Written by the chair of the LEED-Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND) initiative; Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design with Nature is both an urgent call to action and a comprehensive introduction to "sustainable urbanism"--the emerging and growing design reform movement that combines the creation and enhancement of walkable and diverse places with the need to build high-performance infrastructure and buildings. Providing a historic perspective on the standards and regulations that got us to where we are today in terms of urban lifestyle and attempts at reform; Douglas Farr makes a powerful case for sustainable urbanism; showing where we went wrong; and where we need to go. He then explains how to implement sustainable urbanism through leadership and communication in cities; communities; and neighborhoods. Essays written by Farr and others delve into such issues as: Increasing sustainability through density. Integrating transportation and land use. Creating sustainable neighborhoods; including housing; car-free areas; locally-owned stores; walkable neighborhoods; and universal accessibility. The health and environmental benefits of linking humans to nature; including walk-to open spaces; neighborhood stormwater systems and waste treatment; and food production. High performance buildings and district energy systems. Enriching the argument are in-depth case studies in sustainable urbanism; from BedZED in London; England and Newington in Sydney; Australia; to New Railroad Square in Santa Rosa; California and Dongtan; Shanghai; China. An epilogue looks to the future of sustainable urbanism over the next 200 years. At once solidly researched and passionately argued; Sustainable Urbanism is the ideal guidebook for urban designers; planners; and architects who are eager to make a positive impact on our--and our descendants--buildings; cities; and lives.
#2339129 in eBooks 2011-12-01 2011-12-01File Name: B006UJ5DMK
Review
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. remarkable; a readable. emotionally complex and intellectually rigorous bookBy Benjamin Isaac TemchineI read this book on my quest to understand/ obsession with the sculpture The Dying Gaul. This book took me on a journey i did not expect to take and to places i had never really thought of. It will take some time to integrate with all i have learned about the dying gaul. and psychoanalysis and masculinity. It is unlike anything i have read on those subjects. It uses a rich mix of languages. earthy and academic. The authors use of academic jargon words never interfered with the visceral sense i had that he wants to be understood clearly about murky ideas. The unfamiliar language was always in service to precision. It was pretty great.7 of 8 people found the following review helpful. Great ideas. unusual style.By GrinMaxWarning: this is a full book review written for a graduate course. Word count: 1507.Kent Britnall is a relatively new scholar in the field of religious studies. and Ecce Homo is his first full book to be published. He received his Ph.D. in Theological Studies from Emory University in 2007. with a Certificate in Film Studies. He is currently an Assistant Professor in Religious Studies at the University of Chapel-Hill. Charlotte. with appointments as Affiliate Professor in the Department of Film Studies and the Department of Womens and Gender Studies. Ecce Homo is located at the nexus of these varied intellectual fields. using contemporary theoretical frameworks to explore the religious implications of gender and sexuality as expressed in cinema. psychoanalytic theory. photography. and painting. In Ecce Homo. Britnall reads various depictions of the male-body-in-pain first through the lens of Georges Bataille. and then he re-orients the Bataillean reading into a specifically Christian context. His thesis is that there is value in an engagement with images of the male-body-in-pain. yet that engagement need not "redeem" that body by inscribing it into a narrative of miraculous resurrection and eventual phallic plenitude. Instead. focusing on the suffering as suffering. as fundamental lack. allows an ecstatic dissolution of subject-object distinctions. This dissolution offers the subject a view of its own vulnerability. Britnall argues that acknowledging and heralding this vulnerability and wounded-ness would create a more ethical mythos than the glorification of phallic plenitude. This myth of phallic plenitude has been touted by popular culture as a whole. but specifically within contemporary Christianity in its excessive focus on the final victory implied by the resurrected. restored. whole body of Christ. rather than a serious examination of the wounded. displayed. objectified body of the crucified Christ. Ecce Homo is the call to truly behold the defeated. brutalized body of Christ. I find his analysis compelling. albeit at times slightly problematically argued. Ecce Homos argument is structured using questions and concepts taken from the works of Georges Bataille. as explicated in the Prelude and Postlude which bookend the work. The body of the text is divided into four chapters: Suffering|Triumph. which reads the male body as portrayed in Hollywood action films; Masochism|Masculinity. which examines psychoanalytic discourses on fetishism. sadism. and masochism; Content|Form. which discusses the homoerotic photography of Robert Mapplethorpe; and Crucifixion|Representation. which focuses on the crucifixion paintings of Francis Bacon. Each chapter begins with a short return to Bataille. followed by a close examination of the chapters subject. After careful consideration of the subject by itself. Britnall brings each of them--Hollywood action films. psychoanalytic discourse. Mapplethorpes homoerotic photography. and Bacons paintings--back to their connection with the crucifixion. Each subject has a unique new perspective and insight to bring back to the central image of the displayed male-body-in-pain and. by extension. a potential lesson for contemporary Christianity. Britnalls writing style is unapologetically challenging. Britnall openly eschews structure and he has "intentionally excised connective tissue from the chapters" (9). He breaks academic voice at several points in the Pre- and Postlude with italicized sections that explain his project and his personal views on the subject. At one point he explicitly dwells on the danger this presents. saying that "the