Life in the Pyrocene

We have created a Pyrocene. Now we have to live in it. So what does a fullblown fire age look like, and can we adapt? There is a third facet to this planetary fire triangle, one that looks beyond present and absent fires to deep time. Its combustibles come not from living biomass, but from lithic ones. With increasing frenzy, humans are binge-burning fossil fuels. They are taking fuel out of the geologic past, burning it in the present with complex (and little understood) interactions, and then releasing the effluent into the geologic future. Industrial combustion has restructured the dynamics of fire on Earth. Fossil fuel combustion acts as an enabler, as a performance enhancer, and by its disrupting effects on the atmosphere as a globalizer. It has ensured that little of the Earth will be untouched by fire's reach if not its grasp.

I present the case for a fire-centric scholarship, and suggest the transition between burning living landscapes and lithic ones (in the form of fossil fuels) would make a good demonstration of what such scholarship might do and what its value could be.

Journal of Biogeography, 2011

Journal of Biogeography, 2014

In our 2011 synthesis (Bowman et al., Journal of Biogeography, 2011, 38, 2223–2236), we argued for a holistic approach to human issues in fire science that we term ‘pyrogeography’. Coughlan & Petty (Journal of Biogeography, 2013, 40, 1010–1012) critiqued our paper on the grounds that our ‘pyric phase’ model was built on outdated views of cultural development, claiming we developed it to be the unifying explanatory framework for all human–fire sciences. Rather, they suggest that ‘historical ecology’ could provide such a framework. We used the ‘pyric transition’ for multiple purposes but did not offer it as an exclusive explanatory framework for pyrogeography. Although ‘historical ecology’ is one of many useful approaches to studying human–fire relationships, scholars should also look to political and evolutionary ecology, ecosystems and complexity theories, as well as empirical generalizations to build an interdisciplinary fire science that incorporates human, ecological and biophysical dimensions of fire regimes.

2020

This chapter offers a philosophical response to the devastating and deadly wildfires that have been ravaging in California in the past few years; it turns to the myth of Prometheus (as interpreted through Bernard Stiegler’s Technics and Time) for theoretical guidance. The chapter’s central argument is that the Promethean duplicitous gift—of fire and technical skills (technē)—to humanity has both led to the current tragedy of the anthropocene and may offer impetus to imagine a future beyond the anthropocene, but only if fire and technical skills come to be seen in a different light, and solicit different affects. To reimagine our post-human existence as part of the presumed new epoch of the pyrocene, the chapter follows the meaning of fire and technics both on a local, Californian scale and on a global scale. For the local, Californian scale, the fire-adaptable existence of California’s Giant Sequoias and the pyrodiverse practices of the California indigenous Miwok stand central. Add...

