Technological Rationality Research Articles

Dynamics of scale effficiency of Indian banks: A deterministic frontier approach

Indian banking sector is characterized with intense competition, amongst the best regulated in the world and rapid growth. Indian banking sector have undergone rapid reforms and liberalization in last two decades, which resulted into advent of new and strong private sector banks, increased technology adoptions, rapid branch expansion, prudential regulations, focus on financial inclusion, market discipline of public sector banks and demanding customers. With Indian Banking system poised to become the world’s 3 rd largest by 2025 and owing to the dynamism in banking sector the paper examines the bank efficiency. Most past studies focused on the impact of some or other regulatory phase, some segments of banking and under constant return scale assumption. Our study is distinct to the extent that we examine the bank efficiency after the Phase III and IV reforms and subprime crisis, across all ownership segments of Scheduled Commercial Banks and under plausible assumption of variable returns of scale given the dynamic banking environment. We employ non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis using intermediation approach under of variable return of scale. Our study period consist of 2008-2012 post reform and subprime crisis period and covers 26 public, 19 private and 21 foreign banks operating in India. We further examine the variation in efficiency across different ownership groups and small and large bank sizes over the period. Our findings indicate that Public sector banks’ average efficiency scores were better than that of private sector while foreign banks had the lowest efficiency score. Private sector banks had lower heterogeneity in efficiency compared to public sector banks. The smaller banks showed better efficiency compared to larger banks across the ownership groups. We find that the banking reforms have seen improvement in efficiency of public sector banks as compared to private and foreign banks. Thus our findings differ from studies on other emerging markets indicating efficiency improvement of foreign banks as compared to pubic banks. While banks have shown overall efficiency the lower technical efficiency indicate inefficiency in large banks probably due to sub optimal scale and scope efficiency. Our study point outs management of assets, branch rationalization and use of technology to improve the bank efficiency. The study suggests policy focus on reduction of non-performing assets and rationalization of staff and branches to obtain efficiency gain. Regulatory reforms in Indian Banking sector saw improvement in efficiency of public and private banks and efficiency scores differed across various ownership and large and small bank groups.

Comprehensive Evaluation for Medium-voltage Distribution System Construction Based on AHP and Entropy Weight Method

Investment optimization according to technological rationality and investment benefit of projects is an critical issue as the huge investment in construction of distribution system. In this paper, an index system is established for quantitative evaluation of construction projects in distribution system from the aspects of technical rationality and economic rationality. Furthermore, a mixed weighting method based on the ahp and entropy method is proposed for comprehensive evaluation of priority of different projects, so a quantitative basis can be provided for investment optimization in distribution system construction.

Sustainable citizenship as a methodology for engagement: navigating environmental, economic, and technological rationalities

The emergence of more and more new technologies ranging from genetic modification to nanotechnology is significantly affecting the environment in many different ways. Yet, policy making has not been able to keep pace with the rapid development of these technologies because of deeply entrenched divisions among stakeholders who prioritize different, often radically opposed, sets of values associated with technological interventions. Drawing on a theoretical framework of “sustainable citizenship” and a methodological platform of Q-surveys, this article identifies the shared values embedded in the overtly polarized positions of stakeholders to provide policy makers a common ground to work on. The article highlights a novel form of public engagement that interweaves socio-ecological rationalities with those of the economic and the technological. Mapping the values and beliefs of a variety of stakeholders and finding what is common to them paves the way for more inclusive policy responses to the challenges of new and emerging technologies.

The Neoliberal Politics of “Smart”: Electricity Consumption, Household Monitoring, and the Enterprise Form

This article investigates how digital technologies in the energy sector are enabling increased value extraction in the cycle of capital accumulation through surveillant processes of everyday energy consumption. We offer critical theory (Gramsci, Foucault) and critical political economy (Marx) as a guide for critical understanding of value creation in ICT through quotidian processes and practices of social reproduction. In this regard, the concept of the “prosumer” is extended beyond notions of voluntary participation in Web 2.0 to the political economy of energy use. Within this broad framework we investigate national and local level “smart grid” campaigns and projects. The “smartening” of the energy grid, we find, is both an ideological construct and a technological rationalization for facilitating capital accumulation through data collection, analysis, segmentation of consumers, and variable electricity pricing schemes to standardize social practices within and outside the home. We look at BC Hydro as one illustration of where such practices are being instituted.

