Alvarez, Kerby C. (2023). “Explosions et représentations : vignettes scientifiques et culturelles des éruptions du Taal.” Frontières 34(2): 1-30

Abstract

In his The Mysteries of Taal, Hargrove (1991) describes the Taal volcano as a blessing and a curse. This miscible trait of being a hazardous geological landform and the character as being a culturally significant and economically providing geographic territory symbolizes Taal volcano’s location in Philippine history and culture. This paper illustrates the aforementioned dynamic nature of the Taal Volcano. Using scientific analysis as well as cultural anecdotes in history, I attempt to describe and analyze Taal’s visualizations across time: the Taal as physical landscape that has been a subject of scientific studies, and as a cultural landscape imagined in select cultural materials. Through this approach, this study offers a way of looking at how volcanoes, as one of the potentially-loaded destructive natural landforms, tend to be read and appreciated not only as a source of hazard but also as a derivation of economic survival and intellectual production.

Keywords: Taal volcano ; volcanic hazards ; historical eruptions ; geological studies ; folklores

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