doing something different with language
They did give me exactly what I needed during my prospectus defense, even though a hazing frenzy seemed to build as we spoke. Perhaps I still give off the vibe that being clubbed with a two-by-four is the only way to get my attention.
I had meant to mention my science fiction mind at the beginning of the presentation – … Read more...
Change is always resisted. At the cellular level patterns of survival screech to continue unaltered. It is we, the thinking aggregate of living cells composed into consciousnesses with conscience who must impose a break with violence and the talk that spurs it on.… Read more...
Not new information –
My smart friends are posting wicked cool stuff:
Flaws of Gravity, a review by Christopher Hitchens of a new biography of Isaac Newton.
and
Critical Art on Trial, about a group of tactical media practitioners doing digital disobedience (among other fusions of art, pedagogy, radical political action). Their activist work includes an installation that “encourage[s] citizens to make … Read more...
Barack Obama said this last night, as others have said before and with increasing urgency as the scientific evidence becomes stronger, more clear and convincing.
But can we change the ways we talk? Can we alter the tropes of political discourse? He is trying, valiantly.
Whether he wins or loses the nomination, the consciousness accompanying his talk – that … Read more...
I asked students in the Group Dynamics course to engage with the title of John Robison’s book, look me in the eye, in order to investigate the meanings associated with eye contact and then consciously link that range of meanings to the notion of indirect interaction. The few students who tackled this challenge in full show how communicating across … Read more...
A vigorous debate between two faculty members dominated conversation about Marc Crépon‘s “What We Demand of Languages,” an extended footnote to Derrida’s Monolingualism of the Other.
I had been worried about arriving late to the Center for Communication Studies event, however Briankle Chang and Vernon Cronen were deep in discourse, ranging from the mistake of theology (not a feature … Read more...
I am reading Monolingualism of the Other in preparation for a talk with Chang and Lankala this Wednesday.
Derrida risks two propositions:
- We only ever speak one language.
- We never speak only one language.
Meanwhile, I enjoyed another Equinox sunset and am delighted by the opening of my Irish Daffodils! (Birds of Paradise soon to follow…)
Obama Read more...
Israel and Palestine may be the world’s best example. News media repeats the fiction of “the Palestinians” as if Hamas and Fatah represent something in common. Hamas follows the breach of the Gaza Strip wall with Egypt with increased suicide bombings in Israel, and Israelis initiate attacks on Palestinian neighborhoods that are disturbingly like pogroms.
What happened to the peacemakers?… Read more...
