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In Toward a Directionalist Theory of Space: On Going Nowhere, H. Scott Hestevold formulates a new relationalist theory of space by appealing to the view that the universe is directioned in the sense that there exist directional relations—a class of spatial relations that Leibniz overlooked. Extending the directionalist/relationalist theory of space to the problem of when it is that discrete objects compose a whole, Hestevold revisits his answer to the Special Composition Question. He also uses the directionalist/relationalist theory to formulate reductivist theories of boundaries and holes—theories that may allow one to resist the view that boundaries and holes are ontologically parasitic entities. Finally, he explores directionalism/relationalism vis-à-vis spacetime. After noting findings of modern physics that favor substantivalist spacetime and then developing metaphysical concerns that favor instead directionalist/relationalist spacetime, Hestevold notes the ontological benefit of endorsing spatiotemporal directional relations even if spacetime substantivalism is the winning theory.
On Dwelling explores the meaning of dwelling in places where we humans live and work—from our homes to the very planet we co-inhabit. Crossing boundaries and disciplines, it lays the groundwork for addressing place-based issues like migration, ethnic division, resource use, and human-caused peril to the earth itself.
The Place of the Mosque: Genealogies of Space, Knowledge, and Power extends Foucault’s analysis, Of Other Spaces, and the “ideological conflicts which underlie the controversies of our day [and] take place between pious descendants of time and tenacious inhabitants of space.” This book uses Foucault’s framework to illuminate how mosques have been threatened in the past, from the Cordóba Mosque in the eighth century, to the development of Moorish aesthetics in the United States in the nineteenth century, to the clashes surrounding the building of mosques in the West in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Akel Kahera uses Foucault’s genealogy to elaborate on and study the subj...
Mapping: A Critical Introduction to Cartography and GIS is an introduction to the critical issues surrounding mapping and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) across a wide range of disciplines for the non-specialist reader. Examines the key influences Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and cartography have on the study of geography and other related disciplines Represents the first in-depth summary of the “new cartography” that has appeared since the early 1990s Provides an explanation of what this new critical cartography is, why it is important, and how it is relevant to a broad, interdisciplinary set of readers Presents theoretical discussion supplemented with real-world case studies Brings together both a technical understanding of GIS and mapping as well as sensitivity to the importance of theory
The first to engage Foucault's geographies in detail from a wide range of perspectives, this book is framed around his discussions with the journal Hérodote in the mid 1970s. The contributors (including a number of key figures such as David Harvey, Chris Philo, Sara Mills, Nigel Thrift, John Agnew, Thomas Flynn and Matthew Hannah) discuss just what they find valuable - and frustrating - about Foucault's geographies. This is a book which will both surprise and challenge.
This book explores the relationship between long-distance hiking—in this case, hiking the Appalachian Trail—and spiritual pilgrimage. Kip Redick interprets the Appalachian Trail as a site of spiritual journey and those who hike the wilderness trail as unique contemporary pilgrims.
Drawing upon the massive redevelopment catalyzed by the government-led urban renewal in Hong Kong in the past two decades, Shu-Mei Huang recharges the story of post-colonial Hong Kong through care, displacement, and how care is displaced in urban governance. Theorizing “carescapes” as a heuristic device, Huang tracks how care is displaced, undervalued and even exploited in transforming urban landscape. In a rather counter-intuitive way, Urbanizing Carescapes of Hong Kong: Two Systems, One City considers the post-colonial picturing of “One Country, Two Systems” as insufficient if not misleading in understanding the city of Hong Kong and its changing ties with the world. Huang illustrates the way in which each urban citizen is propelled to be a self-enterprising subject and local urban initiatives are becoming cross-border investments upon global mobility. In an era when putatively both the talents and capital are moving toward Asia, the book illuminates how dynamism of colonialism is sustained rather than disappears within the two systems in one city.
This volume offers the author’s central articles on the medieval and early modern history of cartography for the first time in English translation. A first group of essays gives an overview of medieval cartography and illustrates the methods of cartographers. Another analyzes world maps and travel accounts in relation to mapped spaces. A third examines land surveying, cartographical practices of exploration, and the production of Portolan atlases.
Staging Authority: Presentation and Power in Nineteenth-Century Europe is a comprehensive handbook on how the presentation, embodiment, and performance of authority changed in the long nineteenth century. It focuses on the diversification of authority: what new forms and expressions of authority arose in that critical century, how traditional authority figures responded and adapted to those changes, and how the public increasingly participated in constructing and validating authority. It pays particular attention to how spaces were transformed to offer new possibilities for the presentation of authority, and how the mediatization of presence affected traditional authority. The handbook’s fourteen chapters draw on innovative methodologies in cultural history and the aligned fields of the history of emotions, urban geography, persona studies, gender studies, media studies, and sound studies.
The period from 1690 to 1763 was a time of intense territorial competition during which Indigenous peoples remained a dominant force. British Nova Scotia and French Acadia were imaginary places that administrators hoped to graft over the ancestral homelands of the Mi’kmaq, Wulstukwiuk, Passamaquoddy, and Abenaki peoples. Homelands and Empires is the inaugural volume in the University of Toronto Press’s Studies in Atlantic Canada History. In this deeply researched and engagingly argued work, Jeffers Lennox reconfigures our general understanding of how Indigenous peoples, imperial forces, and settlers competed for space in northeastern North America before the British conquest in 1763. Lennox’s judicious investigation of official correspondence, treaties, newspapers and magazines, diaries, and maps reveals a locally developed system of accommodation that promoted peaceful interactions but enabled violent reprisals when agreements were broken. This outstanding contribution to scholarship on early North America questions the nature and practice of imperial expansion in the face of Indigenous territorial strength.