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Date: Thu, 3 Nov 1994 09:47:07 -0700
Reply-To: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
Sender: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
From: shawn o'kane mckenzie
Subject: holistic criticism
Hello. I'm new to the list and am wondering if there are people
out here who may be interested in some of the topics I am involved in.
I
study English @ the University of New Mexico, and have published a
couple
of papers using chaos theory and holistic thought (as it relates to
contemporary physics) as a tool for literary criticism. I didn't want
to
flood everyone's mail box, but if there is interest I will post one of
these papers for discussion.
I have also started a listserv for the discussion of the works of Frank
Waters. As I am chairing the meeting of the Frank Waters Society @
the RMMLA conference next year, and am in contact with the editor of
the
journal Studies in Frank Waters, this listserv is an excellent forum
for
those who are interested in publishing.
shawnm@unm.edu
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Date: Fri, 4 Nov 1994 01:27:31 -0800
Reply-To: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
Sender: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
From: Marcella Greening
Subject: Re: holistic criticism
In-Reply-To: <199411032052.MAA08987@mizar.usc.edu> from
"shawn o'kane
mckenzie" at Nov 3, 94 09:47:07 am
Shawn: I believe you have come to the right place...In the event
you have not heard, the Society for Literature and Science is holding
their annual meeting this month in New Orleans, Nov. 10-13. I am on
the program committee for next year's meeting, which will be in Los
Angeles. You may request information regarding the Society through the
SLS office at Georgia Tech: email address: sls@lcc.gatech.edu.
I am personally interested in the sort of topic you mention, and have
read a fair amount of Frank Waters. I would suggest that you post more
detail to me at my personal email: greening@mizar.usc.edu.
Should you have the means and time, our annual meeting/conference is
one of the more interesting and unusual of the genre, and I encourage
you to attend, or if not, to submit a proposal for next year in LA.
I look forward to hearing more.
Marcella
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 4 Nov 1994 07:39:48 EST
Reply-To: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
Sender: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
From: "Gregory H. Ritter"
Subject: Re: holistic criticism
In-Reply-To: ; from "Marcella Greening" at Nov 4, 94 1:27 am
Marcella said:
>
> Shawn: I believe you have come to the right place...In the
event
> you have not heard, the Society for Literature and Science is
holding
> their annual meeting this month in New Orleans, Nov. 10-13. I
am on
> the program committee for next year's meeting, which will be in
Los
> Angeles. You may request information regarding the Society
through the
> SLS office at Georgia Tech: email address: sls@lcc.gatech.edu.
>
> I am personally interested in the sort of topic you mention,
and have
> read a fair amount of Frank Waters. I would suggest that you
post more
> detail to me at my personal email: greening@mizar.usc.edu.
Marcella--
You know, I sent a similar response to Shawn, too, suggesting
that he "post more detail to...personal email" but I would
like
to retract that. Maybe if Shawn (or anybody else out
there....hello?) would post some specific stuff to this list,
maybe it would liven up some.
Do you have any info about what's going on at this year's SLS
conference. Too late for me to go, but I'd be interested in
knowing what kind of papers are being presented, etc.
--
*************************************************************
* GREG RITTER Department of English *
* eng3ghr@hibbs.vcu.edu Virginia Commonwealth U. *
* Richmond, VA *
*************************************************************
* Progress is a comfortable disease --e.e. cummings *
*************************************************************
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 4 Nov 1994 08:12:37 -0700
Reply-To: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
Sender: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
From: shawn o'kane mckenzie
Subject: Waters Paper
I apologize for the length of this post, but it seemed there was some
interest. Some of the concepts dealt with (such as the Hopi concept of
emergence) are important in Waters' work. I did not make a quantum
leap
to an unrelated subject. Let me know what you
think.
Chaos, Waters, and the Emergence
Shawn O. McKenzie
One major quality which draws readers to the study of
Frank Waters' work, is his ability to convey an
understanding of the nature of reality, that has been
ignored or forgotten by modern thought. Coinciding with
the intuitive knowledge of Native American spirituality,
Mr. Waters weaves his holistic, nonlinear outlook into the
framework of fiction, allowing us to catch a glimpse of the
subtle order of the universe, through the eyes of another
person, culture, or philosophy.
Most of the concepts inherent in the Waters canon have
been scarce elsewhere in Western logical thought; however,
a new framework of perception is expanding rapidly in our
culture's consciousness. The study of chaos has brought
about a revolution in the scientific perception of our
universe. This new outlook, can be used as a frame of
reference for the understanding of Eastern spiritual
philosophy, Native American thought, and the work of Frank
Waters. Although arrived at by different means chaos
science and spiritual mysticism subscribe to the same
tenets.
In a commencement address given in 1981 at UNLV,
Waters states "So it seems to me that all of us here are
strangely interrelated by our common dependence upon one
universal creative force manifesting itself in many
different ways." This idea, that all things are
interrelated, is the foundation on which chaos science is
built. This intuitive understanding of the interrelated
nature of the universe can be seen in Native American
thought as presented in The Man Who Killed the Deer.
Nothing is simple and alone. We are not
separate and alone. The breathing mountains, the
living stones, each blade of grass, the clouds,
the rain, each star, the beasts, the birds and
the invisible spirits of the air - we are all
one, indivisible. Nothing that any of us does
but affects us all.
