Browsing by Subject "Nature"

Now showing 1 - 15 of 15

A more perfect nature : the making of the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, 15,000BP - present
(2019-05) Ritner, Jesse Harrison; Bsumek, Erika Marie; Olwell, Robert
This report explores the history of the Minisink Valley and the stories told about it. I examine how stories about the place influenced how people understood the past, and how these pasts were used to imagine potential futures. I pay special attention to discourses about nature as well as settler-colonial discourses. Lastly, I contemplate what this study may add to current discussions around the Anthropocene.
Alexia Leclerqc Interview
(2022-04-06) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life; Department of Religious Studies
This interview is with Alexia Leclerqc, an environmental justice activist working with PODER in Austin, TX. Alexia discusses moving around a lot in childhood and struggling with others’ lack of respect for her family’s Taiwanese and Buddhist traditions. They talk about coming into environmental justice work via their education and witnessing injustice and contradiction in the world. She shares about the work she does, such as water testing and meeting with politicians and scientists. Alexia also describes Start:Empowerment, the nonprofit organization they co-founded to get environmental justice curriculum into high schools.
An application of Attention Restoration and Psychoevolutionary theories to understanding the impact of hospital room window views, plantscapes, and green colored decor on acute restoration
(2023-04-21) Suess, Courtney; Benedikt, Michael
The present Thesis investigated the extent to which the amount of visible green nature, adjacent buildings, horizon and sky, and hospital building envelope in window views, as well as other features of plantscapes and green colored decor in a hospital room interior design, affect acute restoration. In Part I of the Thesis, 12 virtual reality room scenarios were developed across which the window views, plants, and green colored room decor variables relevant to Psychoevolutionary Theory (PET) and Attention Restoration Theory (ART) were systematically manipulated. In Part II of the Thesis, data collection at Texas A & M University as part of a broader experiment generated a data set (N = 188) wherein participants rated each of the 12 hospital room scenarios developed in Part I on restorative quality (extent to which the room provided them a sense of physical relaxation and helped them clear their mind of stressful thoughts), after exposure to an acute external stressor. In Part III of the Thesis, ratings for each scenario in virtual reality were aggregated from the secondary data set provided by Texas A & M University and used in full-profile conjoint and moderated conjoint analyses. In the overall conjoint analysis, indoor plants produced the highest utility score on physical relaxation, while green nature window view content had the highest utility score for mental clarity. Further group analyses revealed utility scores for indoor plants were significantly higher on both physical relaxation and mental clarity for respondents experiencing more stressful thoughts, induced from the external stressor. In general, the hospital room scenarios with highest prevalence of green elements, (i.e. highest proportion of green nature in view, indoor plants, and green colored décor) were ranked as having highest relative restorative potential. Adjacent buildings in the view of the window and enclosure from the hospital building envelope were not preferred, and significantly less so in the case of a hospital room’s contribution to mental clarity. While more open views with visible horizon and sky had some utility on restoration, their relative importance to physical relaxation and mental clarity was ranked lower among the variables tested. Findings highlight the combined restorative effects and importance of: (1) indoor plants; (2) an unobstructed view from the window that maximizes visible green nature, horizon and sky outdoors; and, (3) green colored décor in hospital room design.
Communicative elements of fluid collective organizing
(2019-05) Smith, William Rothel, III; Treem, Jeffrey W.; Barbour, Joshua; Jarvis, Sharon; Love, Brad
Organizational communication research has traditionally focused on the organizing processes of firmly structured conventional organizations, such as workplaces, schools, and nonprofits. However, a growing line of research is beginning to investigate more fluid, ad-hoc, ephemeral, spontaneous, and loosely structured social collectives. This dissertation draws upon interview, observational, photographic, and social media data collected over a four-year time frame to investigate how a community of bicycle motocross (BMX) riders in the Southern United States communicate and organize to build and maintain public bicycle dirt jumps, despite lacking many of the elements commonly associated with formal organizing. The dissertation explores three key areas: (1) how communication gives rise to forms of authority in this fluid social collective, (2) how the materiality of the natural environment intersects with the group’s organizing, and (3) how intermingling social, material, and performative practices negotiate the tensions inherent to this organizational setting. Findings of the first study reveal that specific communicative interactions in the form of repetitive stories and assertives scale up to form a paradoxical “authoritative text” (Kuhn, 2008) that upholds a group ethos of contribution, but fails to specify the nature of how to carry out that contribution. The paradoxical nature of this authoritative text perpetuates conflict within the space. Study two conceptualizes environmental materiality as pure natural or (re)natural—depending upon the degree of alteration at human hands—and explains how a combination of these forms of nature contribute to the group’s organizationality. Finally, study three develops a model showing how the tensions of organic/civic, inclusion/consensus, and contributing/loafing are negotiated through communicative practices to sustain a version of the space that is both material and vision flexible. Theoretical contributions of this dissertation include extending our understanding of how authoritative texts emerge outside of formal organizing, providing a stronger analytical focus on the material, and explicating the importance of the space of practice in the tensions inherent to fluid organizing. The final section provides suggestions for how organic community recreation sites might be supported through official organizations, without bureaucratic or institutional influence undermining the core characteristics of the community.
