- Table View
- List View
The Aegean Sea Environment: The Geodiversity of the Natural System (The Handbook of Environmental Chemistry #127)
by Andrey G. Kostianoy Christos L. Anagnostou Ilias D. Mariolakos Panayotis Panayotidis Marina Soilemezidou Grigoris TsaltasThis is the first of three Books that together provide an integrated picture of the Aegean Sea, presenting the natural components of the system (Book I and Book II) as well as the human presence in the extended area (Book III). The Aegean Sea, also called Aegean Archipelagos, is an open, complex, and diverse marine system situated between the Black Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean, with different compartments and interactions. This book provides an in-depth exploration of the Aegean Sea's natural systems, shedding light on its geodiversity, geological dynamics, air-land-sea interaction, hydrology, suspended matter and sediments. Divided into 4 parts, the book introduces the diversity, geological dynamics, and evolution of the natural system of the Aegean Sea (Parts 1 and 2), followed by a section devoted to the land-sea interaction in the Aegean coastal system where experts in the field explore freshwater and matter inputs into the Aegean coastal system, as well as the coastal morphodynamics and evolution of the Aegean Sea, its adjacent land areas, and islands. In Part 3, the book delves into the air-sea interaction over the Aegean Sea, presenting its intricate dynamics, including heat and freshwater fluxes, wind waves, tides, and atmospheric deposition. The book closes with a section focused on the hydrology, chemistry, and dynamics of water masses and the sea bottom, providing insights into suspended matter and fluxes, sediments, climate changes, and the intricate nutrient and carbon dynamics within the Aegean Sea ecosystem (Part 4). Given the breadth and depth of its coverage, this book serves as a valuable resource for researchers, scholars, and students interested in marine geology, oceanography, and environmental analysis, as well as policymakers and conservationists seeking a comprehensive understanding of the Aegean Sea's complex natural systems.
Aeolian Desertification: Disaster with Visual Impact in Semi-arid Regions of Andhra Pradesh, South India (Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences)
by Pradeep Kumar Badapalli Raghu Babu Kottala Padma Sree PujariThis book summarizes contemporary research on land degradation, desertification, and how such issues relate to socioeconomic growth in developing countries. With a focus on local and regional levels, the book offers an in-depth analysis of aeolian action as a physical process, causes of land degradation, and desertification. The causes and effects of land degradation were investigated by utilizing multiscale and multidisciplinary methodologies, merging spatial socioeconomic data with remote sensing data, and using multiple levels and disciplinary approaches. The book also describes how to combine GIS with cutting-edge technologies such as remote sensing, geostatistics, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray (EDAX) analysis, and analytical hierarchy approaches, among others. Included is a thorough case study of the unusual but understudied semi-arid Anantapur district in Andhra Pradesh, South India. This book encourages the participation of all socioeconomic groups in decision-making and assists authorities and planners in developing suitable plans for the sustainable agricultural growth of an area. The book is an invaluable resource to comprehend and resolve issues about sustainable environmental planning and management.
Aeolian Geomorphology: A New Introduction (Zeitschrift Für Geomorphologie, Supplementbände Ser.)
by Ian Livingstone Andrew WarrenA revised introduction to aeolian geomorphology written by noted experts in the field The new, revised and updated edition of Aeolian Geomorphology offers a concise and highly accessible introduction to the subject. The text covers the topics of deserts and coastlines, as well as periglacial and planetary landforms. The authors review the range of aeolian characteristics that include soil erosion and its consequences, continental scale dust storms, sand dunes and loess. Aeolian Geomorphology explores the importance of aeolian processes in the past, and the application of knowledge about aeolian geomorphology in environmental management. The new edition includes contributions from eighteen experts from four continents. All the chapters demonstrate huge advances in observation, measurement and mathematical modelling. For example, the chapter on sand seas shows the impact of greatly enhanced and accessible remote sensing and the chapter on active dunes clearly demonstrates the impact of improvements in field techniques. Other examples reveal the power of greatly improved laboratory techniques. This important text: Offers a comprehensive review of aeolian geomorphology Contains contributions from an international panel of eighteen experts in the field Includes the results of the most recent research on the topic Filled with illustrative examples that demonstrate the advances in laboratory approaches Written for students and professionals in the field, Aeolian Geomorphology provides a comprehensive introduction to the topic in twelve new chapters with contributions from noted experts in the field.