Review: Aalto and America, by Stanford Anderson, Gail Fenske, and David Fixler, eds.

Stanford Anderson, Gail Fenske, and David Fixler, eds. Aalto and America New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2012, 340 pp., 150 color and 100 b/w illus. $85, ISBN 9780300176001 Recent historiographic research reveals the persistence of canonical histories of modern architecture. For example, Sigfried Giedion’s sixth edition of Space, Time and Architecture (1949) presents a poetic vision of Alvar Aalto as a man who had Finland with him wherever he went, and of Aino Aalto as “quiet as the Finnish lakes and forests from which she had sprung.”1 Giedion’s vision has continued to inform many subsequent texts, in the sense that his metaphors endure even when new information is found in previously unexamined sources. Published in the 1980s and early 1990s, Goran Schildt’s three books about Aalto’s life and work, written from a friend’s subjective point of view, have been difficult for younger scholars to contradict.2 Aalto’s centennial in 1998 produced an international wave of new scholarship with fresh approaches, aided by the Alvar Aalto Foundation in Helsinki and the Alvar Aalto Museum in Jyvaskyla, which welcome scholars to visit their libraries and their collections of drawings, photographs, documents, and correspondence. Digitalization has made essential Finnish material available to virtually everyone, and so the research goes on. In this context, Aalto and America is an important book; its topic is clear, and the contributing authors display remarkable competence in the subject and represent a variety of perspectives. The editors have succeeded in compiling a thought-provoking series of discussions, summarized in Stanford Anderson’s introduction. The book opens with a chronology and maps offering an overview of Aalto’s life, especially his travels and work in the United States. The sixteen primary chapters are divided into three main sections. In the first of these, “Aalto’s Modernism,” Sarah Williams Goldhagen, Dorte Kuhlmann, and Colin St. John Wilson all negotiate the line between modernism as technological rationalism and modernism as organicism. At the same time, they critique this petrified dualism, finding fresh …

Technologies in older people's care.

The tension between care-based and technology-based rationalities motivates studies concerning how technology can be used in the care sector to support the relational foundation of care. This study interprets values related to care and technologies connected to the practice of good care. This research study was part of a development project aimed at developing innovative work practices through information and communication technology. Participants and research context: All staff (n = 18) working at two wards in a care facility for older people were asked to participate in interviews, and 12 accepted. We analysed the data using latent content analysis in combination with normative analysis. Ethical considerations: The caregivers were informed that participation was voluntary and that they could drop out at any time without providing any explanation. Four values were identified: 'presence', 'appreciation', 'competence' and 'trust'. Caregivers wanted to focus on care receivers as unique persons, a view that they thought was compromised by time-consuming and beeping electronic devices. Appraising from next-of-kin and been seen as someone who can contribute together with knowledge to handle different situations were other desires. The caregivers also desired positive feedback from next-of-kin, as they wanted to be seen as professionals who have the knowledge and skills to handle difficult situations. In addition, the caregivers wanted their employer to trust them, and they wanted to work in a calm environment. Caregivers' desire for disturbance-free interactions, being valued for their skills and working in a trustful working environment were interpreted as their base for providing good care. The caregivers' arguments are based on caring rationality, and sometimes they felt the technological rationality interfered with their main mission, providing quality care. Introducing new technology in caring should support the caring relationship. Although society's overall technology-based approach may have gained popularity as a problem solver, technology-based rationality may compromise a care-based rationality. A shift in attitudes towards care as a concept on all societal levels is needed.

The Final Simile in the Aeneid

Turnus’ ballistic effort in the poem’s finale is answered by a contrapuntal simile describing Aeneas’ spear-throw as a salvo from a siege-engine: Turnus’ abortive feat, emulating an archaic epic gesture, now marks the anarcho-primitivist, while the ballista image—a conspicuous, forward-looking anachronism—pointedly plays off ‘modern’ technological rationality against a model of outdated heroics. As symbol and metonymy, this tension recapitulates aspects of the poem’s teleological design and, as such, discloses the mechanisms of the text’s own functioning: the simile of mechanized warfare echoes the theme of Jupiter’s blueprint with its defining polarities chaos/order,uis/consilium, nature/culture, and the forward march of history.