So I would have you look upon this thing not
as a separate simple thing, but as a stone which
is a star in the firmament of earth, as a ripple
in a pool, as a kernel of corn. I would have you
consider how it fits into the pattern of the
whole. How far its influence may spread. What
it may grow into... (Deer 18)
This passage, although it was written more than three
decades before chaos science began to take shape, revolves
around its three main concepts: an interrelated universe,
fractal dimension, and the butterfly effect.
That "nothing is simple and alone" is a concept that
scientific thought turned away from when it began to break
things down into reductionist terms. Chaos science points
out that no system is isolated: the gravity of even a
single electron at the edge of the universe has some effect
on every other piece of matter in existence. In their book
Turbulent Mirror, Briggs and Peat tell us that "In fact, it
is by giving substance to the usually vague term wholeness
that the science of chaos and change is forging a
revolution in our perspective." (Mirror 15)
Fractal dimension is the idea that in the pattern of
the whole, self similar patterns exist at all levels. Just
as whirlwinds, tornados, and hurricanes are similar, so are
molecules, solar systems, and galaxies. This understanding
of the fractal geometry of nature is how one would consider
a stone as a "star in the firmament of earth." Waters
intuitively locks in on the concept of fractal dimension in
the passage:
Is it my wife's thighs I feel, or the long
rounded thighs of the pine slope outflung upon
this sage desert? Is this her breast, now
flattened at the crest, really in-curved like an
old buffalo bow, or is it the outline of the
mountain above? Whose heart do I hear beating
faintly but steadily like a muffled drum? And he
thought of the little blue lake of life hidden
deep within them both. We are all images of one
great shape, obeying its same laws. (Deer 135)
Dr. Felicia Campbell points out that Waters makes conscious
use of self-similarity in The Woman at Otowi Crossing. She
states that "the mushroom cloud explosion of the atomic
bomb, the explosion of Helen's mushrooming cancer, and
Turner's explosive kicking of the monstrous mushroom bear
the self-similarity of a fractal order." (Studies in Frank
Waters-XII 41)
The Butterfly Effect is a concept of chaos science
that stems from the study of weather patterns.
Meteorologists realized that, due to the interrelated
nature of the weather, a butterfly's wing flapping on one
side of the planet could cause drastic changes in weather
on the other. This is analogous of any interactive system,
since all things are part of the one great dynamic system,
the Universe. It is quite interesting that Waters used
almost the same analogy to get this point across thirty
years before science stumbled across it.
Here they were then, all these things and
shadows of things ensnared like flies in the web
of silence. They fluttered their wings. They
shook and distorted the whole vast web. But they
did not break free. For it was the web which
binds us each to the other, and all to the life
of which we are an inseparable part - binds us to
the invisible shapes that have gone and those to
come, in the solidarity of one flowing whole.
(Deer 19)
It is not the case that the similarities between
Waters' descriptions of spiritual consciousness, and the
current revolution in science, are mere coincidences. In
The Woman at Otowi Crossing, he focuses his understanding
on scientific experiments themselves. Helen states that
there is a "field or aura about each of us, everything,
even a scientific experiment." and that this field "affects
the experiment just as much as the field of physical force
around the instruments and gadgets." (Otowi 264) When
looked at from the perspective of classic Newtonian science
this seems impossible, even silly! However, Briggs and
Peat state that a number of scientists have begun to
theorize "that the universe must be fundamentally
indivisible, a 'flowing wholeness,' as Bohm calls it, in
which the observer cannot be essentially separated from the
observed." (Mirror 29) In his latest book, The
Philosopher's Stone, F. David Peat describes this
interaction in the results of an experiment on the
interference patterns of electrons fired through parallel
slits.
This quantum potential carries information
about the entire experimental situation,
including the position of the two slits and
whether they are open or blocked. Even though an
electron may be quite far from one of the slits,
the information about the total experimental
situation is actively carried by the quantum
potential. So while the electron passes through
only one slit, it is nevertheless guided by a
pool of information that includes knowledge about
the second slit. (Stone 110)
The perception of time in science has tended to be
linear as well; however, a holistic interpretation is
required by the new outlook of chaos science. Waters'
understanding of both modes of thought can be seen in his
description of the Native American view of time, against
that of western logical thought. In The Woman at Otowi
Crossing Helen states;
[Indians] don't have our sense of time as a
linear movement. You know, a horizontal stream
flowing out of the past into the future....Indian
time's different. There aren't any clocks and
calendars to chop it into segments, even smaller
and faster. I can't explain it very well Emily,
but to Indians time has depth instead of
movement. Like a great, still pool with a life
and meaning of its own. As if it were an organic
element which helps to fashion our own shape and
growth in its unique design of being. (Otowi
46)
Emily's response of "Nonsense! That's unscientific!