Aeolian Geomorphology: Binghamton Geomorphology Symposium 17 (Routledge Library Editions: Geology #2)
by William G. NicklingThis book, first published in 1986, stems from the 1986 Binghamton Geomorphology Symposium. The topic was chosen because of the advances in the study of aeolian processes and landforms, particularly in the area of desertification, and the papers collected here clearly indicate that their study is not constrained by discipline boundaries but are of interest to geologists, physical geographers, soil scientists, meteorologists and engineers.
Aerial Aftermaths: Wartime from Above
by Caren KaplanFrom the first vistas provided by flight in balloons in the eighteenth century to the most recent sensing operations performed by military drones, the history of aerial imagery has marked the transformation of how people perceived their world, better understood their past, and imagined their future. In Aerial Aftermaths Caren Kaplan traces this cultural history, showing how aerial views operate as a form of world-making tied to the times and places of war. Kaplan’s investigation of the aerial arts of war—painting, photography, and digital imaging—range from England's surveys of Scotland following the defeat of the 1746 Jacobite rebellion and early twentieth-century photographic mapping of Iraq to images taken in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Throughout, Kaplan foregrounds aerial imagery's importance to modern visual culture and its ability to enforce colonial power, demonstrating both the destructive force and the potential for political connection that come with viewing from above.
Aerial Geology: A High-Altitude Tour of North America’s Spectacular Volcanoes, Canyons, Glaciers, Lakes, Craters, and Peaks
by Mary Caperton Morton“Get your head into the clouds with Aerial Geology.” —The New York Times Book ReviewAerial Geology is an up-in-the-sky exploration of North America’s 100 most spectacular geological formations. Crisscrossing the continent from the Aleutian Islands in Alaska to the Great Salt Lake in Utah and to the Chicxulub Crater in Mexico, Mary Caperton Morton brings you on a fantastic tour, sharing aerial and satellite photography, explanations on how each site was formed, and details on what makes each landform noteworthy. Maps and diagrams help illustrate the geological processes and clarify scientific concepts. Fact-filled, curious, and way more fun than the geology you remember from grade school, Aerial Geology is a must-have for the insatiably curious, armchair geologists, million-mile travelers, and anyone who has stared out the window of a plane and wondered what was below.
Aerobiology
by Michael L. Muilenberg Harriet A. BurgeAerobiology is the study of airborne particles that have an impact on humans and other organisms. Every day, we are exposed to airborne particles, including "natural" particles such as pollen, bacteria, and fungi, and "unnatural" particles, such as asbestos fibers and noxious chemicals. Aerobiology highlights the current interests in this field, primarily the ecology and distribution of airborne particles and their effects on health.
Aeroform: Designing for Wind and Air Movement
by James Jones Demetri TelionisAeroform: Designing for Wind and Air Movement provides a comprehensive introduction to applying aerodynamic principles to architectural design. It presents a challenge to architects and architectural engineers to give shape to the wind and express its influence on architectural form. The wind pushes and pulls on our buildings, infiltrates and exfiltrates through cracks and openings, and lifts roofs during storm events. It can also offer opportunities for resource conservation through natural ventilation or a biophilic connection between indoors and out. This book provides basic concepts in fluid mechanics such as materials, forces, equilibrium, pressure, and hydrostatics; introduces the reader to the concept of airflow; and provides strategies for designing for wind resistance, especially in preventing uplift. Natural ventilation and forced airflow are explored using examples such as Thomas Herzog’s Hall 26 in Hanover, RWE Ag building in Essen Germany, and the Kimbell Art Museum in Texas. Finally, issues of wind and airflow measurement are addressed. A reference for students and practitioners of architecture and architectural engineering, this book is richly illustrated and presents complex concepts of aerodynamic engineering in easy-to-understand language. It prepares the architect or architectural engineer to design buildings that are visually expressive of a dialogue between wind and built form.
Aeronomy of Mars (Astrophysics and Space Science Library #469)
by S. A. Haider“Mangalyaan was launched on November 5, 2013, to Mars by Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). On October 2, 2022, ISRO declared that Mangalyaan had lost communications with Earth. Mars Color Camera (MCC) on-board Mangalyaan has taken thousands pictures of Mars. A full disk of Mars image observed by Viking is shown on the cover page of this book. Mars is covered by the dust as observed by Mangalyaan (from Arya et al., 2015). This book presents the atmospheric and ionospheric results obtained from all missions to Mars. It also covers various atmospheric and ionospheric models of Mars. Broadly speaking, the planet’s atmosphere can be divided into two regions: lower and upper. These two regions can be coupled due to the propagation of energy from the lower to the upper atmosphere. The first-ever book on the aeronomy of Mars, this work is intended to help students and researchers familiarize themselves with the field of aeronomy. In addition, it helps planetary probe designers, engineers, and other users in the scientific community, e.g., planetary geologists and geophysicists”.
Aeronomy of the Earth's Atmosphere and Ionosphere (IAGA Special Sopron Book Series #2)
by Archana Bhattacharyya Dora Pancheva Mangalathayil Ali AbduThis book is a multi-author treatise on the most outstanding research problems in the field of the aeronomy of the Earth's atmosphere and ionosphere, encompassing the science covered by Division II of the International Association of Geomagnetism and Aeronomy (IAGA). It contains several review articles and detailed papers by leading scientists in the field. The book is organized in five parts: 1) Mesosphere-Lower Thermosphere Dynamics and Chemistry; 2) Vertical Coupling by Upward Propagating Waves; 3) Ionospheric Electrodynamics and Structuring; 4) Thermosphere- Ionosphere Coupling, Dynamics and Trends and 5) Ionosphere-Thermosphere Disturbances and Modeling. The book consolidates the progress achieved in the field in recent years and it serves as a useful reference for graduate students as well as experienced researchers.
Aerosol Atmospheric Rivers: Availability, Spatiotemporal Characterisation, Predictability, and Impacts (SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology)
by Manish Kumar Goyal Kuldeep Singh RautelaThis book thoroughly examines aerosol pollution and aerosol atmospheric rivers (narrow corridors of concentrated suspended aerosols in the sky), exploring their significant effects on human health, the environment, and global climate. Readers will find detailed discussions on these phenomena' sources, composition, patterns, and advanced methods for their detection, monitoring, and mitigation. Each chapter examines the complex dynamics of aerosol atmospheric rivers and the use of data mining and artificial intelligence in analyzing aerosol pollution. The book also highlights the interactions between aerosol pollution, aerosol atmospheric rivers, and particulate matter concentrations with associated risk, offering practical adaptation, mitigation, and resilience strategies.
Aerosol Optical Depth and Precipitation: Measuring Particle Concentration, Health Risks and Environmental Impacts
by Sneha Gautam Cyril Samuel Roshini Praveen KumarThis volume uses aerosol optical depth (AOD) analysis through mapping and remote sensing techniques to derive the relationship between aerosols and hazardous precipitation events, primarily in the form of flooding. Attention is also given to pollution caused by an abundance of particulate matter in the atmosphere and its impacts on human health, which is also assessed via the study of AOD. Background is given on how AOD is retrieved, and why it is a useful tool for estimating atmospheric particle concentration, but also the challenges associated with using this approach. Different aerosol types are introduced to perform a comparative analysis of the most common associations between pollution impacts on temperature and resulting precipitation events. These analyses will help to provide an overview of the best strategies to make informed and sustainable disaster risk management practices and policies. The target audience for the work is students, researchers, and scientists working witha vision towards sustainability, public health safety and air pollution mitigation measures. It will also be a useful text for climate change policy makers, environmental engineers and stakeholders in social development sectors.
Aerosol Pollution Impact on Precipitation: A Scientific Review
by Zev Levin William R. CottonLife on Earth is critically dependent upon the continuous cycling of water between oceans, continents and the atmosphere. Precipitation (including rain, snow, and hail) is the primary mechanism for transporting water from the atmosphere back to the Earth's surface. It is also the key physical process that links aspects of climate, weather, and the global hydrological cycle. Changes in precipitation regimes and the frequency of extreme weather events, such as floods, droughts, severe ice/snow storms, monsoon fluctuations and hurricanes are of great potential importance to life on the planet. One of the factors that could contribute to precipitation modification is aerosol pollution from various sources such as urban air pollution and biomass burning. Natural and anthropogenic changes in atmospheric aerosols might have important implications for precipitation by influencing the hydrological cycle, which in turn could feed back to climate changes. From an Earth Science perspective, a key question is how changes expected in climate will translate into changes in the hydrological cycle, and what trends may be expected in the future. We require a much better understanding and hence predictive capability of the moisture and energy storages and exchanges among the Earth's atmosphere, oceans, continents and biological systems. This book is a review of our knowledge of the relationship between aerosols and precipitation reaching the Earth's surface and it includes a list of recommendations that could help to advance our knowledge in this area.