Simondon e o construtivismo: uma contribuição recursiva à teoria da concretização

Resumo Este artigo defende que a teoria da concretização de Gilbert Simondon é útil tanto para os estudos sobre ciência e tecnologia (ECT) quanto para a teoria política. Por "concretização", Simondon compreende o processo de multiplicação de funções propiciadas pelas estruturas de um dispositivo. Ele oferece o exemplo do motor com resfriamento a ar, que combina resfriamento e contenção em uma única estrutura, a caixa do motor. A concretização contrasta com projetos "abstratos", que acrescentam estruturas para cada função, complicando o dispositivo e reduzindo sua eficiência. De acordo com Simondon, a evolução normal das tecnologias pode ser acompanhada através de suas sucessivas concretizações. O propósito deste artigo é concretizar em um único sistema de referência conceitual as noções funcionalmente distintas de "concretização" em Simondon e de "atores" nos ECT. Essa combinação tem aplicações políticas importantes. Ela mostra como demandas aparentemente contraditórias podem ser reconciliadas através de inovação. Por exemplo, diz-se frequentemente que acrescentar novas funções ambientais a tecnologias existentes implicará na troca da eficiência pela ideologia. Ao invés disso, o novo sistema de referência conceitual abre-nos uma perspectiva de transformação radical da tecnologia requerida pela modernização e sustentabilidade ecológicas. Ao fazer isso, ele sugere um modo de reconstruir a "crítica racional da razão" da Escola de Frankfurt e a noção de "racionalidade tecnológica" de Marcuse.

The Rethinking of Technology in Class Struggle: Communicative Affirmation and Foreclosure Politics

With expansive digital networks supporting circuits of accumulation, facilitating both new forms of value capture and proletarian organization, Marxian scholars have shown renewed interest in questions of technology in class struggle. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's Empire, the most conspicuous autonomist Marxist theorizing on the subject, presents networked technology positively, as part of the revolutionary body, the multitude. Against the affirmative view, critiques of technology and technological rationality, drawn from a thread of Frankfurt School critical theory, have been posed as challenges to Hardt and Negri's conception of technology in class struggle. After identifying a genealogy of what this paper calls foreclosure politics running through the works of Herbert Marcuse, Jodi Dean, and Christian Fuchs, the paper closes by suggesting a conception of technology in class struggle triangulated by critical theory and affirmative conceptions of use.

Biotechnology as End Game: Ontological and Ethical Collapse in the “Biotech Century”

I argue in this paper that animal biotechnology constitutes a dangerous ontological collapse between animals and the technical-economic apparatus. By ontological collapse, I mean the elimination of fundamental ontological tensions between embodied subjects and the principles of scientific, technological, and economic rationalization. Biotechnology imposes this collapse in various ways: by genetically “reprogramming” animals to serve as uniform commodities, by abstracting them into data and code, and, in some cases, by literally manipulating their movements with computer technologies. These and other forms of ontological violence not only lead to profound physical suffering for the animals involved, but also distort the phenomenological basis of their existence, especially their perceptual experience and expression of subjective time and space. In subordinating nonhuman animals to the logic of “technological rationality” or “technique,” to borrow Herbert Marcuse and Jacques Ellul’s respective terms, biotechnology perpetuates the productive extermination of animals. Biotech animals are exterminated in the sense of being “drive[n] beyond the boundaries” of meaningful existence and “destroyed completely” or “completely wiped out” as subjects. But they are also exterminated in the sense of being “overproduced” and “overgenerated,” both quantitatively and qualitatively. I go on to argue that the collapse of the ontological is accompanied by a collapse of the ethical. This ethical collapse is characterized by the internalization of the logic of technique and the corresponding failure both within technoscientific culture itself and within some scholarly discourses about biotechnology to evaluate from a genuinely critical vantage point the fundamental ethical issues that animal biotechnology raises. The aim of this paper is to offer an alternative analysis of the ontological and ethical implications of biotechnology from the standpoint of Marcuse and Ellul’s critical theory of technology. To explore other ramifications of animal biotechnology, I draw on Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s insights into ideologies of extermination and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of embodiment.

Disenchantment revisited: Formations of the ‘secular’ and ‘religious’ in the technological discourse of modernity

This article problematizes sociologist Max Weber’s famed notion of ‘disenchantment’ in order to explore the ways in which ‘technology’ and ‘religion’ operate in the discourse of ‘secular modernity’. It suggests that disenchantment is not simply epistemological, that is, synonymous with rationalization and intellectualization, but also ontological, and a description of the overhauling of what Bruno Latour calls the ‘modernist settlement’. It proceeds in following manner: (1) it presents an ‘interpretive genealogy’ of technological rationality in discourses about modernity, demonstrating an internal conflict, especially in how ‘religion’, ‘the secular,’ and ‘technology’ are conceptualized. It posits that the lack of consistency in the invocation of these terms is a symptom of a deeper unresolved ontological (or, onto-cosmological) tension. (2) After establishing this ontological aporia, the article proceeds to offer a rereading of Weber’s original concept of disenchantment. (3) Finally, the author teases out some of the implications of reading disenchantment ontologically for the understanding of religion and technology.

