This paper explores the implications of mass migration and the conditions of hybridization for early 21st century Western societies in texts dealing with migrantexperiences. The novel Goodbye Lucille (2007) by the Afro-cosmopolitan writer Segun Afolabi will be explored with respect to the crucial problem of an ethics and politics of belonging, related to the recent controversies surrounding multiculturalism and issues of migration. This text deals with the “in-between world” of migrants and negotiates questions of identity, alienation and belonging in a so-called transcultural/transnational context. The issues raised in Segun Afolabi's fiction are addressed by employing the ways of thinking developed in political philosophy, including recent phenomenological attempts to theorize the notion of “home” and “belonging” (e.g., by Karen Joisten, but also Martin Heidegger) in order to deal with the complexities of the issue. The question, “What constitutes the good life for the individual and the political community?”, needs to be considered by taking into account the current plurality of approaches to forging identitiesin the political sphere as well. The subtlety of literary accounts of this phenomenon – literature may indeed be one of the best diagnostic instrument for studying a society – sheds light, I suggest, on the conditions of politically relevant identity formations. A close reading of literary texts such as those by Afolabi offers an important contribution to a realistic, and therefore complex and complicating, account of our overall situation in the Western world with respect to the politics of belonging.

This article suggests an evaluation of the way by which European Culture understands the idea of rationality of the world. We pursue the consequences of the fact that in this cultural tradition the world is seen as a rational and unitary reality, which exists for the human dialogue as a condition for man’s spiritual growth. We also point out the implications of the affirmation according to which the rationality of the world has multiple virtualities, but its malleability and contingence are brought to the light and put in acts by man, the one who uses these dimensions. We evaluate the importance of these theses from today’s necessity to expand the scientific paradigm of describing the reality, when it is clearly necessary to overcome the classic subject-object duality.

This paper is concerned with the ′criterion of demarcation′ that Karl Popper put forward, while trying to show that it can be safely said that it is still standing. In doing so, I turn to two main objections to it: a Lakatos-Kuhn vision on the growth of science, and the famous Quine-Duhem thesis. The point that I hopefully made here is that the basic message of this prescriptive method is as respectful as ever, and, although not the subject of this paper, for special emerging fields of knowledge, such us urbanism – my main field of interest, falsifiability can offer the right scientific attitude.

An extremely profound knower of the history of the Romanian people and of humankind as a whole, Vasile Goldiş brought an original contribution to the development of philosophy of history. In this respect, without having attempted to write a treatise or to work out a systematic body of work in the field, he discovered objective grounds or “natural laws” determining the evolution lines for historical events, analyzed the relation between trends in lawmaking and the unifying force of spiritual values, expressed his persuasion regarding historical progress, the need for solidarity among people and peoples until humanity would reach a planetary organization of society, a world state capable of securing universal peace, based on the precept of Christian love and succeeding in bringing the human soul and the divine absoluteness together.

The article aims to support the notion of philosophy emerging from culture; a notion that paves the way for the emergence of ubuntu as a philosophy from an African culture. Understanding this emergence is vital in the manner a particular human community relates with itself and other communities worldwide. Moreover, the idea of ubuntu has become a philosophy that is in dialogue with culture. Hence, from the writer’s punto de vista, this stance further strengthens the argument affirming the value of African culture from which African philosophy has certainly emerged.

While critically examining the techno-scientific thrust that props the discourse of sustainability, this paper argues for the inclusion of the humanities and the imaginative counterworlds and complex ontological perspectives that literature offers. As Donna Haraway proposes, “we need stories (and theories) that are just big enough to gather up the complexities and keep the edges open and greedy for surprising new and old connections” (2015: 160). The Indian graphic novel Bhimayana and the artisanal aesthetic of the tribal artists is read for the ways in which it mediates current debates on the posthuman, offering the possibility of intimate affirmative relationalities that could create sustainable futures

Environmentality teases out the multilayered human-environment contacts and connections in terms of human agency and governmentality, ecological objects and their (in)dependence, power/knowledge and environmental (in)justice. “Sustainable Development Goals” recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our environment. This paper outlines the scopes, scales, and methods of Chinese storytelling and multimedia exhibitions on deforestation and afforestation, pollution and purification, and wastelands and eco-systems in industrial, de-industrial, and post-industrial times. The author considers short stories, novellas, novels, reportages, nonfiction writings, and visual artworks, with specific focus on trees, forests, and plant writing. By reading Kong Jiesheng’s “Forest Primeval,” Ah Cheng’s “King of Trees,” Xu Gang’s Loggers, Wake Up!, Yan Lianke’s Garden No. 711: The Ultimate Last Memo of Beijing, and Chen Yingsong’s The Forest Is Silent, the author aims to bring to light the awakening and formation of Chinese ecological consciousness, the token of marred humanity and ecocritical reflection, the manifestation of biophilia-biophobia experiences, as well as the structural transformation of private feelings and public emotions in modern and contemporary China.

This paper reveals the importance of stories associated to specific objects. The study argues that storytelling can infuse life and meaning into insignificant things. From a semiotic point of view, material objects become signs linked to particular people, experiences, desires, values, thus creating strong emotional bonds with the landscapes part of human daily routines. Beyond fetishism or consumerism, these significant objects could serve the purpose of eco-critical awareness. Through the lenses of a micro-narrative by British novelist Tom McCarthy, attached to the insignificant object of a “Mermaid figurine”, the paper explores the ecology of little things in order to draw attention to sustainability concerns .

Whereas mainstream theories of environmental art and sustainable development consider art as a domain suitable for the application of environmentally friendly procedures, such as the circular economy, trash management and digitization, this research article focuses on the internal development of the autopoetic and self-referential art machine, which generates an art-specific sustainability. The circular environmental economy coexists with the circular art economy, which implies changes in the aesthetics and poetics of the artwork; it deploys upcycling to use art trash in creating a new, higher value object. Art-specific sustainability contributes to the power and complexity of the art machine with new conceptual interventions and devices. These devices allow art to resist threats from other fields and to redefine itself. As sustainable development agendas of international organizations take into account the social, political, and economic initiatives that promote ethics, inclusion, and tolerance, this article discusses the contributions of contemporary environmental art to expanded concepts of the political and science. In particular, art activism, in cooperation with civil society, can be an important driver in areas that parliamentary politics overlooks.

This paper emphasizes the crucial role that language use plays in climate change communication. In particular, this paper examines UN public discourse and narratives about climate change. It will be shown that the climate change is often described as a "threat to human wellbeing" and as an external enemy—the Other. On the other hand, humanity is often portrayed as a victim of climate change. The consequence of this rhetoric and logic of apocalypse is insufficient action in relation to climate change. The narrative construction of the Other that is described as a threat is founded on binary oppositions: we/they, self/other, culture/nature, human/non-human and so forth. As long as climate change is described as an external enemy and "independent matter" and climate policy is based on binary oppositions, action to combat climate change will remain insufficient.

Many environmental ills derive from humanity’s unsustainable fondness for meat, a fondness that often pushes (and sometimes breaks) environmental limits and reveals unsustainable patriarchal ideologies. Han Kang’s The Vegetarian and Ang Li’s The Butcher’s Wife each, in very different ways, expose the strands of “meat and gender” enmeshments in Korea and Taiwan respectively, showing the mutual interdependence of carnivorism and patriarchal power. So deeply rooted are the entangled strands of carnivorism and sexism that contesting them (either together or apart) means dismantling the very definition of human corporeality: in The Vegetarian, this means that a woman becomes a plant; in The Butcher’s Wife, it means that a man becomes the very cattle he has spent his life slaughtering; in both, questioning meat is a very dangerous challenge that comes from a woman through a narrative perspective that is clearly feminist. Both novels plainly show deep analogies and correspondences between domestic violence and violence against animals, and yet, in both, there is a taut relationship between vegetable-based histories and a more meat-based modernity. This article argues firstly that the violence of meat-eating in The Vegetarian and The Butcher’s Wife is both physical and psychological. Dreams and madness are involved. Normalcy is male, deviance female. Order is meat, chaos vegetal. And the threat of death will either be fully realized or will hang menacingly in the air. Secondly, this article argues that the novels importantly show that breaking points (psychological and environmental) are often utterly unpredictable and that once breached, the results can also be devastatingly unpredictable.

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road demonstrates the centrality of individualism to the unsustainability that defines consumer culture in the Anthropocene. His representation of cannibalism not only reflects the main problems of consumer culture but also sheds light on individualism as its driving force. While the cannibalistic world of The Road presents a struggle of individuals for autonomy, the novel’s unnamed boy protagonist shows that empathy can be a viable solution for that struggle. The novel suggests that making consumer culture sustainable means recognizing the violence of individualism and the significance of empathetic consciousness simultaneously. To exit the highway that leads to unsustainability means taking the road of empathy, for only this will potentially lead to sustainability in the Anthropocene.

