title: Book Review: The good and evil serpent: How a universal symbol became christianized – by James H. Charlesworth

authors: Simms, Norman

subjects: book review

abstract: The article reviews the book “The good and evil serpent: How a universal symbol became christianized” – by James H. Charlesworth.

text: Book Review: The good and evil serpent: How a universal symbol became christianized – by James H. Charlesworth The article reviews the book “The good and evil serpent: How a universal symbol became christianized” – by James H. Charlesworth.

year: 2012

title: Is Emile in the Garden of Eden? Western ideologies of nature

authors: Tulloch, Lynley

subjects: nature

abstract: This paper will explore ideologies of nature including the ‘Garden of Eden’ and ‘wildernesses’. It locates these ideologies as morphing to accommodate the later trajectory of the Enlightenment Project and its endorsement of modern Western scientific and technological principles. Beginning with the premise that nature is unknowable, this paper offers a critique of dominant Western cultural ideologies that function to domesticate and order nature. This goes hand in hand with ideologies and practices of domination and control in the name of scientific, technological and capitalist neo-liberal economic ‘development’. The assumption that the boundary between nature and humans is crossable through scientific and technological knowledge is one that can be explored and challenged by examining how such knowledge is from the outset ideologically constructed. This paper will look at the concept of alienation from nature (as expressed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in ‘Emile’ and Karl Marx) to explore how modern schooling and the capitalist economy shape human-nature relations.

text: Is Emile in the Garden of Eden? Western ideologies of nature This paper will explore ideologies of nature including the ‘Garden of Eden’ and ‘wildernesses’. It locates these ideologies as morphing to accommodate the later trajectory of the Enlightenment Project and its endorsement of modern Western scientific and technological principles. Beginning with the premise that nature is unknowable, this paper offers a critique of dominant Western cultural ideologies that function to domesticate and order nature. This goes hand in hand with ideologies and practices of domination and control in the name of scientific, technological and capitalist neo-liberal economic ‘development’. The assumption that the boundary between nature and humans is crossable through scientific and technological knowledge is one that can be explored and challenged by examining how such knowledge is from the outset ideologically constructed. This paper will look at the concept of alienation from nature (as expressed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in ‘Emile’ and Karl Marx) to explore how modern schooling and the capitalist economy shape human-nature relations.

year: 2015

title: A late-Holocene and prehistoric record of environmental change from Lake Waikaremoana, New Zealand

authors: Newnham, Rewi M.

subjects: Palynology

abstract: Further evidence in support of a late pre-European (Polynesian) settlement of New Zealand is provided by an 1850-year-long tephropalynological record from a remote region in New Zealand's North Island. The earliest unequivocally anthropogenic forest clearance is estimated from sedimentation rates to have occurred c. 375 14C years BP (c. ad 1523–1631), although the radiocarbon chronology, shown by tephrochron ology to be erroneous due to hard-water effects, suggested this occurred c. 900 years earlier. Delineation of the anthropogenic era, and the distinction between human activity and other agents of environmental change in the pollen/spore diagram, are supported by cluster analysis and detrended correspondence analysis. Two distinct phases of forest clearance are evident during the pre-European era, reflecting local changes either in population pressure or settlement patterns. We note that the lull between the two phases of forest clearance coincides with the maximum of the ‘Little Ice Age’ within the period c. late ad 1600s to early 1800s.

text: A late-Holocene and prehistoric record of environmental change from Lake Waikaremoana, New Zealand Further evidence in support of a late pre-European (Polynesian) settlement of New Zealand is provided by an 1850-year-long tephropalynological record from a remote region in New Zealand's North Island. The earliest unequivocally anthropogenic forest clearance is estimated from sedimentation rates to have occurred c. 375 14C years BP (c. ad 1523–1631), although the radiocarbon chronology, shown by tephrochron ology to be erroneous due to hard-water effects, suggested this occurred c. 900 years earlier. Delineation of the anthropogenic era, and the distinction between human activity and other agents of environmental change in the pollen/spore diagram, are supported by cluster analysis and detrended correspondence analysis. Two distinct phases of forest clearance are evident during the pre-European era, reflecting local changes either in population pressure or settlement patterns. We note that the lull between the two phases of forest clearance coincides with the maximum of the ‘Little Ice Age’ within the period c. late ad 1600s to early 1800s.

year: 1998