Urban Sustainability: Innovative Spaces, Vulnerabilities and Opportunities

[Abstract] The need to promote a debate among researchers from active research networks in IAPS is at the origin of this book on “Urban sustainability: Innovative spaces, vulnerabilities and opportunities”. This book is the reflection of a growing tradition of tackling issues that are central to social and political efforts to solve pressing societal and environmental problems in evermore intricate contexts of resource scarcity, growing population and urbanization, social inequality and rising emissions. Promoting research and creating the conditions for lively and effective scientific debate has been part of the mission of IAPS since its beginnings. The growing effervescence of content network is reflected in a rising number of scientific events and interesting publications, such as the book you now have in your hands. In this introduction, we will gloss over the reasons that lie behind the choice of theme, which is likely to underlie the discussions and debates throughout the next years, all over the world. The theme we have selected, and reflected in the title, makes reference to a recurring concept that is ever-present in today’s society: sustainabilit

Humanist Narratology and the Suburban Ensemble Dramedy

What is a “humanistic drama”? Although we might describe narrative works as humanist, and references to the humanistic drama abound across a breadth of critical media, including film and literary theory, the parameters of these terms remain elliptical. My work attempts to clarify the narrative conditions of humanism. In particular, humanists ask how we use narrative texts to complicate our understanding of others, and question the ethics and efficacy of attempts to represent human social complexity in fiction. After historicising narrative humanism and situating it among related philosophies, I develop humanist hermeneutics as a method for reading fictive texts, and provide examples of such readings. I integrate literary Darwinism, anthropology, cognitive science and social psychology into a social narratology, which catalogues the social functions of narrative. This expansive study asks how we can unite the descriptive capabilities of social science with the more prescriptive ethical inquiry of traditional humanism, and aims to demonstrate their productive compatibility. From this groundwork, I then look at a cluster of humanistic film texts: the suburban ensemble dramedy, a phenomenon in millennial American cinema politicising the quotidian and the domestic. Popular works include The Kids Are All Right, Little Miss Sunshine, Little Children, Junebug, The Oranges, and what is arguably the inciting feature in a wave of such films entering production, American Beauty. I provide examples of humanist readings of these films at two levels: an overview of genre development as social phenomenon (including histories of suburban depiction onscreen, ensemble cinema and affective experimentation in recent American filmmaking), followed by a close reading of a progenitor text, Ron Howard's 1989 film Parenthood

Speaking of faith at work: towards a trinitarian hermeneutic

This thesis presents a theological exploration of the problems and potentialities of speaking about Christian faith in the context of working life. It is based on a qualitative investigation of the experience of Christians working in secular institutions. The argument is that the discursive interface between work and worship raises critical questions of identity, of power and of language which challenge the integrity of Christian discipleship. The practice of articulating faith-talk in the working context is analyzed in the light of a trinitarian hermeneutic. The thesis addresses the practical theological question: How may a Christian speak adequately and appropriately of their faith at work? This question is explored through an integration of qualitative-representational analysis and theological-evaluative critique. An ethnographic method is developed, based on extended immersion in the field of secular work, and focused in a series of research conversations and reflective meetings. Analyzed from the perspective of a Christian woman who has struggled and continues to struggle to forge an adequate and contextual articulation of faith in workplace settings, the problematic is described through the metaphor of ‘a life in two languages’. A faithful resolution of the problem is approached through the contextual discovery of three trinitarian practices: of engagement, fluency and communion. The thesis makes a contribution to academic knowledge in the practical theology of working life. By addressing the communicative dimension of working life, and exploring the experience of Christians in the workplace using the resources of cultural theory and discourse analysis, the thesis presents a contemporary and practical perspective on work. In a field which attracts a large volume of popular and motivational writing, the study contributes a sustained and critical reflection and offers a creative map for interpreting the challenge of Christian witness at work in the light of a trinitarian understanding of faithful practice