There's always a chronological development" seems to typify
the traditional outlook that chaos science is starting to
erode. In summing up the views of Ilya Prigogine (1977
Nobel laureate in chemistry), Briggs and Peat state that
"time thus becomes an expression of the system's holistic
interaction, and this interaction extends outward. Every
complex system is a changing part of a greater whole, a
nesting of larger and larger wholes" they further state,
that Native Americans have a saying, that "Time is
timeless, and that this is a fact which the Indians have
always known but the white man has yet to learn." and that
"Perhaps Prigogine is one of the first Western scientists
to learn it, or relearn it." (Mirror 148)
Waters observation of "the Hopi view of the universe
as an inseparably interrelated field or continuum" (Hopi
XIII) can be seen in The Voice of the Great Spirit by
Rudolf Kaiser. He states that
Hopi religion sees the cosmos as a complex
network of natural, and at the same time
spiritual, forces and energies, which ideally
hold each other in balance, as intended by the
creator. Without this balance, life on earth
will ultimately cease. To preserve and
continuously restore it whenever it is disturbed
at any point in its vast interconnected structure
is thus vital. (Voice 28)
That science is just starting to understand this
interconnectedness of all things, is an indication of
expanded consciousness on a cultural level. Chaos science
is giving tangible support to ideas previously considered
mystical, and commonly pigeonholed as unfounded "New Age"
thinking. Little imagination is required to equate the
current revolution in thought to the Hopi myth of our
emergence from this world into one of a higher level of
evolution. In his 1981 commencement address Frank Waters
states that he prefers "to regard the successive mythical
worlds of the Mayas and Hopis -- the Zunis and Navajos also
-- as dramatic allegories for successive states of
mankind's ever-expanding consciousness." The return of
Western thought to an intuitive, nonlinear view of the
universe, in which man cannot predict or control nature,
bears striking resemblance to the Hopi myth of the return
of the White Brother (To consciousness of the Great
Spirit), which is said to happen around the turn of the
century.
After pointing out in his 1981 speech that we are all
"strangely interrelated", Waters goes on to tell us that
"However, ours is a time which has lost sight of this
inherent unity of all aspects of life. We are concerned
only with its diversities -- their contradictory aims and
practices, their opposing modes of thought. We live today
in a fragmented world." This can be seen at one level in
the scientific community. Our current "world" of thought
found few similarities in the different branches of
science. Pushing our reductionist views to extreme
specialization, different fields seemed isolated and alone,
however;
Chaos breaks across the lines that separate
scientific disciplines. Because it is a science
of the global nature of systems, it has brought
together thinkers from fields that had been
widely separated. "Fifteen years ago, science
was heading for a crisis of increasing
specialization," a Navy official in charge of
scientific financing remarked to an audience of
mathematicians, biologists, physicists, and
medical doctors. "Dramatically, that
specialization has reversed because of chaos."
(Mirror 5)
This marks a return of inherent unity not only in
scientific thought, but all thought. Briggs and Peat go on
to tell us that "Believers in chaos - and they sometimes
call themselves believers - speculate about determinism and
free will, about evolution, about the nature of conscious
intelligence....They believe that they are looking for the
whole." (Mirror 5)
There can be no doubt that our human perception of the
universe has entered a period of expansion. Briggs and
Peat tell us that the holistic view of the chaos
revolution offers;
New hopes, new styles, and, most important,
a new way of seeing. Revolutions do not come
piecemeal. One account of nature replaces
another. Old problems are seen in a new light
and other problems are recognized for the first
time. Something takes place that resembles a
whole industry retooling for new production. In
Kuhn's words, "It is rather as if the
professional community had been suddenly
transported to another planet where familiar
objects are seen in a different light and are
joined by unfamiliar ones as well." (Mirror 39)
The symbolism of being transported to another planet is a
description of our emergence into another level of
understanding which is almost identical to that of the Hopi
prophesy.
Chaos science, Native American thought, and topics
previously considered "New Age", common in Frank Waters'
work, seem to be part of a vast network of understanding.
Matter is just a form of energy that cannot be broken down
into its smallest parts: Molecules, when split, yield
subatomic particles - these in turn yield smaller
particles, suggesting an infinite fractal order.
Everything seems to be a part of holistic interaction of
the Whole, and not made up of individual parts.
We have here a specific link between New-age
thinking and the worldview of indigenous peoples
and nature religions. We sense that our
dualistic distinctions between spirit and matter,
God and the world, humans and nature, subject and
object, do not apply in their view of things.
Instead, there is an understanding of the
holistic connectedness of all that exists. For a
people holding such a holistic view of the world,
everything would be sacred, imbued with the
Spirit, part of a greater Whole, inseparably
interwoven. (Voice 116)
Chaos science offers mathematical examples,
theoretical concepts, and documented laboratory results
that lend academic validity to the study of the underlying
concepts inherent in Waters' work. The understanding
indicated by the revolution of chaos theory is nothing less
than a giant leap of evolution in human consciousness. We
are witnessing a change so great, that it can be related to
the Hopi prophesy of our succession to the next world. As
scientific thought begins to cling around the foundation of
chaos science, the understanding will trickle down through
our collective consciousness; securing Waters' place in
history as a true visionary author, precursor to our
society's new understanding, and bridge between indigenous,
and Western logical thought. The implications of our
emergence can be summed up in Waters' statement; "The
brotherhood of man! It will always be a dreary phrase, a
futile hope, until each man, all men, realize that they
themselves are but different reflections and insubstantial
images of a greater indivisible whole." (Deer 199) That
Western thought is returning to this understanding is one
of the most important events of our time.
WORKS CITED
Briggs, John and Peat, F. David. Turbulent Mirror: An
Illustrated Guide to Chaos Theory and the Science of
Wholeness. New York: Harper & Row, 1989.
Campbell, Felicia F. "Chaos Theory and The Woman at Otowi
Crossing," Studies In Frank Waters-XII (1990) 39-48
Kaiser, Rudolf. The Voice of the Great Spirit: Prophecies
of the Hopi Indians. Boston: Shambhala Publications,
1991.
