When we speak of clouds these days, it is as likely that we mean data clouds or network clouds as cumulus or stratus. In their sharing of the term, both kinds of clouds reveal an essential truth: that the natural world and the technological world are not so distinct. In The Marvelous Clouds, John Durham Peters argues that though we often think of media as environments, the reverse is also just as true - environments are media. Peters defines media expansively as elements that compose the human world. Drawing from ideas implicit in media philosophy, Peters argues that media are more than carriers of messages: they are the very infrastructures combining nature and culture that allow for human life to thrive. Through an encyclopedic array of examples from the oceans to the skies, The Marvelous Clouds reveals the long prehistory of so-called new media. Digital media, Peters argues, are an extension of early practices tied to the establishment of civilization such as mastering fire, building calendars, reading the stars, creating language, and establishing religions. New media do not take us into uncharted waters, but rather confront us with the deepest and oldest questions of society and ecology: how to manage the relations people have with themselves, others, and the natural world. A wide-ranging meditation on the many means we have employed to cope with the struggles of existence - from navigation to farming, meteorology to Google - The Marvelous Clouds shows how media lie at the very heart of our interactions with the world around us. Peters' book will not only change how we think about media but will provide a new appreciation for the day-to-day foundations of life on earth we so often take for granted.
In recent decades, a novel right-wing nationalist and
populist tendency has emerged on a global scale, frequently framing
Christian identity as one of its central pillars. This article explores the relationship between right-wing populism and Christianity, by addressing how populism considers the role of religion on the one hand, and how Christianity position itself in relation to populism on the other hand, with a specific focus on Pope Francis’s social thought Although the relationship between right-wing populism and Christianity appears to be ambivalent, the response of Pope Francis, as elaborated in the encyclical _Fratelli Tutti_, is not. In the section entitled “A Better Kind of Politics,” the distinction between the “popular” and “populist leader” is employed as a hermeneutical tool to investigate current political developments. Furthermore, it enables us to respond to the allegation that Francis himself could be considered a populist, as some claim, referring to his alleged affinities with the political culture associated with Peronism. In his interpretation of the notion of political love as delineated in _Fratelli Tutti_, Francis leaves us with a legacy regarding the ethical response of Christians to populism, promoting instead a “culture of encounter” and a “better kind of politics.”
Handrian Ginting Jonson, Afrida Afrida, Zulkifli Addina
et al.
This study examines the 2024 flash flood in Pandai Sikek, West Sumatra, through the lens of disaster anthropology and social memory. Based on preliminary research and one week of ethnographic fieldwork, the research reveals that while extreme rainfall triggered the event, socio-ecological drivers such as post-COVID return migration, deforestation, and land-use change significantly amplified its impacts. The community’s vulnerability was heightened by the absence of social memory: no oral traditions, rituals, or institutional practices existed to anticipate or respond to such a disaster. The flood therefore collapsed long-standing narratives of safety associated with Mount Singgalang and forced the community to confront a new reality of risk. Findings show that the disaster produced both trauma and solidarity, as
gotong royong, remittances from migrants, and local organizing supported immediate recovery. At the same time, new and contested memories of vulnerability began to emerge. Early mitigation efforts, including reforestation, canal reinforcement, and disaster awareness initiatives, indicate steps toward resilience, though challenges remain in institutionalizing these lessons. The study concludes that building resilience in Pandai Sikek requires not only ecological restoration but also the transformation of traumatic absence into enduring social memory.
The twentieth century has produced most of the concepts in constructive criticism of scientific, philosophical and artistic experiences that came under the name of post-modernism, and the term (participation in the theatrical presentation) is one of the modern terms that came from the experiences of directors who rebelled against the realistic trend in art, including (Brecht, Artaud and many others), and through the research, the researcher concluded that participation, although it is a modern term, has deep roots in theatrical experiences throughout the historical ages since the time of the Greeks until now, and that post-modern directors tried to reach through making approaches with some historical experiences and theatrical philosophy for their directing style for the participatory theatrical presentation, and as a result, the researcher took in the theoretical framework the first topic (the space of the participatory presentation of the theater throughout the ages) and the second topic (the directorial works of the participation of the most prominent theatrical directors), and in the third procedural chapter he took the work of a multinational group (Belgian - Turkish ) With a presentation entitled (Gilgamesh) in which the director employed the participatory method and communicative interaction in terms of the spatial environment and the role of the recipient in the theatrical performance, and after that I reached the most prominent results and conclusions that had a positive effect in the participatory work of the theatrical performance .
Guided by the control-value theory of achievement emotions, this study examined the relations between control-value appraisals, achievement emotions and English performance in Chinese middle school students, with a focus on the predictive effects of control-value appraisals and achievement emotions and the mediating effects of achievement emotions. The participants were 347 8th graders from a middle school in north China, who took an English test and answered a battery of questionnaires on control and value appraisals, achievement emotions and background information. The major findings were: 1) perceived control significantly predicted positive emotions and negatively predicted negative emotions; perceived value significantly positively predicted positive emotions, anxiety and shame, yet inversely predicted anger and boredom; 2) neither perceived control nor value significantly predicted English performance; 3) hope and anger significantly positively while anxiety and hopelessness negatively predicted English performance; and 4) mediational modelling revealed no significant mediating effects of the achievement emotions on the relationships between perceived control and value and English performance. These findings highlight the importance of control, value and emotions in second/foreign learning as well as the complexity of the relationships between the variables. Based on these findings, suggestions for second/foreign learning and future research are discussed.