Fear and Fascination: Anti-Landscapes between Material Resistance and Material Transcendence

This article examines the mechanisms that turn landscapes into anti-landscapes: projection, material interference, and ideological contradiction. Landscape and anti-landscape are dialectical twins; whereas landscape affirms cultural and aesthetic values, anti-landscape negates them through material resistance. This negation creates a sense of material transcendence, the aesthetic appeal through understanding that the world is larger than the projections onto it. Negation and material transcendence is the common denominator for anti-landscapes such as the exclusion zone around Chernobyl and the “feral houses” of the American suburb

The meanings of landscape : historical development, cultural frames, linguistic variation, and antonyms

The article presents the shifts of meaning of the term landscape in English and other Germanic languages, from territory to vista and social arena. The concept of landscape forms part of a cultural frame of reference, and changes in the cultural context also affect the meaning of landscape. The dependency of the meaning of landscape on context is shown in an overview of what landscape means in other languages: Spanish, Russian, Thai, Arabic, and Chinese. The different meanings of landscape can also be elucidated by identifying its antonyms, the anti-landscape and the non-landscape. Although commonly criticized in the academic field as being deterministic, early attempts to map the influence of landscape on culture should be re-evaluated in the current trend to understand landscape systemically.El artículo presenta los cambios de significado del término paisaje en inglés y en otros idiomas germánicos, desde territorio a vista panorámica y área social. El paisaje forma parte de un marco cultural de referencia, y los cambios en el contexto cultural también afectan el significado del paisaje. La dependencia del significado del paisaje del contexto cultural se muestra en un resumen de lo que el paisaje significa en otros idiomas: español, ruso, tailandés, árabe y chino. Los diferentes significados del paisaje también pueden ser dilucidados mediante la identificación de los antónimos de paisaje, el anti-paisaje y el no-paisaje. Aunque rechazados generalmente en el campo académico como deterministas, los intentos anteriores de analizar la influencia del paisaje en la cultura pueden ser revalorizados en la tendencia actual de entender el paisaje de forma sistémica

The Meanings of Landscape: Historical Development, Cultural Frames, Linguistic Variation, and Antonyms

The article presents the shifts of meaning of the term landscape in English and other Germanic languages, from territory to vista and social arena. The concept of landscape forms part of a cultural frame of reference, and changes in the cultural context also affect the meaning of landscape. The dependency of the meaning of landscape on context is shown in an overview of what landscape means in other languages: Spanish, Russian, Thai, Arabic, and Chinese. The different meanings of landscape can also be elucidated by identifying its antonyms, the anti-landscape and the non-landscape. Although commonly criticized in the academic field as being deterministic, early attempts to map the influence of landscape on culture should be re-evaluated in the current trend to understand landscape systemically.El artículo presenta los cambios de significado del término paisaje en inglés y en otros idiomas germánicos, desde territorio a vista panorámica y área social. El paisaje forma parte de un marco cultural de referencia, y los cambios en el contexto cultural también afectan el significado del paisaje. La dependencia del significado del paisaje del contexto cultural se muestra en un resumen de lo que el paisaje significa en otros idiomas: español, ruso, tailandés, árabe y chino. Los diferentes significados del paisaje también pueden ser dilucidados mediante la identificación de los antónimos de paisaje, el anti-paisaje y el no-paisaje. Aunque rechazados generalmente en el campo académico como deterministas, los intentos anteriores de analizar la influencia del paisaje en la cultura pueden ser revalorizados en la tendencia actual de entender el paisaje de forma sistémica

Encounters in and with Summer Camps—Happy Childhood, Alternative Bildung, or What?

Although they commonly are associated with recreation, summer camps for children can be seen as educational arenas that both supplement and challenge school education. Summer camps provide education in a broad sense of bildung. The article aims at describing what is experienced in summer camps and proposes various theoretical frames for these bildung processes. The main focus is on summer camps in Russia, and we interviewed Russian informants who participated in summer camps. The findings were that learning in the camps tends to be non-instrumental, allowing room for play and experimentation for both pupils and teachers. Social learning is marked by collective elements such as camp rituals and spontaneous solidarity, both forming an individual personality. Outdoor activities are important because they connect children to nature and develop a sense of place marked by biophilia. Furthermore, nature’s materiality creates a sense of being in the world, which means developing a sense of multiple relational settings, spanning from the materialities of geography, place, and objects to experiencing new social settings in the form of solidarity, ritual, and friendshi

Academic Freedom: Ivory Tower Privilege or Model for Education?

This article argues that the idea of academic freedom provides a conceptual angle for a critique of the ongoing educational reforms in Norway and in other countries, driven by economically oriented quality management (efficiency, standardization) and labor market orientation. A critique requires to make visible the price for the reforms, in particular the loss of freedom; here Hannah Arendt’s definition of double-tiered freedom is useful, and its main characteristics, the absence of instrumentality and its element of play can not only be applied to university research but to all levels of education

Distinction but not separation. Edward Abbey’s conceptualization of nature

Edward Abbey (1927-1989) har blitt en av de mest kjente og kontroversielle amerikanske forfattere i feltet ”nature writing.” Han blir ansett som en del av den radikale miljøbevegelsen i USA, og det blir ofte hevdet at naturbegrepet hans er basert på Arne Næss sin ”dypøkologi” som er et program for å re-integrere mennesket i naturen. I en analyse av Abbeys arbeid derimot viser det seg at det mest fremtredende element i hans forfatterskap er distinksjon—individets eller menneskets distinksjon som erfares gjennom en sterkt fysisk nærhet til naturen. Dette naturkonseptet har, i Abbeys tilfelle, sitt opphav i en kalvinistisk naturforståelse som har utviklet seg til en slags natureksistensialisme og som viser fellestrekk med den norske forfatteren og filosofen Peter Wessel Zapffe. Abbey ser naturen hovedsakelig som et ”heterotopia”, et rom innenfor en kultursammenheng, men med avvikende regler. Naturen blir ikke til et alternativ til kulturen, men naturen er et rom hvor kulturelle erfaringer kan bli gjort. Abbey har et ambivalent forhold til det moderne samfunnet, på den ene siden beskriver og forsvarer han former for naturbruk som er kompatible med et moderne samfunn, og på den andre siden advarer han mot destruktive tendenser i det samme moderne samfunnet. Videre har Abbey et ambivalent forhold til miljøbevegelsen: Han støtter de praktiske målene deres, men er kritisk til dens dypøkologiske fundamentet og også til dens fokusering på middelklassen. I en del av Abbeys verker er sosial klasse et hovedtema. Naturbegrepet har alltid vært et problematisk begrep, og denne analysen er basert på en posisjon mellom konstruktivisme og realisme; natur blir betraktet som en ekstern virkelighet som blander seg opp i den kulturelle konstruksjonen av virkeligheten uten å bestemme den. Abbey beskriver hvordan naturrom blir brukt og appropriert på en temporær måte uten at det kan brukes som grunnlag for kulturelle meninger

Udora : The Beauty of Mowing the Grass Together

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