardens or huertas, groves of olive trees and date palms, and multi-tiered agroecosystems. Sacred practices—including pilgrimages, religious rites, and Catholic-based community celebrations—depend on the integrated “landscapes” of the oases and on the ritual use of wild and cultivated oasis plant species. We propose that some, though not all, of the peninsula oases may be considered as sacred landscapes responsible for maintaining heritage crop species, biodiversity, and traditional farming and foodways practices. (shrink)

Climate change and the failure of crops are significant but overlooked events in the history of heredity. Bad weather and dangerously low harvests provided momentum and urgency for answers to questions about how best to improve and acclimatize staple varieties. In the 1790s, a series of crop failures in Britain led to the popularization of and widespread debate over Thomas Andrew Knight’s suggestion that poor weather was in fact largely unconnected to the bad harvests. Rather, Knight argued, Britain’s older varieties—particularly (...) its fruit trees—were coming to the natural end of their lifespans. At a period when Britain was trying to maximize its agricultural land usage, Knight campaigned that his fellow farmers ought to set aside land and resources in order to cultivate new varieties—an expensive and time-consuming procedure—in order to avoid disaster. In this paper, I argue that Knight’s lifelong commitment to his position demonstrates the role played by changes in climate and weather on popular understandings of plant heredity. Further, drawing upon the historiography of Britain’s climate and agriculture, I show that despite reliable weather and good harvests, Knight’s campaign survived for several decades before the continued health of Britain’s trees was finally treated as sufficient evidence to dispense with Knight’s warnings. This case provides a means of thinking about the history of heredity as it is shaped and impacted by changes in climate and local conditions. (shrink)

Oases have served as sacred landscapes and sources of ritual plants in arid regions of the Old and New Worlds. We evaluate the Jesuit mission oases of the Baja California peninsula for their role in agrobiodiversity persistence, and extend theories of sacred landscapes and biodiversity conservation to agricultural species and practices. Jesuit missionaries on the peninsula introduced a suite of crops species and agricultural and water management systems that persist in the oases and have become an integral part of the (...) cultural and religious identity of the peninsula. The sacred landscapes of the oases are defined by elements of the Jesuit mission systems, such as water capture systems and irrigation canals, stone field borders and terraces, field gardens or huertas, groves of olive trees and date palms, and multi-tiered agroecosystems. Sacred practices—including pilgrimages, religious rites, and Catholic-based community celebrations—depend on the integrated “landscapes” of the oases and on the ritual use of wild and cultivated oasis plant species. We propose that some, though not all, of the peninsula oases may be considered as sacred landscapes responsible for maintaining heritage crop species, biodiversity, and traditional farming and foodways practices. (shrink)

Lead (Pb) contamination of the environment is an important human health problem. Children are vulnerable to Pb toxicity; it causes damage to the central nervous system and, in some extreme cases, can cause death. Lead is widespread, especially in the urban environment, and is present in the atmosphere, soil, water and food. Pb tends to accumulate in surface soil because of its low solubility, mobility, and relative freedom from microbial degradation of this element in the soil. Lead is present in (...) soil as a result to weathering and other pedogenic processes acting on the soil parent material; or from pollution arising caused by the anthropogenic activities; such as mining, smelting and waste disposal; or through the adoption of the unsafe and unethical agricultural practices such as using of sewage sludge, and waste water in production of vegetable crops or cultivation of vegetables near highways and industry regions. Lead concentrations are generally higher in the leafy vegetables than the other vegetables. Factors affecting lead uptake included its concentration in the soil, soil pH, soil type, organic matter content, plant species, and unsafe agriculture practices. Generally, as Pb concentration increased; dry matter yields of roots, stems and leaves as well as total yield decreased. The mechanism of growth inhibition by lead involve: a decrease in number of dividing cells, a reduction on chlorophyll synthesis, induced water stress to plants, and decreased NO 3 - uptake, reduced nitrate and nitrite reductase activity, a direct effect of lead on protein synthesis, a decrease on the uptake and concentration of nutrients in plants. The strategies to minimize Pb hazard can be represented in: (a) Phytoremediation, through natural plants are able to bio-accumulate Pb in their above–ground parts, which are then harvested for removal such as, using Indian Mustard (Brassica juncea), Ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia), Hemp Dogbane (Apocynum cannabium), or Poplar trees, which sequester lead in its biomass. (b) Good and ethical agricultural practices such as cultivation of vegetables crops as far from busy streets or highways and industry regions as well as nonuse of sewage sludge and waste water in cultivated soils. (c) Increasing the absorptive capacity of the soil by adding organic matter and humic acid. (d) Growing vegetable crops and cultivars with a low potential to accumulate lead, especially in soils exposed to atmospheric pollution. (e) Washing of leafy vegetables by water containing 1 % vinegar or peeling roots, tubers, and some fruits of vegetables before consumption may be an important factor in reducing the lead concentration. (shrink)