Focusing on the ideological connotations and artistic techniques of the graphic novel The Wandering Earth, this paper discusses its adaptation from the literary work, and reveals its thoughts on the ecological problems and the sustainable development in the Anthropocene. Images in this graphic novel do not simply reproduce the externally visible objects, but let the invisible be seen by presenting a certain way for the viewer to observe the earth. This novel organically combines science fiction and the art of graphic storytelling, which is worthy of in-depth discussion from the interdisciplinary perspective

The environment is one of the salient issues that continues to challenge the political and cultural aspects of the society. The question that interrogates this paper is whether environmentalism is a modern phenomenon or has existed from the past? The paper also exposes the importance of the environment in the 19th century and its relation to politics. By focusing on two novels by Captain Frederick Marryat, a conservative and right-wing writer, the paper shows the approach to environmentalism defended by Tory governments in the Victorian period. Addressing also the topic of youth education through narrative fiction, the example of Captain Marratt's The Children of the New Forest (1847) and Masterman Ready (1841) offers insights into the relationship between education, sustainability and collective memory.

The fast levels of industrialization, urbanization, globalization, and expansion of mass consumption that most countries in the world are experiencing today have led to environmental destruction and climate change, eventually threatening the survival of the Earth and humanity. Especially in the case of South Korea, where per capita greenhouse gas emissions have risen to the third highest in the world, there is an urgent need to raise public awareness of the risks of climate change and initiate a more active societal response. This study examines Korean news media trends related to sustainability and explore suggestions for sustainable measures in the Anthropocene. In this way, a total of 1,203 articles was collected, including material from the news archives of newspapers, broadcasting TV, and Internet news channels. The articles have been analyzed by means of word-count-based analysis and topic modeling. The results of this study suggest that there is a need to develop and activate articles that contain more information about the effectiveness of the social response to sustainability and climate change in the Anthropocene.

The study reveals the political and ideological journey of Beom-do Hong, a Korean independence fighter and general as reflected in the historical novel of Soviet Korean writer Kim Se-il. Due to to the lack of historical records on Beom-do Hong, stories on his deeds before and after the Japan's annexation of Korea remained at the level of legends. In Korean society, his figure is seen within opposing positions and discourses; to some he is a national hero; to others a communist collaborator. This investigation of the historical novel as a medium for the transmission of shared memories based on the protagonist's battle diary and the recollections of his comrades will fill the gap in the historical memory and contribute to alleviating social political conflicts. Memorial heritage is closely linked to the intangible aspects of heritage, which is an essential driver of development.

Over the recent years, some authors have questioned the hegemony of mankind (Anthropocene) over nature. The recent virus outbreak known as COVID19 starts a new period known as “violence” where humans are forced to recede to the private sphere. The COVID19 pandemic not only alerted the health authorities but also disposed of extreme measures which included the close of borders, airspaces, as well as the imposition of lockdown and social distancing. Not only global commerce but also the tourism industry was placed on the brink of collapse. In this grim landscape, the problem of climate change is far from being solved. While steps to reverse the greenhouse gas emission should be taken globally coordinating efforts among nations, the current climate of tension without mentioning the geopolitical discrepancies (among countries) impedes the formation of global sustainable institutions to monitor and regulate the effects of climate change. The present article centers on a visual ethnography on the film Contagion, to lay the foundations towards a new understanding of ideology and its effects on ecological justice.

Sustainable development in education is one of the goals promoted by United Nations in relation to human development. It is also a great challenge for most countries, including China. Achieving educational equity is one of the keys to the success of the sustainable development in education. Faced with the complex challenges of regional, urban-rural and inter-school disparities in education, China's central and local governments have been working in order to promote sustainable development in education and improve educational equity. A variety of solutions have been proposed to address inequities and achieve significant results. In the process of practice, some reflections on encountered and potential problems have also been made, accompanied by discussions.

The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), strongly believes that heritage—natural and cultural, tangible and intangible—is fundamental to addressing the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This paper explores Liangzhu cultural heritage located in Hangzhou, China. It argues that cultural heritage is also a special kind of living narrative. In accordance with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, cultural heritage narratives carry an important function in global sustainable development. Cross-media narrative development of Liangzhu site and ancient symbols are explored, from the appearance of elements like "The God with Mixed Human and Animal Facial Features" in design products, to the consideration of the pioneer integration of 5G technology taking place in the city of Hangzhou, an example of sustainable urban development.