Philosophical Issues in Ethnophysiography: Landform Terms, Disciplinarity, and the Question of Method

in David Mark, Andrew Turk, Niclas Burehnult & David Stea, eds. Landscape in Language: Transdisciplinary Perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing, 2011: 101-119.

Ethnophysiography is a nascent discipline, one which draws on at least a half-dozen existing disciplines. These disciplines exist in productive tension, a tension which produces a range of possible answers to some central questions. These questions include: What is being analyzed? What issues arise when gathering data? How are questions framed to access data? What is the goal of ethnophysiography? How is human meaning connected to human expression, in the context of place language? What are the implications of applying the reconstructed data? And, if ethnophysiography is to be seen as a nascent discipline, how does it relate to other disciplines? This chapter expands on these questions that will help to develop and strengthen the concepts at the center of ethnophysiography, give it an identity, and suggest further research possibilities.

The Water is Wide: Risking Tears at the Met, and Elsewhere

Bruce Janz “The Water is Wide: Risking Tears in the Met, and Elsewhere,” in Michele Byers & David Lavery, eds. On the Verge of Tears. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2010: 12-22. 

‘Uprooted African Am I’: Jacques Derrida 1930-2004

Bruce Janz and Emmanuel Eze, “‘Uprooted African Am I’: Jacques Derrida 1930-2004,” Philosophia Africana 8:1 (March 2005): 79-82.

Reason and Rationality in Eze's On Reason

Bruce Janz, “Reason and Rationality in Eze’s On Reason,” South African Journal of Philosophy 27:4 (2008): 296-309.

The title of Emmanuel Eze’s final, posthumously published book uses the words “reason” and “rationality” in a manner that might suggest they are interchangeable. I would like to suggest that we not treat them as the same, but rather tease out a difference in emphasis and reference between the two. In African philosophy, the problem of reason is really two separate problems, the first of which I will call the “problem of reason” (that is, the question of whether there are diverse forms of reason or only one universal form) and the second the “problem of rationality” (that is, the question of whether everyone has the capacity to deploy reason past what mimicry or programming makes possible). Both of these problems are addressed by Eze’s schema for forms of reason. He identifies several forms, but focuses on “ordinary reason”, which allows all the other forms to operate. Ordinary reason also makes rationality possible, that is, the culturally specific yet emergent way of navigating forms of reason. Reason is necessarily diverse, because its multiple forms are deployed differently by different rationalities.

Emmanuel Eze in memorium

Bruce Janz, “Emmanuel Eze in memorium,” South African Journal of Philosophy 27:4 (2008): 282-284.

Making a Scene and Dwelling in Place: Exhaustion at the Edges of Modes of Place-Making

Bruce Janz, “Making a Scene and Dwelling in Place: Exhaustion at the Edges of Modes of Place-Making,” in Will Garrett-Petts, Craig Saper & John Craig Freeman, eds. Imaging Place. Kamloops, BC: Textual Studies in Canada, 2009: 145-154. Also in Rhizomes 18 (Winter 2008) Will Garrett-Petts, Craig Saper & John Craig Freeman, guest eds.

The Terror of the Place: Anxieties of Place and the Cultural Narrative of Terrorism

Bruce Janz, “The Terror of the Place: Anxieties of Place and the Cultural Narrative of Terrorism,” Ethics, Place and Environment 11:2 (June 2008): 189-201.

Place is sometimes understood as reinforcing personal and cultural identity in the face of dissipating versions of modernism or postmodernism. However, that identity can also come with a variety of cultural neuroses and manias that are inscribed on place. I consider the ways in which terrorism has become a feature of place, and how we can expect to see the terror of the
place in the future. First, we can expect a relative diminishment in ‘place-making imagination’, the ability to see places as rich, ambiguous, and multi-purposed. Second, we can expect the terror of the place to exhibit itself as an inability to come to terms with the other. Third, we can expect the continuation and development of a triumphalist narrative of place, including a sense of entitlement. Fourth, we can anticipate the death or the fear of the agora, the true ‘agoraphobia’, as the public space of discourse is closed down, and the private space of patriarchally enforced agreement gains ascendancy. Fifth, we can expect people to regard specific places as having fixed and permanent meanings, and to try to constrain those meanings in such a way as to guarantee that permanence. Sixth, we can expect topophobia, not only the fear of place but also stage fright, as the expression of self on the world stage becomes more and more limited and narrowly focussed. And seventh, we can expect a re-assertion of memory of place, perhaps with a shifted baseline, as the places of terror become exhausted. We can furthermore expect all of these phobias and manias to be rationalized as virtue in a society that cannot deal with the terror of the place.