Waters, Frank. The Man Who Killed the Deer. New York:
Pocket Book edition/Simon & Schuster, 1970
Waters, Frank. Prelude To Change. A commencement address
given at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas on May 23,
1981.
Waters, Frank. The Woman at Otowi Crossing. Athens:
Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, Revised Edition, 1987.
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Date: Fri, 4 Nov 1994 10:13:48 -0500
Reply-To: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
Sender: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
From: "Irene E. Harvey"
Subject: Re: holistic criticism
> Hello. I'm new to the list and am wondering if there are
people
>out here who may be interested in some of the topics I am involved
in. I
>study English @ the University of New Mexico, and have published a
couple
>of papers using chaos theory and holistic thought (as it relates to
>contemporary physics) as a tool for literary criticism. I didn't
want to
>flood everyone's mail box, but if there is interest I will post one
of
>these papers for discussion.
>
>I have also started a listserv for the discussion of the works of
Frank
>Waters. As I am chairing the meeting of the Frank Waters Society @
>the RMMLA conference next year, and am in contact with the editor of
the
>journal Studies in Frank Waters, this listserv is an excellent forum
for
>those who are interested in publishing.
>
>shawnm@unm.edu
Please tell me who Frank Waters is? I'm intersted in this discussion
and
would like to learn more.Thanks.
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Date: Fri, 4 Nov 1994 10:55:49 -0700
Reply-To: paul l tidwell
Sender: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
Comments:
W: SENDER field duplicated. Last occurrence was retained.
From: paul l tidwell
Subject: Re: Waters Paper
In-Reply-To:
Dear Shawn,
Had a chance to briefly review your paper on Frank Waters today, had
some
observations and some reference suggestions that I thought I'd forward.
1. I'm curious as to the original audience for this paper. Others,
too,
might be interested to know who at U of New Mexico is working on
literature and chaos theory.
2. Are you familiar with Claude Levi-Strauss' "Tristes
Tropiques"? The
way that you describe Waters' ideas of holism and chaos make him sound,
theoreticallly, very much like an early Structuralist (and makes
apparent
the Romantic echoes in Structuralism itself). This is highly contested
ground today within cultural studies and I suspect within literary
studies as well to claim that at some essential and deeply buried level
we are all the same and connected.
3. Have you run across N. Katherine Hayles excellent books on Chaos
Theory and literature?
4. You might want to survey the Native American response to
Structuralist
anthropology. Alfonso Ortiz, a native anthropologist at UNM who has
done
work with Clifford Geertz and published widely on this topic might be a
good place to start...
5. It sounds to me as if you would certainly enjoy Betty Jean
Craigie's
"Laying the Ladder Down: The Emergence of Cultural Holism"
Amherst: U of
Mass. Press, 1992
6. You should consider submitting a revision of your work for the next
Western Literature Conference or to the ALSE (Association for the Study
of
Literature and Environment) Conference.
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Date: Fri, 4 Nov 1994 22:40:42 -0800
Reply-To: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
Sender: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
From: Marcella Greening
Subject: Re: holistic criticism
In-Reply-To: <199411041246.EAA15322@mizar.usc.edu> from
"Gregory H. Ritter" at
Nov 4, 94 07:39:48 am
Greg, etal....
Right you are....it's been mighty quiet on the line. I suspect in part
due
to the looming date for the sls conference....Anyone else out there
still writing...? or worse, procrastinating? I myself lost or loaned my
program to someone else and so I dont even know for sure when my own
panel
is presenting...other than some time Saturday afternoon. As I recall,
the
session titles are the usual hodgepodge of the weird and wonderful,
tragic
and sublime...improbable (impossible?) crosspollinating among fields
and
domains of discourse. Too bad you won't be there. Plan to be at next
year's in Los Angeles!
Marcella
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Date: Sun, 6 Nov 1994 09:46:08 -0500
Reply-To: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
Sender: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
From: Julia Delbridge
Subject: HOLISTIC LITERATURE
Thanks, Shawn, for bringing this topic up.
From the titles of several sessions at this year's SLS conference, I'd
guess that there is considerable interest in holistic studies of texts
(I
avoid the term "criticism"): there are sessions on
"fictional
nonlinearity" (where I will be presenting a paper on teaching
holistic
thought via so-called "Magical Realist" fiction),
"tragedy &
nonlinearity," Einstein, Quantum mechanics, etc.
I'm glad to see a discussion coming up here & look forward to
meeting
interested folks next week -- or continuing the email correspondence
via
the list or privately.
I've been working on this for a couple of years, does anyone know of
any
publications that are interested in this kind of work?
more soon,
Julia Delbridge, Radford U, Virginia
jdelbrid@muselab.ac.runet.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 7 Nov 1994 11:29:32 -0500
Reply-To: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
Sender: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
From: Julia Delbridge
Subject: HOLISTIC LITERATURE
Sorry if this is duplicated, I'm having difficulty posting.
HOLISTIC LITERATURE:
From the titles of several sessions at this years's SLS conference, I'd
guess that there is considerable interest in holistic studies of texts
(I
avoid the term "criticism"): there are sessions on
"Nonlinear fiction"
(where I'll be presenting a paper on teaching holistic thought via
so-called "Magical Realist" fiction), "tragedy &
nonlinearity", Einstein,
Quantum mechanics, etc...
