This thesis paper explores how various actors gathered around bottled water when a ban was put into place in Concord, Massachusetts. The objective has been to answer the following questions: How does an apolitical commodity become a political one? Specifically, how does bottled water move from being an apolitical commodity to become a highly political one? What does this mean for environmental politics? I situate my theoretical approach within Martha Kaplan’s research with fountains and coolers. I use Bruno Latour to show in which ways this ban became a matter of concern, as well as how the ban and the plastic bottle are actors. I conducted fieldwork in Concord and I interviewed participants. My findings reveal that the ban brought meanings to the surface and challenged them or supported them in various ways. The discussions turned from the impact of bottled water on our environment to the political impact of bottled water companies and large corporations on local Concord issues.

This thesis paper explores how various actors gathered around bottled water when a ban was put into place in Concord, Massachusetts. The objective has been to answer the following questions: How does an apolitical commodity become a political one? Specifically, how does bottled water move from being an apolitical commodity to become a highly political one? What does this mean for environmental politics? I situate my theoretical approach within Martha Kaplan’s research with fountains and coolers. I use Bruno Latour to show in which ways this ban became a matter of concern, as well as how the ban and the plastic bottle are actors. I conducted fieldwork in Concord and I interviewed participants. My findings reveal that the ban brought meanings to the surface and challenged them or supported them in various ways. The discussions turned from the impact of bottled water on our environment to the political impact of bottled water companies and large corporations on local Concord issues.

Texte remanié de : Thèse de doctorat : Art et archéologie : Paris 1 : 2000 : Les monuments de l'eau : aqueducs, châteaux d'eau et fontaines dans la ville moderne (1661-1791). / Bibliogr. p.154-156. Notes bibliogr. Index.

Orientadores: Luiz Cesar Marques Filho, Maria Cristina Louro Berbara / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciencias Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-14T17:34:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Azevedo_Evelyne_M.pdf: 12063793 bytes, checksum: 928c7b993703d336d31616d9f1c0281f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / Resumo: A Fonte dos Quatro Rios situada na Piazza Navona, em Roma, foi projetada e construída por Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) entre os anos 1648 e 1651. Grosso modo, ela é constituída de quatro colossos representando os quatro maiores rios da Terra, aos quais são vinculados elementos da flora e fauna respectivos das zonas geográficas às quais os rios pertencem. Sobre o conjunto, encontra-se um obelisco encimado por uma pomba levando em seu bico um ramo de oliveira. Ao projeto iconográfico da fonte vincula-se a figura do jesuíta alemão Athanasius Kircher (1602 -1680), que, em 1650, finaliza sua obra Obeliscus Pamphilius, na qual trata, dentre outras coisas, especificamente da simbologia dos animais utilizados na fonte e sua relação com a mitologia egípcia. Peça fundamental deste estudo, a tradução do texto kircheriano revela diferentes significados para o monumento berniniano, permitindo uma nova interpretação que associa ambas obras. / Abstract: The Four Rivers Fountain is located at the Piazza Navona, in Rome and it was projected and constructed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini between 1648 and 1651. It is formed by four colossi representing the greatest rivers of each continent known at that time. Above them an obelisk was erected having on its top a dove with an olive branch. The iconographic project is associated to the german Jesuit Athanasius Kircher which published in 1650 the Obeliscus Pamphilius. This book reveals the simbology of the animals used in the fountain and its relation with the egyptian mythology. The translation from the latin of this text shows differents meanings for the monument, which permits a knew interpretation for Bernini's fountain. / Mestrado / Historia da Arte / Mestre em História

Cette thèse de doctorat en histoire étudie les rapports religieux entre les Romains de l’Antiquité et les eaux douces avec lesquelles ils ont vécu en proximité. Cette étude part du constat que les Romains sont connus pour leurs savoirs techniques des eaux et leurs aqueducs. Toutefois, les croyances religieuses associées à l’eau n’ont pas encore été examinées dans leur ensemble et demeurent éparpillées à travers l’historiographie. Dans le but de combler cette lacune, cette étude présente une synthèse des cultes dédiés à l'eau par les Romains à partir des sources littéraires, archéologiques et épigraphiques, datant en majorité de la République tardive et du Haut-Empire (Ier siècle av. n. è au IIIe siècle). / This doctoral thesis in history focuses on the religious relationship between the ancient Romans and the freshwater which they lived nearby as inhabitants of a river town. This study starts from the observation that Romans are known for their technical knowledge of water and their aqueducts. However, religious beliefs associated with water have yet to be fully examined and remain scattered throughout historiography. To fill this gap, this study presents a synthesis of the aquatic cultures of the Romans from literary, archaeological, and epigraphic sources, dating mostly from the Late Republic and the High Empire (1st century BC. 3rd century)