稻田实行保护性耕作（8年）对水稻产量、土壤理化及生物学性状的影响

PDF HTML阅读 XML下载 导出引用 引用提醒 稻田实行保护性耕作对水稻产量、土壤理化及生物学性状的影响 DOI: 10.5846/stxb201401150114 作者: 作者单位: 江西农业大学生态科学研究中心,江西农业大学生态科学研究中心,江西农业大学生态科学研究中心,江西农业大学生态科学研究中心,江西农业大学生态科学研究中心,江西农业大学生态科学研究中心,江西农业大学生态科学研究中心,中国科学院南京土壤研究所 作者简介: 通讯作者: 中图分类号: 基金项目: 国家科技支撑计划课题(2007BAD89B18-03,2012BAD14B14-01) Effects of 8 years of conservational tillage on rice yield and soil physical, chemical and biological properties Author: Affiliation: Research Center on Ecological Science,Jiangxi Agricultural University,Research Center on Ecological Science,Jiangxi Agricultural University,Research Center on Ecological Science,Jiangxi Agricultural University,Research Center on Ecological Science,Jiangxi Agricultural University,Research Center on Ecological Science,Jiangxi Agricultural University,Research Center on Ecological Science,Jiangxi Agricultural University,Research Center on Ecological Science,Jiangxi Agricultural University, Fund Project: 摘要 | 图/表 | 访问统计 | 参考文献 | 相似文献 | 引证文献 | 资源附件 | 文章评论 摘要:在江西双季稻田进行长期田间定位试验,分析了多年保护性耕作对水稻产量、土壤理化性状及生物学性状的影响。连续8a稻田保护性耕作处理的平均产量高于传统耕作4.46%-8.79%,各处理的有效穗数、每穗粒数和结实率均高于对照,而各处理间穗长和千粒重差异不显著。实行稻田保护性耕作处理的土壤容重低于传统耕作3.6%-5.6%,而总孔隙度和毛管孔隙度分别高出传统耕作1.6%-17.4%、2.4%-16.7%。与传统耕作相比,连续8a保护性耕作显著提高了土壤有机质(2.9%-10.0%)、有效磷(4.8%-31.6%)、速效钾(9.7%-25.7%)。在 2005年免耕+插秧的土壤真菌数量最多,显著高于对照处理51.6%,免耕+抛秧在2008年达到最大,显著高于对照处理54.1%。2012年免耕+抛秧、免耕+插秧显著高于对照126.1%、121.1%;另外,各处理间过氧化氢酶、脲酶活性均差异不显著。8a间土壤转化酶活性变化范围在0.292-0.451 mg/g之间,其中2005-2007、2012年均是免耕+抛秧达到最大,与对照相比,增加范围为72.7%-137.7%,且差异显著(P<0.05)。因此,实行稻田保护性耕作是适合江南丘陵区双季稻区农业可持续发展的有效模式之一,其中免耕+抛秧和免耕+插秧两种方式效果最为显著。 Abstract:Conservation tillage is a key technology in the trend towards sustainable agriculture. The main targets of conservation tillage are to reduce soil erosion and protect the soil and the environment. Conservation tillage can be complemented by the use of a range of other cultivation techniques, including no-till cultivation techniques, the use of straw stubble technology and green covering technology. There are a number of current studies reporting on the effects of different tillage methods on crop yield and soil nutrients. There have been fewer comparisons of the effects of long-term application of conservation tillage on rice yield, soil physical, chemical and biological properties and interannual variability. Through research on trends in rice yield, soil physical and chemical properties and variation of soil biological activity under different tillage methods, this study explores the advantages of long-term application of conservation tillage on rice yield and soil fertility in paddy fields. It provides theoretical support and a sound scientific basis for the rationalization and vigorous promotion of conservation tillage technology in paddy fields. We have comprehensively studied the effects of long-term application of conservation tillage on rice yield, soil fertility and biological activity. The study site is located in the southern hilly region in Jiangxi Province, China. The double-cropping experiment was conducted in a paddy field at Jiangxi Agricultural University between 2005 and 2012. The test comprised a total of four treatments: (1) conventional tillage + transplanting (CT + P), the traditional farming method; (2) conservation tillage treatment: conservation tillage + throwing (CT + T), the traditional method of plowing and throwing seedlings after flattening; (3) conservation tillage treatment: no-tillage + transplanting (NT + P), no tillage, with the herbicide applied to stubble before transplanting; (4) conservation tillage treatment: no tillage + throwing (NT + T), no tillage, with the herbicide applied to stubble before throwing. The results indicate that with conservational tillage, rice yield was significantly higher (4.5%-8.8%) than with conventional tillage. Yield components were also higher with conservation tillage than conventional tillage, but the differences in ear length and grain weight among all treatments were not significant. Implementation of conservation tillage decreased soil bulk density by 3.6%-5.6%, increased total porosity by 1.6%-17.4% and increased capillary porosity by 2.4%-16.7% when compared with conventional tillage. Significant increases in soil organic matter (2.9%-10.0%), available phosphorus (4.8%-31.6%) and available potassium (9.7%-25.7%) were also obtained under long-term conservation tillage treatments when compared with conventional tillage. The abundance of fungi in the no-tillage + planting treatments was significantly higher (51.6%) than in conventional tillage in 2005, while the abundance of fungi in the no-tillage + throwing treatments was significantly higher (54.1%) than in conventional tillage in 2008. The differences in the abundance of nitrifying bacteria among all treatments were not significant between 2005 and 2011. The abundance of nitrifying bacteria in the no-tillage + throwing and the no-tillage + planting treatments were significantly higher (126.1% and 121.1%, respectively) than conventional tillage in 2012. No significant differences were obtained for catalase or urease activity among all treatments. Invertase activity varied between 0.292 and 0.451 mg/g during the 8 years sampled. Invertase activity was significantly higher in the no-tillage + throwing treatments (72.7%-137.7%) than in conventional tillage for the years 2005-2007 and in 2012. The implementation of conservation tillage was an effective model for sustainable development of agriculture and was suitable for the southern hilly region. The no-tillage + throwing and no-tillage + planting treatments generated the most significant effects. 参考文献 相似文献 引证文献

