This article is chiefly concerned with Wallace Stegner’s ideas of aridity as the key to the understanding of the history and culture of the American West. It first examines the arguments of some major books published in the 1980s that helped strengthen Stegner’s conviction that the West was heading towards environmental disaster due to the rapidly increasing depletion of its rivers and aquifers, a projected ecological crisis that has grown even more acute at the beginning of the 21st century. The subsequent focus of this article, however, is on Stegner’s predominant proposition that the abuse of the arid nature of the West – the rampant disregard of its environmental limitations – is a product of a mindset and a culture that he finds particularly Western. In the course of his analysis, Stegner sees the rootlessness that typified his own family history as a direct reflection of the transientness characteristic of the collective history of the American West, which served to hamper the evolution of a sense of place that in his view is the prerequisite for a genuine stewardship of the land.
The Sámis are the indigenous population of Northern Scandinavia. When the oppressive policy against the Sámi population in Norway was lightened during the 1960s, many Sámi communities established language and cultural centers for documentation and development of their language and cultural heritage as the oral tradition lost its ground in the modernization process. This paper aims to discuss how Sámi cultural centers use documentation both as a way of remembering the past and as a political strategy in order to produce evidence for land and water claims.
The Sámi centers are many-faceted institutions and document theory is suggested as a theoretical perspective in order to analyze why these institutions were established and how they are functioning today.
Two cases are presented. The first shows how the centers use documentation as a technique for restoring the past. The second is a ruling in the Norwegian High Court that shows a new turn in what can be accepted as documents proving indigenous land and water claims. This article is an attempt to introduce document theory as an analytical tool for analyzing the documentation processes in indigenous cultural centers.
Correct Dewey classification is demanding and time consuming. Many of the challenges with the Dewey system are related to locating and interpreting notes (i.e. classification guidelines), and number building. Today’s Dewey structure is a result of more than 100 years of optimizing a comprehensive classification system to the printed book medium. In order to limit the system into a “manageable” size, facets and facet-like subjects are represented only once and instead referred to from relevant classes for number building. A similar technique is used to reduce the number of notes. With the remediation of Dewey from printed to computer media, space is not limited and there is no need to compress the classification system. Number building can be eliminated, and all relevant notes attached to each class. Despite the fact that the system now has been available in electronic form for almost 20 years, it is still largely a copy of the printed version. This article first investigates how the Dewey system may be presented for users without number building, in order to make it more immediate and user-friendly. We first analyze the Dewey structure, and then look at different representations of the structure suited for computer media. Finally, some ideas for a new presentation without number building are proposed.
Knutsen, Nils Magne(Journal article; Tidsskriftartikkel; Peer reviewed, 2007)
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Abstract:
Knut Hamsuns sterke binding til Hamarøy og Nordland kommer
fram på flere måter i hans forfatterskap. I dette foredraget skal jeg
peke på noen av de trekkene som viser hvordan Hamsun forankrer
sine bøker i et nordnorsk folkeliv og i en nordnorsk dialekt han
kjente fra innsida. Hans solidaritet med landsdelen kom iblant
fram som en ganske aggressiv polemikk mot usynliggjøringa av
Nord-Norge og mot den hovedstads-dominans som var like tydelig
i norsk offentlighet den gang som i dag. Gjennom sine bøker og
artikler bidro Knut Hamsun mer enn noen annen i hans samtid til å
endre det negative bildet av Nord-Norge og nordlendingene.
Denne artikkelen undersøker paratekstens betydning for resepsjonen av den tyske filmen Das Leben der Anderen (2006) som autentisk og dermed som en troverdig fremstilling av historiske hendelser. Artikkelen viser at autentisitet ikke nødvendigvis er en objektiv kategori som kan etterprøves, men like mye en subjektiv følelse av at noe er fremstilt i samsvar med egne erfaringer og opplevelser. For å opprettholde tilskuerens illusjon om å se en autentisk film, brukes det – i tillegg til parateksten – en rekke virkemidler som blant annet skaper en følelse av umiddelbarhet hos tilskueren. Når tilskueren lever seg inn i historien og i livet til hovedpersonene, glemmer han/hun filmmediet og opplever det Owen Evans kaller for ”authenticity of affect”.
This article investigates public architecture in Sápmi from the 1970s until today, with particular emphasis on building materials and their discourse. Although the materials chosen for clothing or for revealed construction follow Nordic and inter¬national architectonic trends, the wood, stone, concrete and glass are ascribed a set of meanings to fit the Sami context. The question is to what degree these materials mediate conventional and even stereotypical understandings of Saminess, or produce awareness of new Sami architecture and identity.
In M. Ju. Lermontov's novel «A Hero of our Time» almost every person
is wearing a «mask», trying to conceal his or her real intentions—or, on
the contrary, taking advantage of the mask, doing or saying things
otherwise condemned by the prevailing social conventions. This paper
offers a brief analysis of the phenomenon and its function in the structure
of the novel.