Authors:Richa Minocha, Aishi Mitra, Neha Dadke Pages: 1 - 10 Abstract: According to archaeologist André Leroi-Gourhan, humanized space can be understood on multiple levels – for meeting basic survival needs, to establish a social system, and as a starting point for understanding the wider conceptual universe. In our own social ecology work, we have found that gender is integral to the spatial dimensions of human life, and so the question arises: Is Gender also Central to the Study of Big History' Can we represent gender, so it addresses synergies and symbiotic relationships of the cosmos, as well as concerns for the conservation of ecology and heritage' These questions correlate well with Big History’s consideration of the universe’s varied environments, making the study of humanized space a key factor in self-understanding. PubDate: 2023-09-20 DOI: 10.22339/jbh.v6i2.6201 Issue No:Vol. 6, No. 2 (2023)
Authors:Priyadarshini Karve Pages: 11 - 15 Abstract: The beginning of the 21st century witnessed terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre in the United States. This incident changed global politics and brought new twists and turns in world history. The last two decades have seen the rise of identity politics, leading to the escalation of local conflicts across the world. At the same time, environmental challenges to human societies have become increasingly threatening, manifested on a planetary scale through global warming and loss of biodiversity. The effect of political and environmental challenges happening together is being felt in social-cultural-economic realms. All of these tensions have been starkly laid bare in the way governments and societies in different parts of the world have responded to the challenge of the global covid pandemic that we are currently facing. The pandemic will ebb and flow, and reduce itself to a non-threatening form in a few years, but the challenges of global warming and loss of biodiversity just keep growing and will plague us for decades to come. While the battle against alarming changes in the environment around us will continue till the end of the century, many experts believe that the seeds of our success or failure will be sown in this decade. The actions we take and the social-economic-political systems we set up by 2030 will largely cast the die for the future of humanity beyond the 21st century. This situation underlines the importance of seeing the big picture that only Big History can reveal by connecting the dots of events in different spheres of human activity on a planetary scale. Our big-history thinking clearly shows interlinkages between seemingly independent crises that seem to be bombarding us one after the other. PubDate: 2023-09-20 DOI: 10.22339/jbh.v6i2.6202 Issue No:Vol. 6, No. 2 (2023)
Authors:Barry Rodrigue Pages: 17 - 29 Abstract: There is a long history of stories about events that threaten the end of the world or about life after a major catastrophe. The Naxi Annals of Creation and the Mesopotamian Gilgamesh Epic tell of floods that all but end life on Earth. H.G. Well’s 1897 story, War of the Worlds, is about Martians invading Earth, but who themselves are killed by a terrestrial epidemic. The 1954 Japanese film, ゴジラ (Godzilla), is about a marine reptile mutated by nuclear radiation that attacks humans. We love to be horrified by such fantasies, but these stories also grab our attention because there is a strong element of truth in them: Human life is precarious. PubDate: 2023-09-20 DOI: 10.22339/jbh.v6i2.6203 Issue No:Vol. 6, No. 2 (2023)
Authors:Nikolay Kradin Pages: 31 - 41 Abstract: There are many parts of the world that do not receive much attention outside of their own resident peoples. This is an anomaly of history and its measurements of value. Why should Niagara Falls or Victoria Falls have more name-recognition than the spectacular waterfall of Ilya Muromets in the Kuril Islands' Why Paris or Capetown instead of Irkutsk' Of course, this is a complex question involving population density, songs, and travel literature! But in terms of big history and universal studies, why should one place be privileged over others' For example, the literary scholar, Gary Lawless, directly addresses this question in his article on bioregionalism and big history for his own geographic home in the Gulf of Maine, while historian Craig Benjamin assesses the significance and survival of an even more focused area – Jericho in the West Bank of Palestine. So too, I wish to offer a contribution to the argument that our entire planet and all of humanity and life are of significance. Here, therefore is a brief but big history of my homeland. PubDate: 2023-09-20 DOI: 10.22339/jbh.v6i2.6204 Issue No:Vol. 6, No. 2 (2023)