Whistler's Fog and the Aesthetics of Place

Bruce Janz, “Whistler’s Fog and the Aesthetics of Place,” Reconstructions special edition (“Rhetoric of Place”, Michael Benton, ed.) 5:3 (Summer 2005)

The concept of place has usually been under stood as either a phenomenological, epistemological, or ethical category. An understanding of place as aesthetic or rhetorical, on the other hand, tends to focus on the widely varied uses of the concept. First, I sketch out the wide range of uses of place, that have been drawn from writings on the concept. These uses are not definitions of place, but rather functions that the term performs. Place stands in for other ideas, and allows access to different aspects of human experience. Second, I will draw from this range of uses some ideas about the aesthetics of place, that is, the ways in which the picture that has been painted of the state of place research produces some surprising results. Finally, I will try to address some objections to or limitations of the idea of place.

Bodies On Display: Bodies: The Exhibition

Bruce Janz, “Bodies on Display: Bodies: The Exhibition,” Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory. 7:1 (Winter 2005): 103-114

Debt and Duty: Kant, Derrida, and African Philosophy

Bruce Janz, "Debt and Duty: Kant, Derrida, and African Philosophy," Special issue of Janus Head, Winter 2001.

The Territory is Not the Map: Place, Deleuze and Guattari, and African Philosophy

Bruce Janz, "The Territory Is Not The Map: Deleuze and Guattari's Relevance to the Concept of Place in African Philosophy," Philosophy Today, 45:4/5(Winter 2001): 388-400. Also published in Philosophia Africana 5:1 (March 2002): 1-18.

African Philosophy

Bruce Janz, “African Philosophy,” Constantin Boundas, ed., The Edinburgh Companion to 20th Century Philosophy. University of Edinburgh Press, 2007: 689-701. Issued in the US as Constantin Boundas, ed. The Columbia Companion to 20th Century Philosophy. Columbia University Press, 2007.

Alterity, Dialogue & African Philosophy

Bruce Janz, "Alterity, Dialogue, and African Philosophy," in Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze, ed. Postcolo-nial African Philosophy: A Critical Reader. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1997: 221-238.

Philosophy as if Place Mattered

Bruce Janz, “Philosophy As If Place Mattered: The Situation of African Philosophy,” in Havi Carel and David Gomez, eds. What Philosophy Is. London: Continuum Publishers, 2004: 103-115.

Walls and Borders: The Range of Place

Bruce Janz, “Walls and Borders: The Range of Place,” City and Community 4:1 (March 2005): 87-94.

Thinking Like a Mountain: Ethics and Place as Travelling Concepts

Bruce Janz, “Thinking Like a Mountain: Ethics and Place as Travelling Concepts,” in Drenthen, Martin, Jozef Keulartz and James Proctor, eds. New Visions of Nature: Complexity and Authenticity. Series: The International Library of Environmental, Agricultural and Food Ethics. New York: Springer, 2009: 181-195.

Coming To Place

Bruce Janz, “Coming to Place,” Environmental and Architectural Phenomenology 15:3 (Fall 2004): 11-15.

Between the Particular and the Universal: Cultural Inquiry as the Encounter Between Anthropology and Philosophy

Bruce Janz, “Between the Particular and the Universal: ‘Cultural Inquiry’ as the Encounter Between Anthropology and Philosophy. Review of Ivan Karp & D. A. Masolo, eds. African Philosophy as Cultural Inquiry,” in Polylog 4 (November 2003)

Introduction to Free Space: Reconsidering Interdisciplinary Theory and Practice

Co-authered with Tamara Seiler. “Introduction to Free Space: Reconfiguring Interdisciplinary Theory and Practice.” Special Issue of History of Intellectual Culture, Spring 2003.

Review of Achille Mbembe, On the Postcolony (H-Africa Review, March 2002).

Bruce Janz, “Review of Achille Mbembe, On the Postcolony,” H-Africa, March 2002.

Review of Southern Comforts: Rooted in a Florida Place. By Sudye Cauthen.

Bruce Janz, “Review of Sudye Cauthen, Southern Comforts: Rooted in a Florida Place,” Florida Historical Quarterly 87:1 (Summer 2008).

Mysticism & Understanding: Steven Katz and his Critics

Bruce Janz, "Mysticism and understanding: Steven Katz and his critics," Studies in Religion 24:1 (1995): 77-94.

Response to Robert KC Forman

Bruce Janz, “Response to 'Samadhi and Peter Wimsey: Mysticism, reading, and B. Janz' by Robert Forman,” Studies in Religion 25:2(1996): 209-13.

Reason, Inductive Inference and True Religion in Hume

Bruce, Janz, "Reason, induction, and true religion in Hume," Dialogue, Vol. 27, No. 4 (Winter 1988): 721-726.

Review of Donald Evans, Spirituality and Human Nature

Bruce Janz, “Review of Donald Evans, Spirituality and human nature,” Dialogue 34:2(Sum¬mer 1994): 406-409.

Review of Friedman, Martin Buber and the Eternal

Bruce Janz, “Review of Maurice Friedman, Martin Buber and the Eternal,” Eidos 7:1 (June 88): 91-98.

Review of Weeks, Boehme

Bruce Janz, “Review of Andrew Weeks, Boehme: An intellectual biography of the seventeenth century philosopher and mystic,” Dialogue 33:4(Winter 1994): 762-764.

Places That Disasters Leave Behind

Bruce Janz, “Places that Disasters Leave Behind,” FACS (Florida Atlantic Comparative Studies): An Interdisciplinary Journal 9 (2006-07): 33-51.

The four hurricanes that hit Florida in August and September 2004 were popularly seen as unprecedemed, and as such the media struggled to narrate them. This article traces the construction ofthe hurricanes in the Orlando Sentinel over the two months and argues that the public narr(ltive of first hurricane, Charley, minimized and stigmatized opportunities for place-tnaking, despite the oft-repeated truism that "communities pull together during disasters." After this hurricane, heroes were depicted as official or corporate while individuals and communities were encouraged to remain passive. The overwhelming community response was put in economic terms and emphasized the protection ofproperty from looting, scam artists, and price gougers. This differsfrom how other papers constructed the hurricane, notably the Ft. Myers News-Press.

The construction ofthe Florida hurricanes is a window on our "placemaking imagination". Places do not simply spring into existence from nothing, but are imagined by those who have reason to care. Ifthe socially legitimated frame of reference for all event precludes such imagination, one ends up with emaciated places. These places function on the most reductionist, individualist, and materialist tertns because no other options can be imagined. The responsibility ofthe newspaper at tillles like this is to not only report the facts and interpret them for the readers, but also to enrich place-making imagination.

Landscape Language & Experience: Some Claims and Questions

Environmental & Architectural Phenomenology 21:1 (Winter 2010): 20-25.

But It Doesn't Make Sense To Me!: Frustrations in Interdisciplinarity and the Liberal Arts

Dianoia 4:2 (Spring 1995): 90-97.

Review of Klein, Interdisciplinarity

Dianoia 3:2/4:1 (Spring 1994): 138-140.

Review of Higgs, E et al, Technology and the Good Life?

Philosophy and Geography 5:2 (August 2002): 247-9.

Universities in Times of National Crisis: The Cases of Rwanda and Burundi

Malinda Smith, ed. Globalizing Africa. Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press, 2003: 465-482.

Review of Barry Hallen, The Good The Bad and the Beautiful: Dicourse about Values in Yoruba Culture

Philosophy in Review/Comptes rendus philosophiques 21:5 (October 2001): 337-339.

Thinking wisdom: the hermeneutical basis of sage philosophy

Bruce Janz, “Thinking Wisdom: The Hermeneutical Basis of Sage Philosophy,” African Philosophy 11:1(June 1998): 57-71.