I'm glad to see a discussion of this coming up here, and look forward
to
meeting any interested parties at the conference or through email --on
the list or privately.
Does anyone know of publications interested in this type of work?
anyone else interested in further discussion?
julia delbridge, Radford U, Virginia
jdelbrid@muselab.ac.runet.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 7 Nov 1994 14:37:01 -0500
Reply-To: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
Sender: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
From: "David H. Porush"
Subject: Re: holistic criticism
In-Reply-To: "shawn o'kane mckenzie" "holistic
criticism"
(Nov 3, 9:47am)
Dear Shawn O'kane McKenzie,
You might want to look at Kate Hayles edited volume,
Chaos and Order_ (U CHicago Press, 1991)
david
ALso, ALex Argyros has a book of his own on the subject,
also 1991, I believe.
dp
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 8 Nov 1994 15:45:18 -0500
Reply-To: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
Sender: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
From: Kerri Uretz
sub Society for Literature and Science Kerri Uretz
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 17 Nov 1994 10:25:51 -0600
Reply-To: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
Sender: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
From: Joe Amato
Subject: postconference post...
well it was good seeing (many of) you all in new orleans!... i think it
would be nice to
continue the discussion hereabouts... in particular, a boston globe
article
on the recent national association of scholars meeting touched off two
posts to the media lab's narrative intelligence group elist re the
scientist vs. humanist brouhaha represented in gross & levitt's _the
higher
superstition_... for those who didn't attend
the sls annual conference, our plenary speaker this year was george
levine
(from rutgers), who did an excellent job of summarizing and responding
to
this emerging
controversy... and an ensuing panel discussion dealt specifically with
this
issue...
my tentative misgivings as to the tenor of sls wrt this issue are as
follows: though i really do believe that "we" need to
continue to work to
address this 'split,' it's evident to me that the more properly
educational
side of things is going to require the contributions of all sorts of
folks
who would seem to be leaving sls... that is, we'll never deal well with
the
problem of 'literary' exclusivity if we presume that our only
exclusivity
is relative to science per se, or to technology... there are a host of
scholarly disciplines NOT being represented all that well at sls that
perhaps should be (though of course sls can't be everything to all
people)... in particular, it would seem that both rhetoric of science
types and writing technologies types have drifted away... and that a
discussion of, say, curriculum & instruction is in all likelihood
going to
invoke at one point or another the history of wac, the hegemony that
anguish depts. have exacted over comp. folks, etc. etc. etc... quite
simply: to teach science differently will require, for one, attention
to
the pedagogical arguments that have marked wac and comp. debates for
some
time now (incl. the contemporary debate over standards)... and this
will
invoke, for example, related research beginning to emerge from schools
of
education...
and i must say (as a poet) that the entire spectrum of intellectual life
as
i know it is being given considerable short-shrift in the discussion...
not
only the small press world (both of poetry & poetics), but the
discourse
communities represented by the arts in general are not really
represented
at sls... now, i'm not complaining about this reality per se, but i
most
def. AM complaining that the discussion of lit. vs. sci. doesn't seem
to
pay any particular attention to it... as though the arts broadly
construed
aren't a presumed part of the core activity of this group... and as
though
the artist broadly construed is requiring that we leave our brains at
the
door... or am i wrong in remarking so?... it becomes progressively
clearer
to me as i continue my academic travels that the relative hegemonies of
science and literature (the former wrt gov't funding, the latter wrt
composition (and wrt to science, as some would have it...)) have managed
to
obscure other sorts of hegemonies... one could speak of the hegemony of
composition theory, for example, in the face of poetic practice... and
there are texts, btw, that deal specifically with this latter issue...
let me throw in here that this question of "jargon" all but
obscures what i
regard as the salient controversies... it may be difficult to understand
a
discussion of, say, neutron stars w/o a corresponding understanding of
pulsar magnetospheres... in short, i don't find that a discussion of
jargon
helps matters much ...
further, the question of race at sls seemed all but absent from most
discussions (my panel was scheduled opposite the one panel that dealt
ostensibly with race---how did it go?)... no discussion, for example,
of
the remarkable book by paul gilroy, _the black atlantic: modernity and
double consciousness_ (harvard, 1993; see russell potter's excellent
review
of same in the recent _postmodern culture_)... a book that opens to a
revised sense of what we might mean by modernity and racial
consciousness,
that links black and jewish diasporas, and in so doing offers up what
gilroy terms an "anti-anti-essentialism" for cultural studies
work---which
is surely pertinent to sls-style discourse(s)... i'll hazard here that
there was a time when such a text would have been on the tips of at
least a
few sls tongues...
i am especially distressed (given my ongoing commitment to things
electronic) to be hearing about the internet as merely another
manifestation of military-industrial-university practice W/O reference
to
the possibilities implicit in these surroundings for otherwise unlikely
community-making... naturally the more evangelical claims attendant to
vr
and cspace require (more than) a bit of healthy ideological criteek,
but
i've grown more and more sensitive to the working contradiction explicit
in
scholars using, say, their internet connections for professional
advancement while effecting a discourse that would seem to inveigh
against
the *possibilities* for constructive change (local to distributive)...