Authors:Painda Khan Pages: 43 - 46 Abstract: Just over a dozen years ago, Barry Rodrigue heard about a poet and teacher in Afghanistan, named Painda Khan, from his son [Hewad] and his future son-in-law [Atal], who were students in North America. Professor Khan was described as a highly principled and inspirational educator, one who stood for free-thought in Afghanistan’s communities and classrooms. He encouraged critical thinking, independent from dogmas of all kinds. PubDate: 2023-09-20 DOI: 10.22339/jbh.v6i2.6205 Issue No:Vol. 6, No. 2 (2023)
Authors:Ye Chen Pages: 47 - 64 Abstract: This is Article 2 in a series about the General Law of Being, a science philosophy introduced by Chinese scholar Wang Dongyue twenty years ago and then expanded upon by Chen Ye, who linked it to other scientific and philosophical traditions, as well as to Big History. We encourage readers to review the first article in the previous issue of the Journal of Big History 6 (1). As addressed in Article 1, all entities in the universe – beings – are finite, interdependent, and interrelated. PubDate: 2023-09-20 DOI: 10.22339/jbh.v6i2.6206 Issue No:Vol. 6, No. 2 (2023)
Authors:Aidan W.H. Wong, Alexis K.H. Lau Pages: 65 - 68 Abstract: Many friends and colleagues asked why we were so motivated to introduce a new interdisciplinary framework like Big History to our core course on sustainability / climate change at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. The reason is a mixture of intuition, observation and teaching experience. Often, our students, as our future leaders, do not see themselves as agents of change and they feel great despair by the complexity of problems we face. So, we recognized the desperate need to introduce a new macroscopic perspective for our students to step back and see better opportunities and ways to approach the challenges. PubDate: 2023-09-20 DOI: 10.22339/jbh.v6i2.6207 Issue No:Vol. 6, No. 2 (2023)
Authors:Ma. Rubeth Ronquillo-Hipolito Pages: 69 - 72 Abstract: Being a Philosophy professor for eighteen years and then a Big History professor for three, I fell in love with Philosophy long before I fell in love with Big History. But, similar to St. Augustine’s attribution of his relationship with God, I also say: ‘Late have I loved thee, beauty so ancient yet so new.’ This exciting love affair with Philosophy and Big History is a marriage that came along and brought forth many splendid realizations. It introduced a dimension that existed from the very start but was never really pondered upon nor ventured into simply because they were never seen as part of a coherent whole. I used to be intimidated with numbers and chemistry but, suddenly took a different liking, once I was re-introduced to them in a big-history way. PubDate: 2023-09-20 DOI: 10.22339/jbh.v6i2.6208 Issue No:Vol. 6, No. 2 (2023)
Authors:Gavin Lee Pages: 73 - 76 Abstract: Ever since I began teaching Big History in 2018 in Taiwan, the most frequently asked question is: ‘How is Big History relevant to me'’ For high-schoolers, we connect cross-disciplinary knowledge and learning strategies so they can process knowledge with diverse media. For lifelong learners, we combine problem-solving competency and complex big-history case studies so that they can apply competencies in multiple contexts. For our Executive MBA program, we help business leaders focus on organizational complexity and facilitate a discussion of structural change. PubDate: 2023-09-20 DOI: 10.22339/jbh.v6i2.6209 Issue No:Vol. 6, No. 2 (2023)
Authors:Albert T. Wang Pages: 77 - 78 Abstract: From the Big Bang to the recent development of human civilization, we are exploring the future and examining the past. Big History includes knowledge about the universe and the composition of the chemical elements, which represent the macrocosm and microcosm for the whole picture. In the frame of Big History, we connect everything that seems irrelevant to the relevant, bringing it all together. At Mingdao High School, we focus on multi-performance and development, so we introduced a big-history course to our tenth-grade students. Instead of accepting knowledge passively in a classroom, we train them by cultivating their concept-creative ability and problem-solving skills. For such a course, it represents an unprecedented step forward in their lives. PubDate: 2023-09-20 DOI: 10.22339/jbh.v6i2.6210 Issue No:Vol. 6, No. 2 (2023)
Authors:Welfredo Q. Mamaril Pages: 79 - 84 Abstract: As humans increasingly dominate in the Anthropocene epoch and become more powerful with rapid advances in technology and science, they are also seeing the consequences appear in Nature, such as global warming, rising sea levels, melting glaciers, pollution, deforestation, and violent storms. These natural disasters contribute to complex social, political, economic and health problems … challenges that are international, since we live in a largely borderless world and share a common home, one planet – Earth. PubDate: 2023-09-20 DOI: 10.22339/jbh.v6i2.6211 Issue No:Vol. 6, No. 2 (2023)
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