Science and Modernity: A Critical Needs

Modern science has no basis of positivist epistemological and methodological foundations sufficient for building a comprehensive understanding of the world of man and society. A study of contrasts to the paradigms of science, technology and modern rationality expressed the thoughts of Jurgen Habermas, Herbert Marcuse, Martin Heidegger, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Boaventura Santos Souza was conducted. We used a dialectic approach to highlight the contradictions and limitations of this paradigm and highlight other paradigms of positivist epistemological basis not carry that enabled the overcoming of knowledge as regulation by knowledge empowerment. It was evident, based on the theories of these authors and arguments of researchers such as Albert Einstein, Ilya Prigogine, Michel Foucault, among others, that modern science has methodological limitations Cartesian basis and fragile epistemological basis when trying to conceive man, world and society while dynamically articulated.

Humanismo y consumo en la perspectiva de Herbert Marcuse

Este artículo presenta una reflexión sucinta sobre la condición humana, a la luz del sujeto racional y el consumo y uso de tecnología, teniendo como referente a Herbert Marcuse y tomando como temas centrales algunas de sus obras: Tecnología, guerra y fascismo, Eros y civilización y El final de la utopía. En ellas se podrán identificar aspectos de la condición humana en el siglo XX,abordados a través de la racionalidad tecnológica en una sociedad de consumo.

Fixtures Design Based on RP Technology

In the mechanical processing, fixture has an irreplaceable role, but in the traditional design methods, there are many shortcomings, the rapid prototyping technology is used in the design of fixture was mainly introduced. The defects of fixture design was introduced at this stage, the rationality of rapid prototyping technology used in fixture design was analyzed, then, the advantages of rapid prototyping technology used for fixture design was highlighted, through the concrete example and the forming process of display.

The Engineering Application of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Concrete Beam

This article describes the engineering overview that using carbon fiber to reinforce the concrete beam of industrial building. The designing principles and methods, construction instructions and inspection strengthening quality are analyzed. Currently, the projects seem good in the practice. And the advancement and rationality of this reinforcement technology and design method are proved in the engineering application.