SAINT CLARE TUGUEGARAO, 2022

ORIENATTION LECTURE ON NAPOLCOM EXAM REVIEWER SAINT CLARE REVIEW CENTER

History and Archaeology of Semirechie, 2017

Sergey A. YATSENKO GOLDEN PLATE FROM WUSUN GRAVE IN GROTTO OF KARGALY GORGE - History and Archaology of Semirechie [Jetysu] (Istoriia i arckheologiia Semirechia), Vol. 5 (ed. by A.A. Goryachev), Almaty, 2017, pp. 143-155 (in Russian) The golden plate from nomadic Wusun aristocratic grotto grave of the 1st c. BCE from the SE Kazakhstan, weel-known as “Kargaly diadem” (fig. 3: 1; 4: 2), was not the artifact of such type because it was initially arched. It was used for different purposes because it had two different fastening systems (holes for a thread and rivets) (fig. 4: 3). The main damage of the plate was the hands’ rift in the center and two cross punches (fig. 4: 4). The plate was the product of Wusun jeweler who mainly copied the Chinese models (fig. 5). The information on Wusun religion is very meager and it is almost no chance to reconstruct the meaning of its composition. The plate was probably the symbolic detail, the part of applications complex of a ritual vehicle similar to samples found in graves 1 and 3 of Majiayuan necropolis in Gansu Province, the 4th-3rd cc. BCE, here met the similar zoomorphic and floral motifs (fig. 6). In plate’ publications were some mistakes: instead the original the mirror reflection or unknown reconstruction (!) was placed (fig. 3: 2-3). ILLUSTRATIONS: (Figs. 2 d; 3, 1 – photo archive of Oleg Belyalov; Fig. 1, 1 – the Grotto photo from Vladimir Saraev archive). Fig. 1. Grotto with the grave of noble Wusun woman in Kargaly Gorge, 50 km west from Almaty, 2300 m high, ca. the 1st c. BCE: 1 – grotto photo of Vladimir Saraev: 2 – some types of 370 golden artifacts (National Museum of Kazakhstan). Fig. 2. Costume golden accessories from the graves of nomadic Wusun aristocracy in Ili River Basin on Kazakhstan / China border: 1 – applications, Talgar necropolis near Almaty; 2 – applications, Bailequir, NW Xinjiang; 3 - the seal-rings: a – Nilka, b – Xiatai (NW Xinjiang), c - Betkainar near Almaty, d – Kargaly. Fig. 3. The golden polychromic plate (“diadem” from Kargaly Grotto): 1- photo from Oleg Belyalov personal archive, ca. 2000 y.; 2 – the mirror image of “Kargaly plate” typical for many modern publications; 3 – unknown reconstruction still often represented as the “real Kargaly plate” in many publications (details); Mikhail Chernov version of the plate’ center reconstruction (2015). Fig. 4. The golden polychromic openwork plate from Kargaly Gorge: 1 – Mikhail Chernow drowing (2015); 2 – its correction by Sergey Yatsenko (2017): 3 – two fastenings systems’ remains; 4 – the main types of plate’ damages to the surface. Fig. 5. Some analogies in the Han Dynasty Chinese art: 1 – Taosist personages with the “dragon” (loong / 龍); 2 – jade images of “dragons” with the feline tails (www.pinterest.com/sergey1305/ancient-jewellry/ ). Fig. 6. Ritual vehicles from graves 1 and 3 in Majiayuan cemetery (Gansu Province): 1 – the vehicle from grave 3; 2 – the golden applications of both behicles (Excavations on the Majiayuan, 2008). ЯЦЕНКО С,А, ЗОЛОТАЯ ПЛАСТИНА ИЗ УСУНЬСКОГО ПОГРЕБЕНИЯ В ГРОТЕ УЩЕЛЬЯ КАРГАЛЫ Золотая ажурная пластина из скального погребения кочевых усуней ок. I в. до н.э. в ущелье Каргалы (ЮВ Казахстан), известная как «каргалинская диадема» (рис. 3: 1; 4: 2), ею не была, так как она изначально не была изогнутой. Она использовалась в разных целях, т.к. на ней выявлены две разных системы крепления (отверстия для ниток и заклепки) (рис. 4: 3). Основными повреждениями пластины были ручной разлом в центре и два поперечных удара (рис. 4: 4). Это работа усуньского ювелира, во многом копировавшего китайские образцы (рис. 5). Информация о религии усуней сохранилась весьма скудно, и шансов надежно реконструировать смысл композиции почти нет. Пластина могла быть символически помещенной аппликацией из комплекса украшений ритуальной повозки, подобной найденным в могилах 1 и 3 некрополя Мацзиюань (пров. Ганьсу) IV-III вв. до н.э., где встречены сходные зооморфные и растительные мотивы (рис. 6). В публикациях пластины неоднократно были ошибки, когда вместо подлинника помещали зеркальное отражение и даже неизвестную реконструкцию (рис. 3: 2-3).

La présente recherche a pour objectif d’étudier les représentations de futurs enseignants de français langue étrangère à propos des langues médiatrices en classe de langue étrangère dans un contexte d’enseignement-apprentissage du FLE en Croatie. Dans la première partie de l’article nous introduisons deux paradigmes théoriques qui traitent différemment la place des langues non-cibles en classe de langue, le paradigme monoglossique, dont le principe didactique est d’empêcher le contact des langues, et le paradigme hétéroglossique, dont les représentants trouvent le contact des langues bénéfique dans l’enseignement-apprentissage des langues. Dans la deuxième partie de l’article, à partir des analyses des journaux de bord des étudiants de Master FLE, nous essayons de faire une esquisse de leurs représentations des choix de langues médiatrices utilisées en classe du FLE par les enseignantes observées, et, ainsi, essayer de mieux connaître la place que le plurilinguisme pourrait prendre dans l'avenir du FLE en Croatie. L'analyse qualitative des journaux de bord a montré que, selon les étudiants, le cours du FLE devrait se faire entièrement en langue cible, et que le recours à la langue maternelle devrait être accepté seulement si les élèves ne réussissent pas à comprendre le discours de l’enseignant en langue cible. Ces résultats indiquent que le paradigme hétéroglossique et ses valeurs plurilingues dans le domaine du FLE en Croatie semblent loin d'être mis en œuvre.