or
am i guilty here of simplifying things?... on the bright side: it
seemed
to me that john unsworth's paper, while historically aligning military
counterintelligence efforts (incl. the development and testing of lsd)
with
the development of the internet, *did* manage to point to ways in which
the
net has diverged from intended design objectives (both in negative AND
positive terms)...
on a somewhat more practical note: the idea of an sls gopher is a good
one... we should most certainly post papers prior to the conference
(perhaps the plenary paper?---or items pertinent to same?)... anybody
have
any other suggestions?...
and what ABOUT this question of ten minute (or so) presentations?... i
thought we had decided collectively that this was general policy UNLESS
otherwise modified by the panel chair... that is, in effect, that sls
is
open to a variety of different panel formats...
well i'm a bit cranky, no?... but i mean to be, to ruffle a few
feathers,
as it were, with the hope that some of you will thereby be prompted to
post
a response...
joe
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 1994 04:54:51 -0500
Reply-To: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
Sender: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
From: "J. Swift Kramer"
Subject: Re: postconference post...
Speaking as a barbarian at the Internet gate, I have to wonder how the
news
will go down at IAFA that their call for papers, which was advertised on
this
very list, was answered by someone they presumed was a professor at a
university and is in no way so. You will all be kept abreast, whether
you
like it or not, of my possibly abortive trip to Florida in March. As a
barbarian rather than a professor, I find it difficult worming my way
into a
discussion of racial conflict that proposes the familiar Black/Jewish
dichotomy and leaves out the crucial third leg of the Celtic Diaspora.
Then
again, that might just get me started on another anti-Gobineau jag.
Sorry if
this doesn't help kickstart things, but I'm tired of reading nothing
but
constructivism listings from my math listserv. - J. Swift
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 1994 17:39:38 -0500
Reply-To: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
Sender: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
From: "J. Swift Kramer"
Subject: Then again...
...since I will not have access to the conference documents until you
set up
your server (which I would greatly appreciate), perhaps I can cite a
few
quotations from the current issue of "Configurations" which
may follow along
the lines of the issues just raised:
Hayles brings up the most literalminded elaboration of Virtual Reality
on
465, mentioning a shapeshifting program which fits right into the chain
of
paradigms going back to the ever-popular Plato's Cave. The verbal
representation of a physical allegory for a linguistic ideal which makes
the
Cave such a conundrum is once again avoided by accepting the moral of
Plato's
story without an argument - form is always opposed to matter, so you
must
choose your side and stay loyal to it. I can feel obliged to salvage
physical experience in the name of feminism. At the same time I wish
someone would coin a term for the experience now called
"disembodied" that
would not carry overtones of Greco-Roman mind/body dualism. Michael
Benedikt's material in "Cyberspace: First Steps" at least
tries to resist
the tendency towards animistic metaphors of such experience by applying
symmetry theory. The emphasis is shifted to a sort of
"homeostasis" aquired
by maintaining an awareness of more than one possible combination of
directions, rather than replay of a single trip or memory of many. I
feel
the robotic rat on p. 453 is still different from the biological rat,
which
can recognize a maze remapped to be skewed at a 90-degree angle - though
this
may seem to be a minor differentiation.
Markley dismisses symmetry theory on p. 489 by casting it as relevatory
- the
means to unmask Plato's hidden higher reality of form. While I squirm
at the
"harmonic convergence" air of certain discussions of math, I
do not
appreciate Markley's presentation of information theory as fancified
double-entry bookkeeping, a typical ploy in Marxist critiques of
technology.
Yet this may explain his fascination with boundary logic, which
obliterates
the distinction by which binary notation makes any sense. Commentators
can
go on blissfully ignoring what group theorists call "cycling"
in this
process, and continue to insist that computers essentialize the whole
world
into a collection of ones and zeros. Then again, maybe what people are
shying away from here is the fact that the animated visualization
required to
differentiate 00001, 00010, 00100, 01000 and 10000 has no linguistic
counterpart.
Is it merely the utopian overtones of modeling cyberspace in terms of a
minimum of two users that's being rejected here? Or is it the inertia
borne
of the overriding solipsism in philosophical history? Is that why
Markley
and Porush neglect Arbib's definition of "merged horizons"?
Or are they
reluctant to admit that as soon as a baby develops the pointing
mechanism,
that infant enters into a nonverbal interplay in which "there is no
there
there" after all, just a coordination of otherwise disjoint
perceptions? Can
feminist constructs of experience and interpretation - especially visual
-
make room for a two-person unit of analysis? Or are the existing
Marxist and
Freudian critiques possible with an object/subject duality convenient
enough
to outweigh the corollary endorsement of philosophical solipsism?
Is Porush brushing aside the nest of complications in the
Jaynes/Havelock/McLuhan studies of the oral and the written among the
Ancients, as he counters text-based Jews and logos-oriented Christians?
Haven't both traditions been influenced by Hellenistic and other pagan
practices, more than either group would like to admit? Don't we wind up
with
a picture of Jews as those who don't argue face to face? More
seriously,
doesn't this presentation collapse Western history in a way to
naturalize
Greco-Roman linguistic practices to the point where they are beyond not
only
question but mention? (Julian Jaynes' arguments regarding the
hemispheres
have been oversimplified in the past almost two decades: they were not
purely biological explanations. In that sense "alphabetic
consciousness" to
him would be a redundancy.)
