Articles with tag: affect

05/30/2016 _Perspective

A Poetic Reading of Permaculture in Three Helical Aesthetic Plans

Permaculture is an emergent agricultural design system based on principles of ethics of the human co-existence with nature. The term derives from the definition of permanent agriculture and it was first coined in the 1970s by the Australian scholars Bill Mollison and David Holmgren. Its definition was soon amplified by the authors in order to incorporate the comprehension of permanent culture as an interdependent process of the design of agricultural systems. Beyond co-existing with nature, human beings are argued to be an integrant part of it, in a system of interdependence which affects both and which can be perceived in patterns of spiral and organic processes of relation. In face of current, not completely new, but definitely undeniable states of emergency of environmental catastrophes, climate change, and the abuse of non-renewable natural resources, investigations about emergent models for the human interaction with nature, such as permaculture, become crucial for ethical reconsiderations of human behaviour in moments of such emergency. Furthermore, not only is the emergent characteristic of permaculture as a possible innovative agri-cultural system worth investigating, but also — and, in this case, more importantly — the unconventional aesthetic paths that emerge from it are incredibly fruitful for reflecting upon such states of emergency. …

Love as Practice of Solidarity

Of Peripheral Bodies, Embodied Justice and Associated Labor

On the eve of my third late spring in Frankfurt, there is the lightness and ease of being not there but here. The lindens in front of the windows give comfort, but I’m yearning for the sweetly pungent fragrance of their Banja Luka sisters. I will not be smelling them this June, or perhaps ever again for that matter, the borders have been closed again due to the corona pandemic. Their smell is from elsewhere and it won’t be going anywhere — their labors are lost.

The Securopolis

(Re)assembling Surveillance, Resilience, and Affect

This paper explores the idea that modern urban life is being re-assembled. It supposes that such a (re)assemblage encourages a particular configuration — which I have dubbed ‘the securopolis.’ The securopolis is a form of urban life in which humans enact a ‘watchfulness’ (i.e. surveillance) combined with a ‘readiness for the worse’ (i.e. resilience). It is also argued here that the securopolis is not simply a model of a secure city, rather it is increasingly an influence on the underlying habitus […]

Affective Bodies

Nonhuman and Human Agencies in Djuna Barnes's Fiction

Reading fiction makes us face all kinds of situations, characters and phenomena that we might consider strange and uncanny, yet enchanting and immersive. This way, it also puts us face to face with the nonhuman in its various forms. Some fictional encounters with the nonhuman may become accentuated and even disturbing, especially ones in which the nonhuman presents itself as profoundly entangled with what we consider as human, which entails elements such as agency based on individual subjectivity, psychologically motivated actions, […]