Grace Carlin Interview
(2021-07-30) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life
This interview is with Grace Carlin, a San Antonio-based environmentalist. Grace discusses finding her passion for nature through exposure to national parks and educational opportunities. She talks about her work coordinating the Urban Land & Water program with the Green Spaces Alliance of South Texas, describing the impacts and challenges of community gardens. Grace also shares her interest in youth engagement, particularly the value of young people’s contributions and their right to a future with a stable global climate.
Hierarchies of Brain and Being: Abraham Maslow and the Origins of The Hierarchy of Needs in German Brain Science
(2016-05) Coonan, Daniel J
I tell the history of how a theory–that humans have a hierarchy of needs–emerged in 1943 from larger conflicts over the study of the brain and the human being. A stoic, yet passionate neurologist Kurt Goldstein who fled Nazi Germany inspired a young psychologist, Abraham Maslow, with a forceful critique of materialist science; in doing so, hierarchies of brain became hierarchies of mind and self. The theory is widely used in business schools today and by more than few everyday American’s looking for greater success, deeper experiences of spirituality, and, in some cases, release from the sufferings of contemporary American life. This story is about how we make sense of our lives by the “real” established by science and how very much belief in something, whether formula or faith, helps us make sense of the reality of the “real” and thereby create the communities in which we live and strive.
How climate change education is hurting the environment
(The Hill, 2018-12-24) Nxumalo, Fikile
The illusionistic pergola in Italian Renaissance architecture : painting and garden culture in early modern Rome, 1500-1620
(2012-05) Nonaka, Natsumi; Taylor, Rabun M.; Beneš, Miroslava; Alofsin, Anthony; Cleary, Richard; Bober, Jonathan; Waldman, Louis
The present dissertation is intended to be the first systematic investigation of the illusionistic pergola considered within the framework of the intellectual culture and the garden culture of early modern Rome. The subject is the fresco or mosaic decoration featuring a pergola – a depicted trelliswork covered with plants and peopled with birds – in the loggias, porticoes, and garden pavilions of villas and palaces in Rome and its environs. These pictorial fictions have survived in sufficient numbers to constitute a decorative trend, and moreover, appear in clusters at specific periods, which can be partly explained by means of the cultural factors predominant at the time. The dissertation discusses these pergolas in relation to antiquarian culture, the collecting of plants and birds, the study of natural history, garden furnishings and the art of treillage, thereby contextualizing them within the culture of early modern Rome. The dissertation assembles the first corpus of illusionistic pergolas in the period 1500-1620, updating a much earlier general corpus of 1967 by Börsch-Supan, and distinguishes three distinct periods of the proliferation of these pictorial fictions in Rome and its environs: the first period (1517-1520), the second period (1550-1580), and the third period (1600-1620). Important cultural issues relevant to each period are identified,and proposed as the frameworks for study. These include the reference to the antique and to the vernacular, mediation between indoors and outdoors, the tension between art and craft and the ambiguity of the pseudo-architectural, semantic and aesthetic cross reference between architecture and garden, and the reflection of the intellectual culture. On examination, the illusionistic pergolas are revealed to be a nexus of interrelationships between built structure, ornamented surface, garden and landscape, as well as multivalent embodiments of emerging ideas and sensibilities concerning the experience of architectural space and nature. By taking into account the middle ground of architecture and garden, the study explores the multivalence of ephemeral garden furnishings and their fictive counterparts, opening up a new perspective on the sites examined, and attempts to see a resonance of the tradition in modern times.
Interior sensation and exterior forces : cutting away
(2014-05) Salazar, Samantha Parker; Mutchler, Leslie
In my work, traditional printmaking techniques are pushed to their limits as a foundation for cut-paper installations and sculptures. The work reflects on notions of interiority and exteriority in relation to the body and nature, drawing from my experiences in meditation to create a two and three-dimensional visual play primarily using paper. Because of their illustrative looseness, the biomorphic structures convey a variety of sensations, shapes, and movements that are related to the interior of the body and exterior forces in nature. In this report, I plan to discuss topics of process, materiality, sensation, objecthood and phenomenology within the context of my work and as these topics relate to other artists such as: Lee Bontecou, Francis Bacon, Oskar Fischinger, Richard Serra, and Judy Pfaff. I also plan to indicate a contemporary and art historical context for the work, placing my pieces within a specific canon of visual culture.
