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digest 2003-03-24 #001.txt
litsci-l-digest Monday, March 24 2003 Volume 01 : Number
030
In this issue:
SLS 2003 website up
Kurt Vonnegut and the 4th dimension
FW: FW: Kurt Vonnegut and the 4th dimension
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Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2003 16:43:18 -0600
From: "Linda D. Henderson"
Subject: SLS 2003 website up
Message from conference organizers Bruce Clarke and Linda Henderson:
The website for the SLS 2003 conference in Austin, "Rethinking Space and
Time Across Science Literature and the Arts," is now operational at
. May 1 is the deadline for abstracts, which can
be submitted directly at the website.
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Please see the following URL for the LITSCI-L archive, Web resource
links and unsubscribing info:
http://www.law.duke.edu/sls
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Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2003 17:10:22 -0600
From: "Linda D. Henderson"
Subject: Kurt Vonnegut and the 4th dimension
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Is there a Vonnegut scholar or fan on the listserv who is aware of other
novels in which the 4th dimension appears besides Slaughterhouse Five?
I'm
addressing that 1971 book in the essay I'm writing on the fate of the
spatial 4th dimension from 1950 to 2000 for the MIT Press reprint of my
1983 book The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art
(which focused on the first half of the century). I also wonder if
there
is any scholarship on Vonnegut and J.W. Dunne, whose conception of the
space-time continuum as a block universe sounds to me like the source
for
the Tralfamadorian's ability to look over the past and future like "a
stretch of the Rocky Mountains." As an art historian, I'm clearly out
of
my element here and would be very grateful for anyone's thoughts.
Best,
Linda Henderson
Linda Dalrymple Henderson
David Bruton, Jr.Centennial Professor in Art History and
Distinguished Teaching Professor
Department of Art and Art History
The University of Texas at Austin
1 University Station D1300
Austin TX 78712-0337
Phone/Voice mail: 512-232-2474
Fax: 512-471-5539
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Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2003 15:14:06 -0500
From: "Thomas Weissert"
Subject: FW: FW: Kurt Vonnegut and the 4th dimension
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Hancox [mailto:rhancox@alcor.concordia.ca]
Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2003 9:36 PM
To: Thomas Weissert
Subject: Re: FW: Kurt Vonnegut and the 4th dimension
Hi Linda,
I can't believe the 'timing' of your query -- I was just comparing
Dunne's
serial time, block time theory, and 'Tralfamadorian' time last Monday in
my
section of the course, Time: the 4th Dimension, a team-taught course for
Lonergan College here. My 3-week section, "Time in the Cinema,"
concluded
with a screening of excerpts from George Roy Hill's 1972 screen
adaptation,
which, while it takes filmic license with a few minor plot elements, is
still considered one of the screen's best adaptations. It may have
something
to do with the fact that the medium itself is just like that stretch of
the
Rocky Mountains -- filmmakers can have a field day with time's arrow,
all
the while communicating such broader conceptions of time within the
beginning, middle and end of a linear time art. I'm not a Vonnegut
scholar,
nor am I as familiar with novels 1950 - 2000 as I am with film, but if
you're interested in the contribution cinema can make to your study of
the
4th dimension and modern art, perhaps I can help, so I've listed below a
couple of Slaughterhouse Five film references, and others that you may
find
relevant:
Steven Dimeo, ?´Reconciliation: Slaughterhouse-Five ? the Film and the
Novel,?? Film Heritage, Vol. 8 No. 2 (Winter 1972-73), 1-12.
Win Sharples, Jr., ??An Analysis of Slaughterhouse Five,?? Filmmakers
Newsletter, November 1972, 24-28.
Bruce Kawin, ?´Time and Stasis in La Jet?ŕe,?? Film Quarterly, Fall
1982,
15-20.
Paul Coates, ?´Chris Marker and the Cinema as Time Machine,??
Science-Fiction
Studies, Vol. 14 (1987), 307-315.
Robert E. Ornstein, THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS, 1972 (see
especially
ch. 4)
The 1/2 hour film referred to in the Kawin and Coates articles, LA
JETEE,
is something you would no doubt find fascinating. You can download it
for
$1.00 at <
http://s1.amazon.com/paypage/P2RBV42PV21JAO/104-0348695-5566322#description
> Now I'm going to check out your book from our library!
Cheers,
good luck,
Rick Hancox
Assoc. Professor
Communication Studies
Concordia University
Montreal, Canada
Thomas Weissert wrote:
I'm cross-posting this from the SLS list:
-----Original Message-----
From: litsci-l-owner@duke.edu [mailto:litsci-l-owner@duke.edu] On Behalf
Of
Linda D. Henderson
Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2003 6:10 PM
To: litsci-l@duke.edu
Subject: Kurt Vonnegut and the 4th dimension
Is there a Vonnegut scholar or fan on the listserv who is aware of other
novels in which the 4th dimension appears besides Slaughterhouse Five?
I'm
addressing that 1971 book in the essay I'm writing on the fate of the
spatial 4th dimension from 1950 to 2000 for the MIT Press reprint of my
1983
book The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art
(which
focused on the first half of the century). I also wonder if there is
any
scholarship on Vonnegut and J.W. Dunne, whose conception of the
space-time
continuum as a block universe sounds to me like the source for the
Tralfamadorian's ability to look over the past and future like "a
stretch of
the Rocky Mountains." As an art historian, I'm clearly out of my
element
here and would be very grateful for anyone's thoughts.
Best,
Linda Henderson
End of litsci-l-digest V1 #30
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Please see the following URL for the LITSCI-L archive, Web resource
links and unsubscribing info:
http://www.law.duke.edu/sls