Aerospace Robotics: Selected Papers from I Conference on Robotics in Aeronautics and Astronautics (GeoPlanet: Earth and Planetary Sciences)
by Jerzy SąsiadekThis book presents the most important and crucial problems of space automation in context of future exploration programs. These programs could involve such issues as space situational awareness program, planetary protection, exploitation of minerals, assembly, manufacturing, and search for new habitable location for next human generations. The future exploration of Space and related activities will involve robots. In particular, new autonomous robots need to be developed with high degree of intelligence. Such robots would make space exploration possible but also they would make space automation an important factor in variety of activities related to Space.
Aerospace Robotics III (GeoPlanet: Earth and Planetary Sciences)
by Jerzy SasiadekThis book includes extended versions of original works on aerospace robotics presented at the Conference on Aerospace Robotics (CARO) in Warsaw. It presents recent advances in aerospace robotics, such as manipulators, which are widely used in space for orbital operations, for example, the Mobile Servicing System on the International Space Station and the Shuttle Remote Manipulator System. Such manipulators are operated by astronauts and mounted on large platforms, making the influence of manipulator motion on the state of the platform insignificant. Application of manipulators for capture maneuvers in unmanned On-Orbit Servicing or Active Debris Removal missions requires reliable control algorithms that take into account the free-floating nature of the manipulator-equipped spacecraft. As such the book presents possibilities for using space manipulators for exploration and a variety of space operations. Further, it discusses new methods for the control of autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) using vision systems and sensor fusion methodologies. Such autonomous flying vehicles could be used for materials deliveries and emergencies, as well as surveying and servicing.
AeroStruct: Contributions to the Closing Symposium of the German Research Initiative AeroStruct, October 13–14, 2015, Braunschweig, Germany (Notes on Numerical Fluid Mechanics and Multidisciplinary Design #138)
by Ralf HeinrichThis book reports on the German research initiative AeroStruct, a three-year collaborative project between universities and the aircraft industry. It describes the development of an integrated multidisciplinary simulation environment for aircraft analysis and optimization using high-fidelity methods. This system is able to run at a high level of automatism, thus representing a step forward with respect to previous ones. Its special features are: a CAD description that is independent from the disciplines involved, an automated CFD mesh generation and an automated structure model generation including a sizing process. The book also reports on test cases by both industrial partners and DLR demonstrating the advantages of the new environment and its suitability for the industry. These results were also discussed during the AeroStruct closing Symposium, which took place on 13-14 October 2015 at the DLR in Braunschweig, Germany. The book provides expert readers with a timely report on multidisciplinary aircraft design and optimization. Thanks to a good balance between theory and practice, it is expected to address an audience of both academics and professional, and to offer them new ideas for future research and development.
Aesthetic Sustainability: Product Design and Sustainable Usage (Routledge Studies in Sustainability)
by Kristine H. HarperWhy do we readily dispose of some things, whereas we keep and maintain others for years, despite their obvious wear and tear? Can a greater understanding of aesthetic value lead to a more strategic and sustainable approach to product design? Aesthetic Sustainability: Product Design and Sustainable Usage offers guidelines for ways to reduce, rethink, and reform consumption. Its focus on aesthetics adds a new dimension to the creation, as well as the consumption, of sustainable products. The chapters offer innovative ways of working with expressional durability in the design process. Aesthetic Sustainability: Product Design and Sustainable Usage is related to emotional durability in the sense that the focus is on the psychological and sensuous bond between subject and object. But the subject–object connection is based on more than emotions: aesthetically sustainable objects continuously add nourishment to human life. This book explores the difference between sentimental value and aesthetic value, and it offers suggestions for operational approaches that can be implemented in the design process to increase aesthetic sustainability. This book also offers a thorough presentation of aesthetics, focusing on the correlation between the philosophical approach to the aesthetic experience and the durable design experience. The book is of interest to students and scholars working in the fields of design, arts, the humanities and social sciences; additionally, it will speak to designers and other professionals with an interest in sustainability and aesthetic value.
The Aesthetics of Atmospheres (Ambiances, Atmospheres and Sensory Experiences of Spaces)
by Gernot BöhmeInterest in sensory atmospheres and architectural and urban ambiances has been growing for over 30 years. A key figure in this field is acclaimed German philosopher Gernot Böhme whose influential conception of what atmospheres are and how they function has been only partially available to the English-speaking public. This translation of key essays along with an original introduction charts the development of Gernot Böhme's philosophy of atmospheres and how it can be applied in various contexts such as scenography, commodity aesthetics, advertising, architecture, design, and art. The phenomenological analysis of atmospheres has proved very fruitful and its most important, and successful, application has been within aesthetics. The material background of this success may be seen in the ubiquitous aestheticization of our lifeworld, or from another perspective, of the staging of everything, every event and performance. The theory of atmospheres becoming an aesthetic theory thus reveals the theatrical, not to say manipulative, character of politics, commerce, of the event-society. But, taken as a positive theory of certain phenomena, it offers new perspectives on architecture, design, and art. It made the spatial and the experience of space and places a central subject and hence rehabilitated the ephemeral in the arts. Taking its numerous impacts in many fields together, it initiated a new humanism: the individual as a living person and his or her perspective are taken seriously, and this fosters the ongoing democratization of culture, in particular the possibility for everybody to participate in art and its works.