Rubber boom narratives and the development of the Amazon
(2018-06-19) Carey-Webb, Jessica Ann; Leu, Lorraine; McDonough, Kelly; Polit, Gabriela; Garfield , Seth
This dissertation examines how race and gender inform structures of imperialism in the Amazon during a period of heightened national and international attention from the late 19th to the early 20th century. Representations of the Amazon at this crucial period both during and later depicting the rubber boom, are full of ambiguities between civilized and savage, center and periphery, nature and culture. The Amazon emerges as a distinct region, a natural paradise devoid of civilization and in need of preservation, a place of promising riches, and/or a blank screen on which to project western ideas of progress. The material I consider includes natural histories, travelogues, biography, fiction, photographs, and film. These texts represent many different genres and all aim to define, categorize, represent, or collect Amazonian territories and peoples in ways that transform territory to establish modern national societies, economies, and authorities. At the heart of this study is the project of modernization, the coming into being of modern nation states and citizens participating in global and national capitalist economies with all of the gains and losses this process implies. Modernity is built out of power and conflict and depends not only on economic and political processes, but also on ways of knowing, understanding, and being. These diverse and complex documents, the knowledge they created about landscapes and people, and the way that they inscribe relations of power and ideas about economic, cultural, and national development worked to establish the contemporary Amazon. I look at the layered discursive and visual languages that produce the Amazon as a space of conflict representative of anxieties about modernization.
Salty feel
(2018-07-10) Tremblay, Ingrid; Hauft, Amy, 1957-
My practice looks at the potential of sculpture to create an extension of experience, while generating new experience. My inspirations are the natural world, the body, affect theory, sciences, linguistics, literature and mythology. The idea of the impression is omnipresent in the work - the impressions left by human passage, by past experiences or by the natural world. Natural and artificial, machine-made and crafted, micro and macro, past and present are often combined or mirror each other in the work. I create spaces where reality, perception, memory and the imaginary meet and merge. When installed together, the sculptures are in conversation. They are connected in space, forms, concepts, narratives and processes
The greening of the city : development and application of a biophilic urbanism framework to neighborhood development in Austin, Texas
(2022-05-07) Faulkner, Brittany M.; Lieberknecht, Katherine E.; Miro, Juan
Over the past decade, biophilic design has become increasingly popular in the field of architecture and other areas of small-scale development. It recognizes humanity’s innate affinity for nature and illustrates that integrating nature into the built environment boosts human health, productivity, and safety, and ultimately creates positive spaces and experiences. The success of biophilic design at a site level has prompted exploration into broader application, such as neighborhoods, cities, and regions, but has ultimately remained confined to small pockets of these areas. How can we transform the existing architectural frameworks of biophilic design into a model for neighborhood and city planning in a way that fosters connections between people and landscape while addressing planning challenges brought about by climate change? This report will assess the current principles of biophilic design across three scales—site specific architecture, neighborhood and city scale, and regional planning—and discuss several case studies. This research will be used as a baseline to develop a comprehensive biophilic urbanism framework for city planning and design which is then applied to a site located in East Austin.
Thomas Hanrahan Guest Lecture
(1993-10-04) Hanrahan, Thomas
Audio files are EID restricted. Individuals without an EID should send an email request to apl-aaa@lib.utexas.edu.
Umbanda's relationship with the natural environment & religious intolerance
(2021-05-07) Costa Kott, Alex; Crosson, J. Brent (Jonathan Brent)
This work explores one of Brazil’s most important syncretic religion, Umbanda. The first chapter focuses on how Umbanda and umbandistas relate and interact with the natural environment in its various forms. One of the main themes of this section is the importance of the orixás for the religion’s relationship with nature. This chapter also explores: plant taxonomy in Umbanda, Umbanda’s National Sanctuary in the city of Santo André (SP), the establishment Umbanda’s Magna Carta in 2013, the appearance of political-partisan movements for African derived religions in Brazil, the use of sacred food offerings in Umbanda, and how Brazil’s process of urbanization has impacted how umbandistas interact with nature in midst of the Anthropocene. The second chapter explores how religious intolerance has been manifesting against indigenous and African religiosity. The first section of the chapter focuses on the history of how Catholicism has demonized indigenous and African spirituality. This chapter also explores: the Kingdom of Kongo’s process of Catholicization, the establishment of Zélio de Morães’ Tenda Espírita Nossa Senhora da Piedade in Cachoeiras de Macacu, Rio de Janeiro, and also the spread of religious intolerance through evangelization, televangelism, Kardecian Spiritism and Eurocentrism.
Walter Celestine Interview
(2020-10-29) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life; Department of Religious Studies
This interview is with Walter Celestine, Program Director of the Native American Employment Training Program at the American Indian Center of Houston, who is from the Alabama-Coushatta reservation in Livingston, Texas. Walter discusses the history of the reservation, their traditional practices, and finally, integrating with society off of the reservation. The First Indian Baptist church was created by Walter’s family and the reservation has changed significantly. He speaks to the importance of dispelling stereotypes of Native American culture and taking care of Mother Earth. He also speaks to the challenges the Alabama-Coushatta community have faced through the COVID-19 pandemic.