Had I been really ambitious with yesterday’s post, I would have attempted to draw in a little controversy over the practice of flânerie earlier this week. You may be wondering what flânerie is, or if you know what it is, you may be wondering why on earth it would spark controversy. Short answers today. First, flânerie is the … Continue reading Flânerie and the Dérive, Online and Off
As counterintuitive as it may now seem, there are links between the ethos and the history of technology and magic. A few weeks ago, I posted some observations by Lewis Mumford and C. S. Lewis to that effect (although Lewis speaks more generally of science rather than technology). In The Technological Society, Jacques Ellul makes a series … Continue reading Technology and Magic
Early on in the life of this blog I wrote a couple of posts referencing George Kennan, the American diplomat and scholar who played a seminal role in the evolution of American foreign policy in the years following the close of the Second World War. Kennan’s “Long Telegram,” for example, is generally considered to be … Continue reading Remembering George Kennan
Alright so here’s our reading for the weekend. We start with four pieces on brain science and philosophy: “Telling the Story of the Brain’s Cacophony of Competing Voices” by Benedict Carey at the NY Times: Discussion of the life and work of neuroscientist and professor of psychology Michael Gazzaniga on the brain, freedom, responsibility, and … Continue reading Weekend Reading, 11/5/11
The Embodied Unconscious Part Two of Three. Part One. Ulmer’s project — fashioning a heuristic apparatus that brings the social unconscious partly into view — focuses on the semiotic elements of the socially situated self. Yet, this is only one of the unconscious, or pre-cognitive, dimensions of identity and action. In How We Became Posthuman, … Continue reading The Internet, the Body, and Unconscious Dimensions of Thought, Part II
L.M. Sacasas 