In this book, Luce Irigaray - philosopher, linguist, psychologist and psychoanalyst - proposes nothing less than a new conception of being as well as a means to ensure its individual and relational development from birth. Unveiling the mystery of our origin is probably what most motivates our quests and plans. Now such a disclosure proves to be impossible. Indeed we were born of a union between two, and we are forever deprived of an origin of our own. Hence our ceaseless (...) search for roots: in our genealogy, in the place where we were born, in our culture, religion or language. But a human being cannot develop starting from roots as a tree does, it must take on responsibility for its own being and existence without continuity with its origin and background. How can we succeed in doing that? First by cultivating our breathing, which is not only the means thanks to which we come into the world, but which also allows us to transcend mere survival towards a spiritual becoming. Taking on our sexuate belonging is the second element which makes us able to assume our natural existence. Indeed this determination at once brings us energy and provides us with a structure which contributes to our individuation and our relations with other living beings and the world. Our sexuation can also compensate for our absence of roots by compelling us to unite with the other sex so that we freely approach the copulative conjunction from which we were born; that is, the mystery of our origin. This does not occur through a mere sexual instinct or drive, but requires us to cultivate desire and love with respect for our mutual difference(s). In this way we become able to give rise to a new human being, not only at a natural but also at an ontological level. (shrink)

‘Now that all parts and members of the mortal creature had been fashioned into one, seeing that it must be the creature's lot for reasons of necessity to spend its life in the domain of fire and air and that it was like to waste away being continually melted and emptied by their onslaught, the gods contrived reinforcement for it. Blending a being kindred to man's being but with different shapes and senses, they brought it into life, a second kind (...) of living creature. Trees, plants, and seeds are these, and those among them which are cultivated types to-day have arrived at their mild benevolence to man only because they have been civilized by his husbandry; formerly only the wild kinds existed, for these are older than the cultivated. Now everything that is alive, whatever it be, may perfectly correctly and of right be termed ‘a living creature’. The creature now in question has at any rate the third kind of soul which our discourse told us is situated between the midriff and the navel. This kind of soul has nothing of opining or of reasoning mind, but it has sensation of pleasant and painful with attendant desires. For continually it is subject to every impression. Its manner of birth has not granted it the power to revolve by itself in itself upon itself rejecting outside motion and asserting its own and thus by beholding all things by native endowment of soull to reason out aught of its own concerns. So it has life and is not some second being other than a living creature, but it stays fixed, rooted, motionless, for it has never been granted movement of its own initiation.’. (shrink)

The Confucian tradition is famous for its family value. This tradition emphasizes that, after one's moral sentiments are cultivated in the family, one is capable of caring for people outside the family. However, since the early 2000s, there has been a debate in the Chinese Philosophy community about how to understand the ?the father-covering-son? story in the Analects. The story tells that a father covers for his son's stealing a sheep. This is a puzzle because while Confucius's virtue theory implies (...) that concealing a theft is wrong, Confucius contends that a father's covering is right. In this paper I discuss two arguments, the tree argument and the argument of the whole, implicitly held by the Confucian scholars for the priority of the family love in this debate. I argue that none of the arguments are convincing. (shrink)

Chinese culture is a lively and active organism. If we are to get to the real image of Chinese culture, we should take as a starting point the first passage of the Chung-yung [Doctrine of the Mean], which expounds its basic principles: "That which Heaven has decreed is called Nature, to follow that Nature is called tao [way] and to cultivate the tao is called instruction." This passage uses three phrases and one breath; these three phrases have a unified nature (...) which cannot be separated and which constitute one long sentence. Because of this, the words as a whole lead people to think of a richly vital and great tree which has the will of Heaven as its roots, human nature as its shoots, the tao as its trunk, and cultural instruction as its branches, leaves, and blossoms. As for the fruit, in terms of the individual, it is the achievement of a completely beautiful character, and in terms of the masses of the people, it is the ordering of the country and the pacification of the realm, the progression from the era of peace under the ancient kings to the age of the Grand Unity [ta-t'ung]. (shrink)

