Weather Report: Images from the Environmental Crisis

In the summer of 2004 I began filming scenes for what I thought was going to be a lyrical and quirky look at weather stories and weather lore across Canada. Climate change, or a section I called 'The Politics of Weather', was obviously going to be included but at that moment I thought it would be confined to one section, interspersed with weather proverbs or amusing bon mots from amateur weather observers. Like most people, I had a vague idea of carbon cycles and a dim appreciation of the complexities of Kyoto and emissions reductions. I was wary of apocalyptic scenarios but susceptible to low-level dread at the steadfast accumulation of international weather disasters, not to mention the increasing summer temperatures and smog days in my own city of Toronto. I left lights on, I used my dryer, I drove to work (I love my car). But the climate crisis is an issue that gets under your skin; ask any climate activist. That's because its dimensions are so all-encompassing and the task of addressing the issue is so urgent. It's a geopolitical issue as much as it is a local issue. It connects to the immediate materiality of our individual bodies, as much as it implicates energy regimes, models of development, how we organize cities, suburbs and transportation systems, public utilities and private corporations. It crosses issues of social justice in the global south and the crisis of democracy just about everywhere, and it puts the future on the agenda for all of us, in a way, as Andrew Ross suggests, that has not been seen since the mass socialist movements of the 1930s

Imperial patronage and urban display of Roman monumental fountains and nymphaea.

This dissertation considers the monumental urban fountains and nymphaea dedicated by or to ancient Roman emperors in Italy, Greece, and Turkey. Spanning the first through third centuries, this study situates each monument within its urban environment and investigates it as a product of its patron and particular historical and geographic context. These edifices---with their vast expanses of sparkling marble, intriguing sculptural displays, and kinetic integration of the natural world into the urban environment---monumentalized civic spaces that were important to their respective patrons. In Rome, the Meta Sudans and the Fountain in the Terrace of Domitian marked two regions where the Flavians drastically altered the cityscape. Both introduced innovative forms of display into the urban environment, especially the latter, which featured architectural elements previously restricted to the domestic sphere. The imperial edifices in Rome were almost immediately emulated in the provinces. Cities eager to demonstrate their own Romanitas incorporated the Meta Sudans and the later Septizoidum on civic coinage. Local patrons dedicated fountains to emperors in Ephesus, Keramus, Perge, and Sagalassos. These edifices drew inspiration from those in Rome yet addressed local concerns. The emperor Hadrian introduced Roman nymphaea to Greece and commissioned edifices in Asia Minor that complemented those dedicated by local patrons in the region. Under the Severans, the imperial nymphaeum form, transformed under Hadrian and provincial elites, returned to Rome. The Septizodium, which stood below the Palatine and faced the southern access road into Rome, visually and topographically linked Rome and the provinces while shifting the imperial emphasis from the urban center of Rome to its periphery. The Nymphaeum of Alexander Severus, which turned to face the city from outside the Servian wall, emphasized the primacy of Rome in the policies of its patron. The reuse of sculptural elements in this edifice added a new dimension to urban display in Rome that had repercussions far beyond the realm of monumental fountains. By tracing the historical development of monumental fountains and nymphaea and situating each edifice within its urban context, this study illuminates the motivations and ideologies of imperial and local patrons in Rome and the provinces.Ph.D.Ancient historyArchaeologyArt historyCommunication and the ArtsSocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/125152/2/3186696.pd