Racheal Devine                                   about 250 words

INTD: Science Writing

rmd20@geneseo.edu

Cronon and the Vines

Everyday we walk by the vines upon Sturges and the Union, some people admire them but most probably don’t even take the time to notice. It could be just that they’re in a rush but more likely they are just blinded to seeing the true nature of the vines. In “The Trouble with Wilderness” by William Cronon, he shares his opinion about this by using other examples. Cronon agrees when he writes, “The tree in the garden is in reality no less other, no less worthy of our wonder and respect, than the tree in an ancient forest that has never known an ax or saw.” Pointing out that nature is all the same in the end but we fail to notice that. I would agree but at the same time many people plant a wide arrange of nature in order to be able to see the beauty and wilderness each day in their backyard. Cronon also points out that nowadays people think of wilderness as a place where humans have not spread their disease. This makes me think that people do think about their contribution to that  and to make themselves feel better they also would plant things to ease their conscience.

Racheal Devine                                                      About 150 words

INTD Science Writing

rmd20@geneseo.edu

Response to “We Have Never Been Modern”

Taking worlds issues and major events Bruno Latour starts his essay about modernism and the meaning of being modern. He says, “The word ‘modern’ designates two sets of entirely different practices which must remain distinct if they are to remain effective, but have recently begun to be confused.” One being translation, as in new beings or hybrids and the other purification, with two groups human and non humans. Each not being able to work correctly without the other. This dichotomy between the human culture and nonhuman nature of purification and then again between the purification and translation is what makes us modern when they are kept separate. He states that if we pay attention to both then “we immediately stop being wholly modern” and that then our past would change also. Then leaving us with a final question, what we are going to become if they are not separate, and his response is that we will have to slow down, regulate the proliferation and represent the monster’s existence.

I don’t really see this connection back to my mini essay.

Racheal Devine                                       about 150 words

rmd20@geneseo.edu

Science Writing INTD 105-19

The Trouble with Wilderness

William Cronon, the author of the essay “The Trouble with Wilderness” develops his ideas on what wilderness means starting from the late eighteenth century all the way to modern day. “For many Americans wilderness stands as the last remaining place where civilization, that all too human disease, has not fully infected earth.” Starting 250 years ago he describes how the wilderness was thought of as anything but positive, and more as a biblical place. Beginning in the nineteenth century people started to look at the wilderness as a preservation of the world, at this time is when national parks began to be created. In the twentieth century wilderness turned into the frontier and sublime as in the “rare places on earth where one had more chance than elsewhere to glimpse the face of god.” Wilderness today is just one big environmental concern and acts as the foundation for a list of other concerns.

This can connect to my mini essay of the vines because they are wilderness just the same but looked more as a decoration.

Racheal Devine                                                                  about 150 words

rmd20@geneseo.edu

Science Writing INTD 105-19

A Cyborg Manifesto Response

In Donna Haraway’s, “A Cyborg Manifesto”, she develops her ideas about the late twentieth century, calling it “our time, a mythic time” where we are all cyborgs now. The cyborgs are a type of condensed image of our imagination and reality, hybrids of machines and organisms, a creature in the post gender world. She says that in this time, the border between man and animal has been breached completely, the uniqueness gone, as well as the boundary between machines and man, and between the physical and nonphysical. A Lot of her essay has to do with feminism and fractured identities. She believes gender, social, race, and historical constitution cannot be the basis for unity, nothing about being a female binds to “women”. She ends with the point that the history is dependent on the social relations between people and ultimately she says, there isn’t any other time where there is a greater need for political unity.

This can connect back to the vines on the buildings because they act as a barrier between man and nature/animal.

Racheal Devine                                                                                about 250 words

INTD: Science Writing

rmd20@geneseo.edu

Man vs. Nature

By: Racheal Devine

When the college was built, many things were torn down to make room for the buildings we now take our classes in. As the buildings settled in, workers planted trees, shrubs, as well as other landscape to bring the “nature feel” back to campus. It has become evident on many buildings throughout campus that nature has taken over. Not as in the animals have taken over, and the buildings are overgrown to where you can’t see them, but looking around at the unique vines that climb up the walls of Sturges and the Student Union bring back that sense of nature. I’m sure these vines have attached themselves around many other buildings that I have yet to see. Little by little, they have made this place their home. Whether they’re engulfing the sides of  walls, filling every crack, or making a walkway appear as so much more. Walking around campus, you may look at them as weeds that someone placed there, but looking closer you realize how beautiful and unique these vines really are. They represent the buildings age, beauty and character. Each vine has its own special characteristics and adds so much to the buildings they cover. Some are long, some are short, some have bright green leaves, while others turn brownish, preparing to shed for fall but always returning. As there are many different aspects in nature, one thing they all have in common is the fight to take back the land that was once theirs.