This essay responds to Donna J. Haraway's (2016) provocation to ‘stay with the trouble’ of learning to live well with nonhumans as kin, through practice-based approaches to learning to care for nonhuman others. The cases examine the promotion of care for trees through mobile game apps for forest conservation, and kinship relations with city farm animals in Kentish Town, London. The cases are analysed with a view to how they articulate care practices as a means of making kin. Two concepts (...) are proposed, ‘learning from’ and ‘facing’ the Other, which are thickened through discussions of how caring takes place in each case in relation to a particular category of nonhuman other: animated tree and urban farm animal. Thus while attendant to situations of care involving a specific nonhuman subject, the cases also broker thinking on learning from and facing (the) other kinds of trees and animals, and the interspecies dynamics of which they are a part. The intersectional implications of the practice sites and participants are elaborated, to complexify and affirm situated but also reflexive approaches to caring. In doing this, the authors attend to their own positionalities, seeking to diversify Western-based ecofeminist engagements with caring, while asking what their research can do for the nonhuman other. They formulate and apply a collaborative methodological approach to the case studies, developed through cultivating attentiveness to the nonhuman subject of research. The authors consider in particular how attentiveness to the nonhuman other can facilitate practices of knowing that further a non-anthropocentric and non-innocent ethic of caring. By further interconnecting situations of caring for nonhuman animals and plants, the authors advocate for practices of care that antagonise how species boundaries are drawn and explore the implications for learning to care for nonhumans as kin. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Little Eternities: Henry James’s Horatian Sense of Time KATHLEEN RILEY Summer’s lease hath all too short a date. —Shakespeare, Sonnet 18 On a visit to Bodiam Castle in Sussex in 1908, Henry James remarked to Edith Wharton: “Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.”1 The potency of those two words derives from their immediate evocation of an arrested (...) moment between the day’s halcyon perfection and its imminent dying fall. Small wonder that those same words were later used to mythologize an Edenic Edwardian England poised on the brink of war, to preserve in aspic the fancy of a gilded innocence and order, and the promise of “blue remembered hills,”2 careless of the teeming, tumultuous reality of an England already in the shadow of the Tree of Knowledge. James’s masterpiece of 1881, The Portrait of a Lady, begins with a luxuriously redolent depiction of a summer afternoon, of the hours before dusk that constitute a pleasurable little eternity, of the languorous rhythms and rituals of what Disraeli called “the sustained splendour of [a] stately life.”3 Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. There are circumstances in which, whether you partake of the tea or not—some people of course never do,—the situation is in itself delightful. Those that I have in mind in beginning to unfold this simple history offered an admirable setting to an innocent pastime. The implements of the little feast had been disposed upon the lawn of an old English country-house, in what I should arion 27.1 spring/summer 2019 call the perfect middle of a splendid summer afternoon. Part of the afternoon had waned, but much of it was left, and what was left was of the finest and rarest quality. Real dusk would not arrive for many hours; but the flood of summer light had begun to ebb, the air had grown mellow, the shadows were long upon the smooth, dense turf. They lengthened slowly, however, and the scene expressed that sense of leisure still to come which is perhaps the chief source of one’s enjoyment of such a scene at such an hour. From five o’clock to eight is on certain occasions a little eternity; but on such an occasion as this the interval could be only an eternity of pleasure.4 This passage, it strikes me, is essentially Horatian in its Epicurean delight in the passing moment. For the Augustan poet Horace, this delight, which is intrinsically elegiac, is expressed in the sympotic pleasures of wine and friendship, in the freedom aestivam sermone benigno tendere noctem (“to prolong the summer night with genial conversation,” Epistles i.5.11). For Henry James, it rests in “the ceremony known as afternoon tea,” in the lengthening shadows on an English lawn by “the reedy, silvery Thames” (PL 32). In both cases the evanescence of these simple pleasures is deeply felt and pleasure itself heightened by an undertone of melancholy, by a nostalgic apprehension of the present. LOCI AMOENI in his review of Augustus J. C. Hare’s Days near Rome (1875), Henry James commented: “The smallest pretext for quoting from Horace—the most quotable of the ancients— should always be cultivated.”5 His own facility for quoting from Horace was evident from his earliest published works, and belied an “extraordinarily haphazard and promiscuous” education shuttling, at his father’s restless instigation, between New England, Britain and Continental Europe.6 James’s biographer, Leon Edel, recorded the family legend that William James (Henry’s Irish grandfather), “who was eighteen in 1789, when he set foot in the New World, 22 little eternities brought with him a ‘very small sum of money,’ a Latin grammar and a desire to visit the fresh battlefields of the Revolutionary War.”7 Young Henry’s instruction in Latin grammar seems to have begun in the Old World, under a private tutor in London in 1855, a Scotsman named Robert Thomson who later ran a small school in Edinburgh attended by Robert Louis Stevenson. It... (shrink)

