Papers by Robert Louis Chianese
Echoes of Casandrino: a la Vicina di Napole
Italian Americana, Aug 1, 2021
Peaceable kingdoms : an anthology of utopian writings
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich eBooks, 1971
Climate-Disturbed Landscape
American Scientist, 2018
Suburban Stalkers: The Near-Wild Lions in Our Midst
American Scientist, 2017
American Scientist, 2014
A typical university guide to writing for science lays out principles of good writing: Be clear, ... more A typical university guide to writing for science lays out principles of good writing: Be clear, simple, impartial, logically structured, accurate, and objective. In addition, it may warn against some of the writing habits of scientists that can make written articles labored and tedious: Avoid passive voice, past tense, and overly long sentences. A key principle is to shun personal expression: Writers should take themselves and their reactions out of the report entirely.
This sort of language falls silent in describing ecological process. If an important mission of contemporary science is to educate the general public about the notion that all things are connected, then perhaps a new language can help. Evoking a sense of multifaceted reality, capturing its mysteries, and giving a sample of how it works, particularly looped back on interconnected observers themselves, may begin to suggest the need to pay attention with a different sort of focus.
Quest for a Sustainable Society, ed, James C. Coomer, Pergamon Press, New York, 1981, 1981
Sustainability enters public discourse early but needs promotion in many ways, here through Stead... more Sustainability enters public discourse early but needs promotion in many ways, here through Steady State centers. The Centers envisioned here (in 1981) would engage with cultural, environmental, and social means to get the term better know and implemented as a guide in many areas. This is more than an image problem for steady-state, though the term, with its unfortunate suggestions of an austere and colorless standstill, needs to be replaced. If, for instance, we substitute the term "dynamic equilibrium" for “steady-state,” we clarify and add attractiveness to the idea of limits as a healthy form of growth.
The project envisioned here addresses this need directly by founding steady-state cultural centers throughout the world to foster new habits and attitudes about cooperative coexistence in a world of limits. The centers would attempt to become a source of cultural transformation through the critique of destructive myths and the promotion of alternative ones. In revising the "mythology" of modern society, the centers would provide models for change that reach society's very core--its shared inner life.
This essay was awarded a Mitchell Prize for essays on sustainable futures in 1979.
American Scientist, 2018
The giant alternative energy installations in California’s Mojave desert have real benefits to ... more The giant alternative energy installations in California’s Mojave desert have real benefits to society and the planet by reducing our use of climate-changing fossil fuels. Massive solar panel fields and vast banks of mirrors that aim sunlight at tall, heat generating towers produce large amounts of green energy.
These installations require the removal of thousands of tortoises (Gopherus agassizi) from the desert floor. Biologists find and pull them from their burrows, and then “translocate” them to a large preserve, where they try to reestablish their living routines. However, over 40% of this threatened species die just by being picked up and more languish in their new surroundings. There were 200 adults per square desert mile in 1950, now reduced to 5 to 60 per square mile.
This unfortunate trade off of sacrificing one species to save many others presents us and environmentalists with a calculus we may not appreciate. And we again face dilemmas of the unforeseen consequences of new technology: the power plants require transmission towers that ravens can now perch upon to spot baby desert tortoises, so that piles of their carcasses litter tower bases.
All of this grows out of our unexamined assumptions about the desert itself—that it seems the relatively blank space of our imaginations, when in fact it is full of life, with some 2,450 plant and 266 invertebrate species. Surviving climate change may require a fuller appreciation of our planet itself and its varied habitats.
Isis, 2002
Her topic is not really "science and poetry" but the failure of neurobiological reductionism to u... more Her topic is not really "science and poetry" but the failure of neurobiological reductionism to understand the human mind. That poets understand the mind better than scientists is the subtext of this collection of essays, but the poetic theories Midgley quotes are too general to make much headway against science's prejudices about the arts' naive handling of the serious matters of consciousness, the operation of the brain, and connections between mind and body.