The Aesthetics of Everyday Life (Spaces, Places And Environments Ser.)
by Andrew Light Jonathan SmithThe aesthetics of everyday life, originally developed by Henri Lefebvre and other modernist theorists, is an extension of traditional aesthetics, usually confined to works of art. It is not limited to the study of humble objects but is rather concerned with all of the undeniably aesthetic experiences that arise when one contemplates objects or performs acts that are outside the traditional realm of aesthetics. It is concerned with the nature of the relationship between subject and object.One significant aspect of everyday aesthetics is environmental aesthetics, whether constructed, as a building, or manipulated, as a landscape. Others, also discussed in the book, include sport, weather, smell and taste, and food.
The Aesthetics of Industrial Design: Seeing, Designing and Making
by Richard HerriottThis textbook introduces design students to key principles of three-dimensional form, bridging aesthetics and practical design objectives. It explores how we see and what it is that characterises visually appealing and satisfactory design. Written by an experienced designer, educator and researcher, The Aesthetics of Industrial Design equips students with the knowledge and understanding of how aesthetically superior design is distinct from lesser work. It explains the key principles and concepts they can incorporate into their own designs, encourages readers to investigate and experiment with real design problems and enables them to verbally communicate their design intentions. The book prompts readers to critically reflect on their work and surroundings. Through numerous clear examples and illustrated case studies, which are guided by cognitive science and the application of aesthetic theory, the book brings together the basic aspects of design as form-giving. It explores the balance of function, material and appearance in detail and explains the reasons for common aesthetic faults and how to avoid them. Aimed at undergraduate- and postgraduate-level students within the design fields, this book reveals the secrets to aesthetically successful products that readers can take from education into future practice.
The Aesthetics of the Undersea (Routledge Environmental Humanities)
by Margaret Cohen Killian QuigleyAmong global environments, the undersea is unique in the challenges it poses – and the opportunities it affords – for sensation, perception, inquiry, and fantasy. The Aesthetics of the Undersea draws case studies in such potencies from the subaqueous imaginings of Western culture, and from the undersea realities that have inspired them. The chapters explore aesthetic engagements with underwater worlds, and sustain a concern with submarine "sense," in several meanings of that word: when submerged, faculties and fantasies transform, confronting human subjects with their limitations while enlarging the apparent scope of possibility and invention. Terrestrially-established categories and contours shift, metamorphose, or fail altogether to apply. As ocean health acquires an increasing share of the global environmental imaginary, the histories of submarine sense manifest ever-greater importance, and offer resources for documentation as well as creativity. The chapters deal with the sensory, material, and formal provocations of the underwater environment, and consider the consequences of such provocations for aesthetic and epistemological paradigms. Contributors, who hail from the United States, United Kingdom and Australia, include scholars of literature, art, new media, music and history. Cases studies range from baroque and rococo fantasies to the gothic, surrealism, modernism, and contemporary installation art. By juxtaposing early modern and Enlightenment contexts with matters of more recent – and indeed contemporary – importance, The Aesthetics of the Undersea establishes crucial relations among temporally remote entities, which will resonate across the environmental humanities.