One of the first things people learn about Disney's Mulan is what a clever and resourceful young woman she is, a trait she shares with many Disney princesses. If Mulan fails to cultivate the virtues that correspond to her allotted role in her society, she fears that she might just “uproot the family tree,” not only because she might fail to find a husband and produce some of those highly sought‐after sons, but also because she will disgrace her family (...) name. But to understand how that works, people need first to look at the significance of family in traditional honor‐based cultures and in traditional Chinese thought in particular. The idea of Mulan bringing honor or disgrace to her family through her actions, either matrimonial or military, is hard to square with the individualistic assumptions of modern Western thought. (shrink)

Historically, the nomadic traditions of pastoralists have been alternately attacked and romanticized. In fact, pastoral groups represent a range of production systems with wide variations in pastoral and cultivation activities. Given this range and the ecological and sociopolitical constraints facing pastoralists today, agroforestry interventions appear not only feasible, but perhaps imperative for some pastoral groups. However, their design and implementation must be carried out with keen awareness and respect for the unique ecological and cultural position traditionally nomadic pastoral people (...) hold. A review of the sociopolitical and natural resource management literature on existing sylvopastoral and agrosylvopastoral technologies points to the importance of social issues such as gender, land and tree tenure, equity, and cultural context. These provide the basis for discussing the feasibility of agroforestry interventions in terms of their aims, potentials, and risks for pastoral groups. (shrink)

Plants are commonly considered immobile, in contrast to humans and other animals. But vegetal existence involves many place-based forms of change: stems growing upward, roots spreading outward, fronds unfurling in response to sunlight, seeds traveling across wide distances, and other intricate relationships with the surrounding world. How do plants as sessile, growing, decaying, and metamorphosing beings shape the places they inhabit, and how are they shaped by them? How do human places interact with those of plants-in lived experience; in landscape (...) painting; in cultivation and contemplation; in forests, fields, gardens, and cities? Examining these questions and many more, Plants in Place is a collaborative study of vegetal phenomenology at the intersection of Edward S. Casey's phenomenology of place and Michael Marder's plant-thinking. It focuses on both the microlevel of the dynamic constitution of plant edges or a child's engagement with moss and the macrolevel of habitats that include the sociality of trees. This compelling portrait of plants and their places provides readers with new ways to appreciate the complexity and vitality of vegetal life. Eloquent, descriptively rich, and insightful, the book also shows how the worlds of plants can enhance our understanding and experience of place more broadly. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: References and Further Reading.

This chapter contains sections titled: Notes.

This article outlines the ecological and ethnobotanical characteristics of the monkey-puzzle tree (Araucariaaraucana), a long-lived conifer of great importance to the indigenous population living in and around its range in the southern Andes. The article also considers the pre-Columbian and historical use of indigenous fire technology. Conclusive evidence of indigenous burning is unavailable. However, our knowledge of native fire ecology elsewhere and our understanding of monkey-puzzle's ecological response to fire suggest that indigenous people probably burned in the past to (...) facilitate the growth of monkey-puzzle trees relative to other species. The obstacles to recovering and redeploying a defunct fire-based production strategy include the vulnerable condition of monkey-puzzle stands after decades of intense logging and burning (by non-indigenous settlers), inadequate access to land and resources by the region's indigenous inhabitants, livestock pressure, depletion of game animals that were once hunted with fire, and reluctance by indigenous people to embrace old production strategies that have been supplanted by new ones based on domesticated animals and crop cultivation. Prescribed burns in selected areas offer an effective way to assess the feasibility of indigenous burning as an alternative to more conventional development initiatives. (shrink)

Brackets and tables, circles and maps, 1554-1872 -- Early botanical networks and trees, 1766-1815 -- The first evolutionary tree, 1786-1820 -- Diverse and unusual trees of the early nineteenth century, 1817-1834 -- The rule of five, 1819-1854 -- Pre-Darwinian branching diagrams, 1828-1858 -- Evolution and the trees of Charles Darwin, 1837-1868 -- The trees of Ernst Haeckel, 1866-1905 -- Post-Darwinian nonconformists, 1868-1896 -- More late-nineteenth-century trees, 1874-1897 -- Trees of the early twentieth century, 1901-1930 -- The trees of Alfred (...) Sherwood Romer, 1933-1966 -- Additional trees of the mid-twentieth century, 1931-1943 -- The trees of William King Gregory, 1938-1951 -- Hints of new approaches, 1954-1969 -- Phenograms and cladograms, 1958-1966 -- Early molecular trees, 1962-1987 -- Notable trees of the past four decades, 1970-2010 -- Primeval branches and universal trees of life, 1997-2010. (shrink)