texts most Bataillean feature is the risk borne by the trust I place in you. my reader" (9). This runs the danger of alienating both hardline academics. who will see his lack of structure and breaking voice as less rigorous academic work. and also serious adherents of Batailles work. because Britnalls piece still translates Batailles ideas distinctly into a realm of academic "project"--a complicated word for Bataille. Although Britnall argues that the chapters could be read in any order. there is indeed a progression. which he admits in saying that "taking them out of order will diminish the experience I hope to foster in the reader" (9). The first half presents the problem: the myth of masculine plenitude and invulnerability. The first chapter explores this as portrayed in the action films of Hollywood. Although they dwell on the male-body-in-pain in ways that erotically complicate its subject status. Britnall argues that it is only to eventually re-inscribe the male body with eventual restoration. victory. and retribution for its assailants. The next chapter explores the myth of phallic plenitude in the psychoanalytic works of Freud and Lacan. Freuds argument for the subject seeking phallic plenitude in sadomasochistic or fetishistic activity requires that lack be projected onto the "castrated" female. rather than allowing for legitimate sexual difference; Lacan is less gender essentialist. but still has elements thereof. Yet. even in claiming phallic plenitude. Freud and Lacan both use examples and concepts in their work that complicate the heteronormative gender hierarchies they appear to support. In the second half. Britnall moves toward representations of the male-body-in-pain that he feels are productive in deconstructing the myth of masculine plenitude. Because it juxtaposes beautiful photographic composition with socially stigmatized content. Mapplethorpes homoerotic. sadomasochistic photography questions the distinctions between public and private. between beautiful and pornographic. and even to some degree between subject and object. Bacons paintings further this blurring by painting figures that are themselves blurred. indistinct. tortured by the viewers gaze. Both Bacons paintings and Mapplethorpes photography complicate masculine subjectivity by subjecting the male body to the viewers (erotic) gaze. thus also exploring the violence inherent in the act of representation or objectification. The male body is represented as in pain. displayed. crucified. For Britnall. Christian theology that allows for careful and sustained contemplation of this represented. crucified male body opens itself to multiplicity. Alternatively. Christianity that denies the representationality of its own theology and its images of masculinity does violence to its adherents. over-assigning singular meaning to ambiguous religious experience. For the most part. I find Britnalls analysis quite compelling and his arguments well articulated. Yet there are minor issues with his argumentation and with the book as book. The second half of the book drags. because the reader must constantly work to mentally reconstruct the images he describes--he only includes eight of Mapplethorpes and Bacons pieces. but discusses many more. Further. Britnall is sometimes careless with his terms. even at times seeming to contradict himself. Most contradictions are relatively small--like referring to the "ecstatic encounter" of love in a quote that begins "Ecstasy is not love" (181)--but some are more problematic. In the chapter on Mapplethorpe. for instance. Britnall seems to argue that both the representation. the photography. and the activity. gay SM practices. need to be seen as useful and socially valuable (114). where he previously argued that. for Bataille. representations of war were good. where actual combat was reprehensible (27). These contradictions are most noticeable in Britnalls complicated relationship with the figure of Georges Bataille. Especially in the Prelude and Postlude. Britnall frequently comes across as a Bataille apologist. seemingly desiring to "save" Bataille from his critics. Yet there are moments when he then seems to turn again and agree with Batailles opponents. contradicting himself. In the Postlude. he chastises Amy Hollywood several times for reading Bataille too simplistically or schematically. In one instance. he critiques Hollywood for limiting Bataille to functioning within Freudian gender dynamics (177). but less than ten pages later admits that Batailles later writings close the possibility of eroticism to be anything but a subject-object dynamic (184)--which appears to be what Hollywood was arguing. Here he argues that we should not follow Batailles shift toward a subject-object view of eroticism. but focus on the more expansive and potentially intersubjective concept of eroticism from Batailles earlier works. One seems compelled to ask. then. why he feels the need to defend Bataille so passionately against Hollywood. when he is willing to concede the point just a few pages later? It is in passages like these that I felt some danger that Britnalls commitment to Bataille makes him overly defensive of Bataille and aggressive toward Batailles critics. In the spirit of his own thesis. then. Britnall might do well to claim Bataille is worth our consideration while still allowing Batailles work to have flaws and inconsistencies. Bataille. too. could be seen as a vulnerable figure. nonetheless beautiful and valuable in his imperfection. Even if Britnall were willing to expressly address his own contradictions and attachment to Bataille as part of the Bataillean. and thus less explicitly academic. element of the work. these issues might seem less problematic. Yet. despite these minor drawbacks. Britnalls work is persuasive and offers powerful alternative perspectives on social constructions of masculinity. Both his critique of existing structures of masculinity and his explorations of potentially subversive alternatives have a vitality and potential that makes me hope more scholars pursue this vein of thought. It is a book that I would not recommend to everyone. unequivocally. because many in the academy would not appreciate its departures from academic norms. and most outside of the academy would flounder in its very academic prose. But to anyone willing to put these concerns aside. Ecce Homo is a powerful book that presents a much-needed alternate perspective for viewing masculinity.