TBA , 2006
A number of factors have turned contemporary poets to science for both information and inspiratio... more A number of factors have turned contemporary poets to science for both information and inspiration. The environmental crisis absorbs many writers. Ecology and sustainability have found adherents in nature poets, with a whole school of critical theory-eco-criticism-dedicated to examining human relationships to nature. Fascination with new cosmologies, genetics, brain function, human evolution, etc., pervades both popular and general academic culture. But just how scientifically informed are contemporary poets who avowedly treat such topics; and equally, how informed about science must general readers of this poetry be in order to understand and appreciate it? A study of hundreds of recent poems in science-and nature-themed poetry anthologies reveals that "nature" poetry mainly retains its personally-reflective, descriptive, and emotive foci without too much concern for the factual evocation of the environment, while science-themed poetry pushes readers to the limits of general scientific literacy by poetizing on and clarifying some of the most difficult and abstruse scientific ideas. That some major poets produce such verse and that it has recognized poetic merit may suggest that a new "order of ideas" that nineteenth-century critic Matthew Arnold said was needed for a shift of paradigms in the arts and society has arrived.
Mystery and Detection Annual, 1973
Nineteenth century Scottish writer James Hogg (1770-1835) wrote this novel as an assemblage of va... more Nineteenth century Scottish writer James Hogg (1770-1835) wrote this novel as an assemblage of various genres-- a memoir, a found document, an autobiography, an editor's narrative. It centers on the crimes of Robert Wringhim, who believes he is saved from any responsibility for his crimes because of his Calvinist faith. The psychological themes evoke Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. Hogg was a friend of Wordsworth, and Sir Walter Scott.
As It Is: Proceedings of The Representational Art Conference , 2015
Representational art focused on the natural world can help us understand the personal and social ... more Representational art focused on the natural world can help us understand the personal and social impacts of human caused climate change. The most valuable artists in this regard are those that help us move beyond the worry and fret we may feel but not acknowledge about the ecological disaster we continue to cause and then offer clues about unique ways to solve it. A few radical critics insist that nature artists who avoid our climate crisis by continuing to produce spectacular unspoiled landscapes are making art they label “obscene.” Artists can help shift attitudes and consciousness about our new roles as protectors and restorers of our threatened world, and in the process, lift our grim moods and point ways forward to recovery.
American Scientist, 2022
Sculpture has special resonance within science—sculpture can embody an idea, such as quantum... more Sculpture has special resonance within science—sculpture can embody an idea, such as quantum mechanics, and even offer a vicarious symbolic experience of a scientific concept. The physical realization of ideas makes sculpture a medium that is perhaps uniquely suited to the creation of sci-art—a merging of art and science.
To create sci-art, an artist studies and meditates on a scientific concept and then reimagines and recreates that concept as an image or object, or even a sound or melody. These creations can spark emotional engagement with scientific concepts, aid accessibility to scientific ideas, reduce the perception of science as difficult or exclusive, and make science education fun and delightful.
Such works of art may not provide a full explanation of a scientific principle, but they can engage viewers in productive reflection as they interpret the piece. We can walk around a sculpture, take in its three-dimensional shapes and definitions of space, as well as its colors, textures, materials, and physical weight.
The direct, felt experience of sculpture can invite us to sense abstract and confusing ideas, contemplate powerful themes such as the impact humans have on the natural world, or experience kinetic scientific concepts in action.
American Scientist, 2016
Much of the modern environmental movement may rest on the words of transformed offenders. Persona... more Much of the modern environmental movement may rest on the words of transformed offenders. Personal stories of our environmental damage have a way of drawing us in, tying us to the specifics of the character and the situation in a way that media coverage of abuses against nature often does not. Hearing stories of personal transgressions against nature can prompt others to reevaluate their relationship to the natural world, perhaps reflect on mindless damage that they may have caused it, and, in some cases, seek ways to atone for the act. Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" establishes a model of an effective ecological cautionary tale.
American Scientist, 2013
The health of the planet is in a precarious state and cries out for large ecological rest... more The health of the planet is in a precarious state and cries out for large ecological restorations more than ever. Earth artists often use natural materials and forms just to dazzle us with their imaginative constructions. They may have to stretch themselves to embrace this more complicated phase of their movement, making art that emulates Earth processes, as Agnes Denes surely has.
Her Tree Mountain project involves 11,000 people planting 11,000 trees in nature-based mathematical patterns, so that they have a personal investment in maintaining this forest restoration art work.
Eco-artist Katherine Miller also uses geometry to construct a water-cleasing bioswale in a local park.
(This version of the essay is slightly different and longer than the published one.)
Verse and Universe: Poems about Science and Mathematics. Kurt Brown
Isis, Mar 1, 2000
How Can Art Move Us Beyond Eco-Despair?