Which brings me to the last (sigh of relief) stray moment of wondering:
Chuck Dyke's claim on p. 576 that "We have seen the
pictures..." What does
this imply? Now were done with pictures, and can go on to more
important
things which cannot involve looking at pictures? To ask a heavily
generalized rhetorical question, if a picture demands you momentarily
check
your brain, what does this metaphor imply? Another little death - as
sneezes, naps and orgasms were once thought to be? Is the problem our
bodies
or relationship with our physical senses, or in the overdramatization
of
visual/haptic perception as "erotic" in the commonest sense of
the term?
Is the introduction of an equation of the real (physical) and the
irrational
on p. 548 just a reiteration of the underlying assumptions which have
always
cast the lot of the female in with the madman? Doesn't an endorsement
of
this network of assumptions urge us to be anti-science as a point of
honor, a
position some feminists prescribe?
Feel free to take up whatever strikes your fancy- JSK
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 1994 14:27:16 EST
Reply-To: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
Sender: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
From: Sandy Stephan
Organization: Youngstown State University
Subject: CAll for Papers
CALL FOR PAPERS
Midwest Modern Language Association--1995 Conference
Session on Science and Literature
Paers are invited fopr the 1995 M/MLA session on Science and
Literature.
The session topic will be--
"The Man in the Grey Tweed Suit":
Representations of Science and Scientist
as Patterns of Patriarchal Authority in
Literature, Film, and/or Popular Culture.
For more detailed information, and to submit proposals for papers,
please con
tact the 1995 Session Chair,
Sandra W. Stephan
English Department
Youngstown State University
Youngstown, Ohio 44555
(216) 742-3414
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 1994 14:55:54 -0500
Reply-To: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
Sender: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
From: "David H. Porush"
Subject: Re: CAll for Papers
In-Reply-To: Sandy Stephan "CAll for Papers" (Nov 22,
2:27pm)
Sorry to clog up your mailboxes in this holiday season
when you're probably gonna have an overload of mail
to look at anyway, but here is a Conference Announcement
that may be obliquely interesting to some of you. But if
you know of any colleagues or discussion lists or BBs or
friends who might be interested, please pass it along.
ANd have a happy thanksgiving.
David
(WARNING! FAT MESSAGE COMING AFTER THIS ONE)
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 1994 11:55:42 +1100
Reply-To: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
Sender: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
From: Noel Gough
Subject: Re: CAll for Papers
> CALL FOR PAPERS
>
>
> Midwest Modern Language Association--1995 Conference
Sandra - can you tell me the dates and venue of this conference please?
Noel Gough
Associate Professor
Centre for Education and Change
Deakin University
662 Blackburn Road
Clayton Victoria 3168
Australia
noelg@deakin.edu.au
Telephone area code: 03 (International: +61 3)
244 7368 (desk)
836 8241 (home)
562 8808 (fax)
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 1994 08:25:54 -0500
Reply-To: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
Sender: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
From: "David H. Porush"
Subject: Re: CAll for Papers
--- Forwarded mail from porusd@rpi.edu (David H. Porush)
Received: from magritte.its.rpi.edu (porusd@magritte.its.rpi.edu
[128.113.100.20]) by mail1.its.rpi.edu (8.6.4/8.6.4) with ESMTP id
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From: porusd@rpi.edu (David H. Porush)
Message-Id: <9411220942.ZM91319@magritte.its.rpi.edu>
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 1994 09:42:35 -0500
X-Mailer: Z-Mail (2.1.5 20sep93)
To: porusd
Subject: CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT & CALL FOR PAPERS
***************************************************
The First International Conference on
Communication and the Future:
The Role of Communication and Translation in
Technology Transfer
May 15-17, 1995
Technion - Israel Institute of Technology
Haifa, Israel
***************************************************
Dear Colleagues,
It is a pleasure to invite you to Haifa in May to take
part in the first International Conference on Communication
and the Future, organized by the Department of General
Studies at the Technion.
This conference is the first international meeting in
Israel on the subject of technological-scientific
communication and translation and their role in transferring
new technologies and scientific discoveries across national
boundaries and between markets. These fields have been
developing rapidly in the last decade all over the world, a
sign of an increasingly intimate global village and of a
growing awareness of the important role of communication in
technological progress. The recent political developments in
our region present special challenges and new opportunities
for disseminating discoveries, opening new avenues for
economic and scientific collaboration, and sharing Israeli
science with the world.
The goal of the conference is to raise public awareness of
the crucial role of technical writing, scientific
communication, and translation between Hebrew and other
languages in the economic development of Israel and the
Middle East generally. The conference will also address
specific ways of improving the efficiency of documentation,
translation, and other communications problems in
corporations, laboratories, and government agencies.
Technical writers, translators, scholars, and experts in
linguistics from industry and academia will share their
expertise in these areas. The conference will sponsor panel
talks, oral sessions, symposia and featured lectures as well
as banquet meals and receptions.
We hope to welcome you among the participants.
Sincerely,
Prof. David Porush Prof. Judith Rosenhouse
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Technion, Israel
Troy, NY 12180 USA Institute of
Technology
Haifa 32000 ISRAEL
***************************************************
NOTE:
Please let your peers and other interested parties know about
the conference by copying or posting this announcement and
the accompanying Call for Papers. If you need any more
brochures, please contact the Congress Secretariat.
