Old Email Archive

digest 1996-08-07 #001



11:24 PM 8/7/96 -0700
From: "Society for Literature & Science" 

Daily SLS Email Digest
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 7 Aug 1996 01:18:08 -0700
From: aeksp@hum.aau.dk (Soeren Pold)
Subject: Re: earliest concept of "cyberspace?"
In the spring semester I taught "Neuromancer", and we had
quite an
interesting discussion about how the novel depicted space and which kind
of
space it outlined. For example, as you may know, it quickly changes
from
'real' space to represented space (e.g. cyberspace) at a speed and with
a
naturalness for the involved characters that is stunning to the reader.
There are some quite interesting passages that point this out, for
example
the attack on the Sense/Net building or the final raid into Villa
Straylight. Also one may note how represented space, for example in
holographic advertising, is not twodimensional anymore as well as real
space on the planet Freeside in Rue Jules Verne or in Villa Straylight
is
not really threedimensional any longer. We did some comparisons to more
classical depictions of urban space, for example Balzac's
"Ferragus", and
found that Gibson had radically dramatized and emphasized some earlier
concepts about urban space. One of the ways we could describe this
Neuromancer space was by using some of the notions of a fractal space
as
described in Deleuze's "Mille plateus"/"A Thousand
Plateus" in the chapter
14, The Smooth and the Striated.
I'm writing all this to point to that though Gibson coined the term
'cyberspace' (though he appearantly like 'matrix' better) he did so in
an
ingenious developping of literary discussions about urban and media
space.
At the same time I would like to know whether any of you has worked
with
the concept of space in such a context and whether you have any material
to
share or references to interesting material? - In the same discussion I
had
good use of Michel de Certeau's "L'invention du quotidien - 1. Arts
de
faire" especially the third part: "Pratiques d'espace"
(it is also
translated into English).
By the way, does anybody know what the Finn (in the same book) means. I
know it can be a person from Finland, but that can't be all there is to
it,
can it? (Maybe I'm just an ignorant Dane?!).
Sincerely,
-
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Soeren Pold
Dept. of Comparative Literature    phone: +45 8942 1835
University of Aarhus               fax:   +45 8942 1850
Willemoesgade 15                   Office email: aeksp@hum.aau.dk
DK-8200  Aarhus N                  Priv. email:
bus4303@vip.cybercity.dk
Denmark                           
http://www.uib.no/ped/tutors/spaarhus.gif
-
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 7 Aug 1996 04:51:22 -0700
From: Andrew Brown 
Subject: phrenology
Hello,
does anyone know of any studies on the history of phrenology and its
relationship with literature?  I'm specifically interested in 19th
century
Latin American literature, but I've had trouble finding much on
phrenology
and literature in general.
Thanks,
Andrew Brown
"Alcanzar alguno a ser eminente en letras le cuesta
tiempo, vigilias, hambre, desnudez, vaguidos de
cabeza,indigestiones de estomago y otras cosas a
estas adherentes"
- -Don Quijote de la Mancha
Andrew Brown
Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese,
University of Virginia
abrown@virginia.edu
http://darwin.clas.virginia.edu/~jab5b
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 7 Aug 1996 11:03:54 -0700
From: Robert Maxwell Young 
Subject: Re: phrenology
Do you know the work of Roger Cooder?
>Hello,
>does anyone know of any studies on the history of phrenology and
its
>relationship with literature?  I'm specifically interested in 19th
century
>Latin American literature, but I've had trouble finding much on
phrenology
>and literature in general.
>Thanks,
>Andrew Brown
>
>"Alcanzar alguno a ser eminente en letras le cuesta
>tiempo, vigilias, hambre, desnudez, vaguidos de
>cabeza,indigestiones de estomago y otras cosas a
>estas adherentes"
>-Don Quijote de la Mancha
>
>Andrew Brown
>Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese,
>University of Virginia
>abrown@virginia.edu
>http://darwin.clas.virginia.edu/~jab5b
>
__________________________________________
Robert Maxwell Young:  robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk  26 Freegrove Rd., London
N7
9RQ, Eng. tel.+44 171 607 8306  fax.+44 171 609 4837 Professor of
Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, Centre for Psychotherapeutic
Studies, University of  Sheffield. Home page and writings:
http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/  Process Press publications:
http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/process_press/index.html
'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus