“Come Then Ye Classic Thieves of Each Degree”: The Social Context of the Persepolis Diaspora in the Early Nineteenth Century

The diaspora of fragments from the stone structures on the Persepolis terrace in Iran began in earnest in the early nineteenth century. Members of the embassy of Sir Gore Ouseley made the best-known collections in 1811. This paper sets these removals in the context of a broader series of British physical interventions and transactions between 1800 and 1828. Fragments moved within a gift economy operating between detachments of East India Company officers who were deployed in Qajar-ruled Persia in order to control the Persian Gulf and the overland route to Europe. Archival research has enabled the reconstruction of object biographies for three fragments in London and Edinburgh, and for several other fragments whose present location is not known to me. The case study contributes to our knowledge of the overall rate of the dispersal of carved relief from the site. Acquisitions of architectural fragments from the site accelerated significantly in the twentieth century; the patterns of removal in the nineteenth century reflect the difficult and variable prevailing conditions.</p

The Lorax complex: deep ecology, ecocentrism and exclusion

Biodiversity preservation is often viewed in utilitarian terms that render non-human species as ecosystem services or natural resources. The economic capture approach may be inadequate in addressing biodiversity loss because extinction of some species could conceivably come to pass without jeopardizing the survival of the humans. People might be materially sustained by a technological biora made to yield services and products required for human life. The failure to address biodiversity loss calls for an exploration of alternative paradigms. It is proposed that the failure to address biodiversity loss stems from the fact that ecocentric value holders are politically marginalized and underrepresented in the most powerful strata of society. While anthropocentric concerns with environment and private expressions of biophilia are acceptable in the wider society, the more pronounced publicly expressed deep ecology position is discouraged. “Radical environmentalists” are among the least understood of all contemporary opposition movements, not only in tactical terms, but also ethically. The article argues in favor of the inclusion of deep ecology perspective as an alternative to the current anthropocentric paradigm. https://doi.org/10.1080/1943815X.2012.742914 https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina

Ecological Discomforts and How to Study Them

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