***************************************************
***************************************************
CALL FOR PAPERS:
The First International Conference on
Communication and the Future:
The Role of Communication and Translation in
Technology Transfer
May 15-17, 1995
Technion - Israel Institute of Technology
Haifa, Israel
***************************************************
We seek abstracts of papers in English of 200-500 words.
Authors' names, affiliations, and addresses must be clearly
indicated. ABSTRACTS DUE: 1 January 1995. Abstracts that have
been accepted will appear in the conference abstracts volume.
Sessions may be in English, or in Hebrew using visual aids in
English.
Subjects may include any aspect of technical or scientific
documentation, communication, or translation, especially
related to but not limited to any of the following topics:
o The Role of Translation and Communication in Technology
Transfer
o State of the Art Techniques in Technical Writing
o The Challenges of Translating Technical Information Across
Cultures and Between Languages
o Technical Writing in Developing Countries
o The Role of Documentation in New Product Development and
Marketing
o New Media and Multi-Media in Technical Documentation
o Communication among Disciplines in Technical Ventures
o The Role of Translation in Multinational Corporate
Communications
o Technological Development and Translation
o Political, Social, Cultural, Cognitive, and/or Economic
Issues in Technical Communication
o From Academia to Corporation to the International Market
Address abstracts to either of the Conference
Directors:
Prof. David Porush Prof. Judith Rosenhouse
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Technion
Troy, NY 12180 USA Haifa 32000 ISRAEL
porusd@rpi.edu GSRJUDY@technion.edu
FAX: (*USA) 518-276-4871 FAX: (*ISRAEL) -972-4-327-399
***************************************************
ABOUT HAIFA
***************************************************
The Technion is one of the foremost technological research
universities in the world. Haifa is located on the
spectacular and lush Carmel Mountain range overlooking the
Mediterranean. A cosmopolitan city of flowers and music, it
offers sophisticated shopping, night life, cinema, and
international cuisine. Haifa is known for its easy relations
among diverse cultural populations, including Moslem and
Christian Arabs, Jews of all denominations. It is the world
center of the Bahjai faith, with its famous gold-domed temple
and spectacular terraced gardens. Haifa also gives the
visitor easy access to many archeological splendors and other
Israeli attractions. These include the Galilee and the Sea of
Galilee (Kinneret), the Golan Heights, the ancient cities of
Nazareth, Akko (Acre), Caesaria and Megiddo; the Carmel
forest Preserve, Druze villages, numerous beautiful beaches,
and diverse kibbutzim. It is only an hour by car or bus from
Tel Aviv and two and a half hours from Jerusalem, with buses
leaving every fifteen minutes or half hour. Haifa is also the
industrial center of Israel, home to many high-tech
industries such as Intel, IBM Research and Development
Center, Elbit, and Elscint among many others.
ACCOMMODATIONS:
Please indicate in the registration form whether you need a
hotel accommodation. A list of hotels at reasonable prices
will be offered in the final circular and a number of
Technion dormitories will also be available.
EXHIBITION
Technical equipment, multi-media systems, and books will be
exhibited as part of the conference. If you wish to
demonstrate or place material on display at the conference,
please describe those materials in a separate letter to
either of the Conference Directors by 1 March 1995.
REGISTRATION
For early registration, please send the enclosed form with a
cheque by 1 March 1995 to either of the Conference Directors.
Fees include admission to all scientific sessions and the
exhibitions; conference proceedings material, and two formal
receptions.
Early Registration Fees: Participants $170
Students $80
Registration desks will be open on-site on the opening day
and will continue to serve participants until the end of the
conference.
On-Site Registration Fees (in NIS equivalent):
Participants $190 Students $90
SOCIAL AND CULTURAL PROGRAMMES
Two receptions are planned and tourist information regarding
Haifa and surrounding areas will be available. Details will
be given in the final circular.
***************************************************
REGISTRATION FORM
***************************************************
NAME: _____________________________________
Title/Affiliation: ____________________________
Address: ___________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
e-mail: ____________________________________
phone: _____________________________________
Fax: _______________________________________
Title of Paper:_______________________________
__________________________________________
Language of Paper: __________________________
Audio-Visual Aids Needed:______________________
Hotel Accommodations? Yes No # of people
Student Dormitories? Yes No # of people
Registration Fee: $___________ enclosed
--- End of forwarded mail from porusd@rpi.edu (David H. Porush)
Sorry to clog up yourholdiay mailbox with this announcement.
But please forward to colleagues and friends who might be
interested. And Happy Thanksgiving to all!
dporush
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 1994 14:40:14 EST
Reply-To: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
Sender: "Society for Literature and Science - philos.,
tech.,
cyber discussion"
From: Sandy Stephan
Organization: Youngstown State University
Subject: New & Improved
CALL FOR PAPERS
Midwest Modern Language Association--1995 Conference
November 2-4, 1995, Marriott Pavilion Hotel, St. Louis, Missouri
Session on Science and Literature
Papers are invited for the 1995 M/MLA session on Science and
Literature.
The session topic will be--
"The Man in the Grey Tweed Suit":
Representations of Science and Scientist
Literature, Film, and/or Popular Culture.
For more detailed information, and to submit proposals for papers,
please con
tact the 1995 Session Chair,
Sandra W. Stephan
English Department
Youngstown State University
Youngstown, Ohio 44555
(216) 742-3414
e-mail FR198101@YSUB.YSU.EDU