Tecnologias na educação. Desafios à formação e à práxis

Neste texto são discutidos os limites e as possibilidades da formação docente, no âmbito das Tecnologias da Informação e da Comunicação (tic). Nesse sentido, a educação contemporânea se alicerça na lógica capitalista e, consequentemente, na racionalidade tecnológica, assumindo o estatuto de centralidade tanto na educação quanto na formação docente. Assim, considerando a racionalidade técnica, que atribui à cultura um ar de espetáculo decorrente da produção em massa da Indústria Cultural, a reflexão crítica oportuniza o entendimento das bases que sustentam a afirmação das Tecnologias da Informação e da Comunicação (tic) no campo educacional, bem como na implicação de seus impactos sobre o processo de formação docente. Nesse movimento, a Teoria Crítica contribui com fundamentos filosófico-teórico-metodológicos necessários ao entendimento, enfrentamento e problematização dos desafios postos a esse movimento educacional e intelectual.

Engendering a Little More Truth: Gender and Genre in Shared Lives

In debunking the possibility of ‘an all-powerful theory’, Julia Kristeva argues that we need to pay attention to ‘the art and literature of our time, which remain alone, in our world of technological rationality, to impel us not toward the absolute but toward a quest for a little more truth, an impossible truth, concerning the meaning of speech, concerning our condition as speaking beings’. Shared Lives, Lyndall Gordon's biographical homage to three of her friends, is a principled engagement with the problems of generic certitude. The careful re-definition, by means of autobiographical examination, of the genre of biography is propelled by the gender of the biographer and biographical subjects. As a woman writing about women who are, by definition, ‘outside Power’ (Barthes) Gordon uses the ‘languages’ of biography and autobiography in order to undermine their authoritarianism so as to find collaborative truths. Shared Lives employs ‘an aesthetics of the ruse’ (Lionnet) to evade the male-biased discourses that are intent on effacing women.

Complex electrochemical investigation of ordered mesoporous carbon synthesized by soft-templating method: charge storage and electrocatalytical or Pt-electrocatalyst supporting behavior

Ordered mesoporous carbon (OMC) was synthesized by an evaporation induced self-assembly method, under acidic conditions, with resorcinol as the carbon precursor and Pluronic F127 triblock copolymer (EO106PO70EO106) as a structure directing agent. The obtained OMC product was characterized by N2 sorptometry, X-ray diffractometry and Raman spectroscopy. The mean pore radius of 2nm and specific surface area of 712 m2g−1 were found. The OMC sample was subjected to a complex electrochemical testing in order to check for its applicability in various energy conversion processes. For pure OMC, the charge storage properties and kinetics of oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in alkaline solution were measured. The OMC sample delivered specific capacitance of 232 F g−1 at 5mV s−1 with 83.6% capacitance retained at 100mV s−1. Effective ORR electrocatalysis by OMC in alkaline media was evidenced, with onset potential amounting to −0.10V vs. saturated calomel electrode. A part of the OMC sample was used as a support of Pt nanoparticles, and examined as electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction (HOR) and ORR in acidic media. Reversible HOR kinetics was observed, while ORR performances were found to be competitive to the ones on other carbon-supported Pt electrocatalysts reported so far. A superb electrochemical behavior was correlated to physico-chemical properties of OMC. Described OMC stands out as a highly versatile material, which can be used to replace carbon materials developed for specific purposes, allowing rationalization of carbon-based technologies aimed for energy conversion purposes.

Magik on the Mounds: The (Re) Enchanted Spaces of the House on the Rock

To explore the intersection of magic, imagination, and place as a buttress against continued disenchantment furthered by an over reliance on rational thought, we turn to the (re)enchanted rhetoric of Starhawk, an eco-feminist peace activist and witch, to analyze the House on the Rock. We focused on the ways in which some rhetorical spaces challenge the postmodern idea of the disenchanting overemphasis on moral perfection, logic, and technological rationalization. Intertwined with cultural and political institutions, disenchanted rhetoric ensnares individuals in stultified existence that eliminates diversity, reifies hierarchy, dismisses creativity, and limits individuality. In positioning the House on the Rock as a rhetorical text we suggest that liminal spaces liberate individuals from the fetters of societal expectations, hierarchies, and institutions, offer a safe vantage point by which to examine conflicting viewpoints, and ultimately blur the distinction between entrenched understandings and new ways of knowing and seeing.