Cette étude porte sur les fontaines monumentales ou nymphées dans les provinces de l’Afrique du Nord à l’époque romaine, sur une période allant du Ier au IVe siècle ap. J.‑C. Nous avons constitué un catalogue des monuments et un corpus épigraphique, à partir de sources bibliographiques et archéologiques recueillies par un travail de terrain. Après avoir rappelé l’histoire des recherches sur l’hydraulique de l’Afrique antique, nous étudions en détail les aspects techniques et architecturaux des fontaines monumentales. Nous proposons une synthèse sur les techniques de construction et le fonctionnement hydraulique, mais également sur la restitution architecturale et du décor sculpté, à l’aide de sources littéraires et iconographiques. Sans proposer de typologie, nous étudions les fontaines dans leur contexte, au sein de la ville et du réseau hydraulique. Nous mettons ainsi en avant l’insertion des fontaines dans la ville et le lien qu’elles entretiennent avec la mise en place des adductions et les programmes urbanistiques. Ces observations rendent possible une étude de la répartition des fontaines dans l’espace urbain et de son impact, décoratif et fonctionnel. L’étude des inscriptions nous permet de mieux envisager le fonctionnement de l’évergétisme, le comportement de la cité et des notables face à ces édifices. Elle est aussi l’occasion de revenir sur les problèmes de vocabulaire qui impliquent une réflexion sur l’appellation des édifices et leur fonction religieuse. / This thesis deals with monumental fountains or nymphaea in the Roman North Africa provinces from the 1st to the 4th century CE. We have made up a catalogue of the monuments and inscriptions, composed from bibliographical and archaeological sources compiled on-site. We first sum up the history of research on hydraulics in ancient North Africa and then we study in detail the technical and architectural aspects of monumental fountains. We offer a synthesis on building techniques and hydraulic system as well as architectural and ornamental reconstruction with the help of literary and iconographic sources. Avoiding to establish a typology, we contextualise the fountains both within the city and the hydraulic network. Thus we put forward the insertion of fountains in the city and their link with the founding of a new water supply or town-planning programmes. These observations make possible a study of how the fountains were spread out in the urban space and to what extent it had a decorative and functional impact. By studying inscriptions, we may better understand how euergetism worked, just as the behaviour of cities and notables faced with these monuments. We may also go back to questions of vocabulary which imply to think about the appellation of fountains and their religious function.

The thrust of this thesis proceeds from two main presuppositions. The first is that the Old Testament wisdom books are generally ignored or not given enough attention in the studies about water and water-related phenomena. The second is that the romantic perspective on elements of the natural world is dominant in eco-theological studies. To highlight this twofold problem, a sample survey into the works of the scholarly biblical dictionaries, encyclopedias, books and articles as well as ecotheological studies is offered in the second chapter of this thesis. In an attempt to (partly) address this problem, this study argues that, firstly, despite a scarcity of scholarly interest in water and water-related phenomena in the Old Testament wisdom books, this body of literature contains a rich variety of references to water and water-related phenomena. Secondly, it is shown in this study that an overly-romantic view of nature does not do justice to the richness, complexity, and variety of portrayals of elements of nature in the texts themselves. In this sense, this study aims at retrieving ecological wisdom from particular texts that give voice to both the life-giving and life-threatening potential of water and water-related phenomena in the Old Testament wisdom books. The exploration is facilitated by elements of the historical-critical and literary approaches through an ecological framework informed by four of the six eco-justice principles of the Earth Bible Project. The thesis suggests that scholars who attempt ecological readings of the Bible will gain more if they also take less favoured texts into consideration. The exploration of water and water-related phenomena in the Old Testament wisdom books, therefore, goes beyond what studies on water or water-related phenomena have hitherto done. Furthermore, a study on both aspects of water as a life-giving and life-threatening entity demonstrates that an eco-friendly view of nature does not do justice to the biblical texts themselves. This will be seen through the third, fourth, fifth and sixth chapters. / Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern Studies / D. Th. (Old Testament)

The thrust of this thesis proceeds from two main presuppositions. The first is that the Old Testament wisdom books are generally ignored or not given enough attention in the studies about water and water-related phenomena. The second is that the romantic perspective on elements of the natural world is dominant in eco-theological studies. To highlight this twofold problem, a sample survey into the works of the scholarly biblical dictionaries, encyclopedias, books and articles as well as ecotheological studies is offered in the second chapter of this thesis. In an attempt to (partly) address this problem, this study argues that, firstly, despite a scarcity of scholarly interest in water and water-related phenomena in the Old Testament wisdom books, this body of literature contains a rich variety of references to water and water-related phenomena. Secondly, it is shown in this study that an overly-romantic view of nature does not do justice to the richness, complexity, and variety of portrayals of elements of nature in the texts themselves. In this sense, this study aims at retrieving ecological wisdom from particular texts that give voice to both the life-giving and life-threatening potential of water and water-related phenomena in the Old Testament wisdom books. The exploration is facilitated by elements of the historical-critical and literary approaches through an ecological framework informed by four of the six eco-justice principles of the Earth Bible Project. The thesis suggests that scholars who attempt ecological readings of the Bible will gain more if they also take less favoured texts into consideration. The exploration of water and water-related phenomena in the Old Testament wisdom books, therefore, goes beyond what studies on water or water-related phenomena have hitherto done. Furthermore, a study on both aspects of water as a life-giving and life-threatening entity demonstrates that an eco-friendly view of nature does not do justice to the biblical texts themselves. This will be seen through the third, fourth, fifth and sixth chapters. / Biblical and Ancient Studies / D. Th. (Old Testament)

Link to dataset: https://doi.org/10.25399/UnisaData.14152106.v1 / The work of Bruce Nauman can be understood as an enquiry into the absurd. His work is a critique of art, the artist and society, and is in part viewed as a mediation of stereotypical ‘truth’. The absurd is defined and analysed to elucidate the nature of art and human behaviour by means of literary comparison, in particular of Camus, Sartre and Wittgenstein. This research focusses on Nauman’s subversive performance- based work and analyses how he simulates a particular work of Duchamp. I propose that Nauman espouses human activity into the functionality of objects, such as fountains. My artworks expand on Nauman’s interrogation of the concept of a ‘true artist’ by embodying an absurd fountain as a Sisyphean construct. In contextualising my work in relation to incessant duty, insecurity and double negatives, I offer a regenerative vigour against idolisation of success through contemplation of the artist’s doubt and the absurd. / Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology / M.A. (Visual Arts)