An Affair with Africa: Expeditions and Adventures Across a Continent
by Alzada Carlisle KistnerIn June 1960, a young faculty wife named Alzada Kistner and her husband David, a promising entomologist, left their 18-month old daughter in the care of relatives and began what was to be a four month scientific expedition in the Belgian Congo. Three weeks after their arrival, the country was gripped by a violent revolution trapping the Kistners in its midst. Despite having to find their way out of numerous life-threatening situations, the Kistners were not to be dissuaded. An emergency airlift by the United States Air Force brought them to safety in Kenya where they continued their field work.Thus began three decades of adventures in science. In An Affair with Africa, Alzada Kistner describes her family's African experience -- the five expeditions they took beginning with the trip to the Belgian Congo in 1960 and ending in 1972-73 with a nine-month excursion across southern Africa. From hunching over columns of ants for hours on end while seven months pregnant to eating dinner next to Idi Amin, Kistner provides a lively and humor-filled account of the human side of scientific discovery. Her wonderfully detailed stories clearly show why, despite hardship and danger -- and contrary to all of society's expectations -- she could not forsake accompanying her husband on his expeditions, and, to this day, continues to find the world "endlessly beckoning, a lively bubbling cauldron of questions and intrigue."In the spirit of Beryl Markham's West with the Night and Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa, An Affair with Africa shares with readers the thoughts and experiences of a remarkable woman, one whose unquenchable thirst for adventure led her into a series of almost unimaginable situations. Readers -- from armchair travelers fascinated by stories of Africa to scientists familiar with the Kistners's work but unaware of the lengths to which they went to gather their data -- will find An Affair with Africa a rare treasure.
Affect, Space and Animals (Routledge Human-Animal Studies Series)
by Jopi Nyman Nora SchuurmanIn recent years, animals have entered the focus of the social and cultural sciences, resulting in the emergence of the new field of human-animal studies. This book investigates the relationships between humans and animals, paying particular attention to the role of affect, space, and animal subjectivity in diverse human-animal encounters. Written by a team of international scholars, contributions explore current debates concerning animal representation, performativity, and relationality in various texts and practices. Part I explores how animals are framed as affective, through four case studies that deal with climate change, human-bovine relationships, and human-horse interaction in different contemporary and historical contexts. Part II expands on the issue of relationality and locates encounters within place, mapping the different spaces where human-animal encounters take place. Part III then examines the construction of animal subjectivity and agency to emphasize the way in which animals are conscious and sentient beings capable of experiencing feelings, emotions, and intentions, and active agents whose actions have meaning for the animals themselves. This book highlights the importance of the ways in which affect enables animal agency and subjectivity to emerge in encounters between humans and animals in different contexts, leading to different configurations. It contributes not only to debates concerning the role of animals in society but also to the epistemological development of the field of human-animal studies.
Affective Ecocriticism: Emotion, Embodiment, Environment
by Kyle Bladow Jennifer LadinoScholars of ecocriticism have long tried to articulate emotional relationships to environments. Only recently, however, have they begun to draw on the complex interdisciplinary body of research known as affect theory. Affective Ecocriticism takes as its premise that ecocritical scholarship has much to gain from the rich work on affect and emotion happening within social and cultural theory, geography, psychology, philosophy, queer theory, feminist theory, narratology, and neuroscience, among others. This vibrant and important volume imagines a more affective—and consequently more effective—ecocriticism, as well as a more environmentally attuned affect studies. These interdisciplinary essays model a range of approaches to emotion and affect in considering a variety of primary texts, including short story collections, films, poetry, curricular programs, and contentious geopolitical locales such as Canada’s Tar Sands. Several chapters deal skeptically with familiar environmentalist affects like love, hope, resilience, and optimism; others consider what are often understood as negative emotions, such as anxiety, disappointment, and homesickness—all with an eye toward reinvigorating or reconsidering their utility for the environmental humanities and environmentalism. Affective Ecocriticism offers an accessible approach to this theoretical intersection that will speak to readers across multiple disciplinary and geographic locations.
Affective Spaces: Architecture and the Living Body (Ambiances, Atmospheres and Sensory Experiences of Spaces)
by Federico De MatteisThis book explores the notion of affective space in relation to architecture. It helps to clarify the first-person, direct experience of the environment and how it impacts a person’s emotional states, influencing their perception of the world around them. Affective space has become a central notion in several discussions across philosophy, geography, anthropology, architecture and so on. However, only a limited selection of its key features finds resonance in architectural and urban theory, especially the idea of atmospheres, through the work of German phenomenologist Gernot Böhme. This book brings to light a wider range of issues bound to lived corporeal experience. These further issues have only received minor attention in architecture, where the discourse on affective space mostly remains superficial. The theory of atmospheres, in particular, is often criticized as being a surface-level, shallow theory as it is introduced in an unsystematic and fragmented fashion, and is a mere "easy to use" segment of what is a wider and all but impressionistic analytical method. This book provides a broader outlook on the topic and creates an entry point into a hitherto underexplored field. The book’s theoretical foundation rests on a wide range of non-architectural sources, primarily from philosophy, anthropology and the cognitive sciences, and is strengthened through cases drawn from actual architectural and urban space. These cases make the book more comprehensible for readers not versed in contemporary philosophical trends.