American Scientist, 2015
American Scientist , 2020
Climate change has dried California’s landscape, making it more prone to burn, which exacerbates ... more Climate change has dried California’s landscape, making it more prone to burn, which exacerbates the risk that power lines will spark wildfires. Microgrids, which are local energy net-works, could power communities when fire risk is high, reducing the need for electricity to pass through long power lines over dry terrain. Stand-alone battery storage technology must advance before microgrids powered by locally generated green energy can become widespread.
There is no easy eco-fix for the power grid.
American Scientist, 2021
Artists of wildfires act as fieldwork archeologists, collecting, dredging up, and bringing back t... more Artists of wildfires act as fieldwork archeologists, collecting, dredging up, and bringing back the actual stuff of fire for use as their creative material. Such art is still a memento of loss, but it becomes a reminder of our need to control fire in the way that artists control their media. Fire-debris art reveals human ingenuity in transforming the wreckage of fire into profound sources of understanding. Our all too apparent transformations of the planet’s environment get both mirrored and ameliorated by these artists of rubble, soot, dust, and ash. They can be said to create a new eco-aesthetic, even a new kind of beauty, while reminding us of our obligations to protect and preserve our precious natural world.
American Scientist, 2013
Running Wall is a more permanent earth art assemblage than Goldsworthy’s usual temporary construc... more Running Wall is a more permanent earth art assemblage than Goldsworthy’s usual temporary constructs of ice fragments, found twigs and leaves, which evoke nature’s evanescent unseen beauty. This 2788-foot rock wall encourages myth making in its magical twists and turns around trees and its dive into and final emergence from water. It seems an animate but useless human boundary. It thus evokes Robert Frost’s ironic poem “Mending Wall” and seems more interested in displaying the earth artist as playful creator than celebrant of ecological realities. We are left to puzzle whether it is green earth art at all.
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Papers by Robert Louis Chianese
This sort of language falls silent in describing ecological process. If an important mission of contemporary science is to educate the general public about the notion that all things are connected, then perhaps a new language can help. Evoking a sense of multifaceted reality, capturing its mysteries, and giving a sample of how it works, particularly looped back on interconnected observers themselves, may begin to suggest the need to pay attention with a different sort of focus.
The project envisioned here addresses this need directly by founding steady-state cultural centers throughout the world to foster new habits and attitudes about cooperative coexistence in a world of limits. The centers would attempt to become a source of cultural transformation through the critique of destructive myths and the promotion of alternative ones. In revising the "mythology" of modern society, the centers would provide models for change that reach society's very core--its shared inner life.
This essay was awarded a Mitchell Prize for essays on sustainable futures in 1979.
These installations require the removal of thousands of tortoises (Gopherus agassizi) from the desert floor. Biologists find and pull them from their burrows, and then “translocate” them to a large preserve, where they try to reestablish their living routines. However, over 40% of this threatened species die just by being picked up and more languish in their new surroundings. There were 200 adults per square desert mile in 1950, now reduced to 5 to 60 per square mile.
This unfortunate trade off of sacrificing one species to save many others presents us and environmentalists with a calculus we may not appreciate. And we again face dilemmas of the unforeseen consequences of new technology: the power plants require transmission towers that ravens can now perch upon to spot baby desert tortoises, so that piles of their carcasses litter tower bases.
All of this grows out of our unexamined assumptions about the desert itself—that it seems the relatively blank space of our imaginations, when in fact it is full of life, with some 2,450 plant and 266 invertebrate species. Surviving climate change may require a fuller appreciation of our planet itself and its varied habitats.
To create sci-art, an artist studies and meditates on a scientific concept and then reimagines and recreates that concept as an image or object, or even a sound or melody. These creations can spark emotional engagement with scientific concepts, aid accessibility to scientific ideas, reduce the perception of science as difficult or exclusive, and make science education fun and delightful.
Such works of art may not provide a full explanation of a scientific principle, but they can engage viewers in productive reflection as they interpret the piece. We can walk around a sculpture, take in its three-dimensional shapes and definitions of space, as well as its colors, textures, materials, and physical weight.
The direct, felt experience of sculpture can invite us to sense abstract and confusing ideas, contemplate powerful themes such as the impact humans have on the natural world, or experience kinetic scientific concepts in action.
Her Tree Mountain project involves 11,000 people planting 11,000 trees in nature-based mathematical patterns, so that they have a personal investment in maintaining this forest restoration art work.
Eco-artist Katherine Miller also uses geometry to construct a water-cleasing bioswale in a local park.
(This version of the essay is slightly different and longer than the published one.)
There is no easy eco-fix for the power grid.