Three Decades of Environmental Values: Some Personal Reflections

The journal Environmental Values is thirty years old. In this retrospective, as the retiring Editor-in-Chief, I provide a set of personal reflections on the changing landscape of scholarship in the field. This historical overview traces developments from the journal's origins in debates between philosophers, sociologists, and economists in the UK to the conflicts over policy on climate change, biodiversity/non-humans and sustainability. Along the way various negative influences are mentioned, relating to how the values of Nature are considered in policy, including mainstream environmental economics, naïve environmental pragmatism, the strategic role of corporations, neoliberalism and eco-modernism/techno-optimism. At the same time core value debates around intrinsic value in Nature and instrumentalism remain relevant, along with how plural environmental values can be articulated and acted upon. Naturalness, human relations to non-humans, and Nature as other, remain central considerations. The broadening of issues covered by the journal (e.g. covering social psychology, sociology and political science), reflect the need to address both human behaviour and the structure of social and economic systems to confront ongoing social-ecological crises.

Reading the Romancero: A journey from the score to the sound with a non-professional choir

This case study focuses on the processes involved in co-constructing an interpretation of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Romancero Gitano with a non-professional choir. Rehearsals began in April 2018 and culminated with a performance in June 2018. In order to develop an understanding of the individual and collective processes involved, data were generated through autoethnography and journaling. These texts tracked our regular weekly rehearsals, any extra individual practice, and the performance experience. Seven journals were subsequently compiled and analyzed together with my autoethnography. The findings show that the bulk of the writings focused on technical questions like correctly executing the information contained in the score, with significantly fewer references to other aspects of musical interpretation, such as timbre, or personal reflections regarding our perception of the music and our journey in learning and performing the work. Furthermore, the texts reveal a hierarchical structure within the choir, especially related to perceived levels of musical literacy and/or institutionalized knowledge. In this article, I discuss the various experiences relating to the process of co-constructing a musical interpretation, together with the potential of journaling to develop reflexive, conscious, and inclusive processes of collective musical development within the context of a non-professional choir.

Keeping Theology and Religious Studies Together

In this article, I offer some personal reflections on the developments NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion has gone through in recent years. Moreover, I argue that the continuing existence of journals like NTT JTSR is important for three reasons. (1) This type of general journals counterbalances the overspecialization that characterizes today’s universities. (2) Their rootedness in particular geographical areas and political entities makes that this type of journal makes a distinctive contribution to theology and religious studies. (3) It is important that this journal keeps theology and religious studies together in one journal, for in spite of centrifugal forces at work, they belong together.

Reflections on Dr. Donald A.B. Lindberg and Native Voices

Personal reflections on Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D. are offered by four Native American leaders who were instrumental in the successful development of the National Library of Medicine’s (NLM) Native Voices Exhibition: Stories of Health and Wellness from American Indians, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians. A uniquely collaborative effort, the exhibition features nearly 100 videographed interviews conducted by Dr. Lindberg with Native elders, healers, leaders, and people. He is credited with the incorporation of indigenous peoples’ healing knowledge in a personal and relational way, making for a wonderful journey together that was a very large chapter in his life and that of the authors.

The fragile boundary between ‘education’ and ‘educationalisation’: some personal reflections on the often exaggerated educational aspirations of museums

Although the origins of school museums and museums of children and childhood do not coincide directly, they nevertheless have moved into the same direction during the past decades. Especially because chil­dren are an important part of the visitors, a lot is invested by these mu­seums in educational support and activities. Pedagogical arguments form the backbone of their mission statements. A bit against the tide of this trend, I want to pay attention here to the often exaggerated educa­tional aspirations. To my mind the boundary between “education” and “educationalisation” is a fragile one and can be easily exceeded if the cultural-historical context of the museum content is ignored too much. Educating young people does not necessarily mean taking them by the hand and leading them through well-developed work packages, but is related to the more complex process of Bildung – the formation of a per­son, which usually starts, in view of attitudes and behaviour, by reflec­tion about self-identity as well as societal values and norms. In my opin­ion the encounter with well-chosen artefacts of former pedagogical mentalities and realities in museums of education, children and child­hood, can be helpful in this respect. Therefore, my plea for more cul­ture-historical contemplation and less educational strategy in represent­ing education, children and childhood is not to be understood as phasing efforts in this sector. On the contrary, the shift of emphasis from the neoliberal focus on efficiency, management, and social relevance (also in terms of a possible instrumentalization) of educational history towards more scientific, cultural-historical underpinning will need continuous support.

No Campus Life for Us: Personal Reflections of First-Year Students at a Malaysian University

The purpose of this qualitative study was to look into the online learning experiences of first-year communication and media students. The study was conducted by gathering 45 written reflection papers from first-year undergraduate students covering their opinions, challenges, and feelings about online learning. NVivo 12 was used to analyse the contents of these reflection papers. The findings of this reflective narrative study offer valuable insights into how first-year communication and media students perceive online learning classes in higher education, the challenges of working with new virtual classmates, the adjustment and role as student and daughters at home, as well as their mental health and emotional feelings towards online learning. Students learned vital lessons about time management, environmental awareness and independence as a result of these experiences. Students experienced anxiety and were demotivated as a result of the lack of face-to-face interaction and effective self-introduction with new peers. Most importantly, they were dissatisfied because they had lost out on the experiences of living on campus during their first year of study. Furthermore, this research looked into another component of the qualitative technique, which is a reflective method to study the first-year students’ experiences with online learning in a Malaysian public university, an insight that can be useful for both lecturers and students.

Reflections on Bharatanatyam and Neuroscience. A Dance Studies Perspective

Building on recent interest in the convergence of arts and sciences, we propose specific areas of intersection between the disciplines of Bharatanatyam, a classical Indian dance, and neuroscience. We present personal reflections by practitioners of both disciplines and propose that Bharatanatyam can be used to understand and explain brain functioning and that neuroscience can help analyze the dancing Bharatanatyam brain. We explore conceptual areas of convergence between the two fields as well as specific points of connection using language acquisition, rhythm, music, and cognition as examples. We conjecture that Bharatanatyam training and practice support long-term neuronal plasticity in various parts of the brain, including but not limited to the hippocampus, motor, premotor cortex, and the cerebellum. The beginning of the study of the intersection between these disciplines will pave the way for additional allied fields of rich thinking, exploration and potentially, therapy.