Home
Todd Suomela's Library tagged → View Popular, Search in Google
"It's as a response to that cultural void that science fiction becomes genuinely interesting. In the midst of an ever accelerating technological revolution, science fiction has emerged as the literature best able to articulate the relentless pace of social change. And as that technological revolution has spread outward from the western world, so the symbols and archetypes of science fiction have become a shared language for understanding the new world we are entering."
-
The geek culture that made Marvel comics part of its mythology has, like all other cultures, been repurposed by capitalism as a way of selling products to the mass market. And with an estimated 25% of under-34s self-identifying with the geek demographic, it's arguable that geek culture is really just a response to a lack of culture, a generation who have grown up alienated from any sense of cultural belonging, and are left clinging on to Hollywood product
-
There may only be a small wave of translated SF reaching the anglophone world today, but the internet is quickly unleashing much more. I'm only beginning to scratch the surface myself. Who are the other international SF authors we should all be reading today?
"The "Nobel prize for economics" is a fascinating story of how - as the global public was looking the other way - strategy and snobbery brought a symbolic currency to life. "
"This is exactly the theme of Sarah Palin's campaign. A large segment of the American public has entered the dark wilderness of loserdom. They've lost jobs, incomes, and even their homes. They can't support a family, can't afford to gas up their God-given cars, can hardly even afford to buy food - though many of this group have been programmed, tragically, to get much of their food from hamburger and taco dispensaries that "free market" America has generously dotted the landscape with. They are ashamed, especially living in a nation where liberty is supposed to enable you to get a leg up in the world, to be self-reliant, to make something of yourself. Hence, they imagine themselves to have somehow been deprived of liberty (and honor!) which they must now get back. "
-
The first revolves around the Lacanian category of the symbolic and the function of fantasy. If the Lacanian Real– not to be confused with reality –is so disturbing, then this is because it explodes all the boundaries of the symbolic. Very roughly, the symbolic can be thought of as a sort of web thrown over the world that allows the world to appear organized, totalized, and well sorted into a system of categories. Here there is no better reference for understanding the symbolic than Levi-Strauss and, in particular, The Savage Mind and The Raw and the Cooked. Through the simple semiotic categories of the raw (nature) and the cooked (culture), contends Levi-Strauss, the “primitive” mind is able weave a web of signs and narratives that creates an interface between nature and culture. Through this activity, the alien world of nature becomes heimlich or a “home” with familiar coordinates and relations that we can navigate.
-
For Lacan a fantasy is not a pleasant imaginary scenerio that we languish privately in the shower. No. Fantasy refers to the frame through which we organize our relation to the world and to others. This in two ways. On the one hand, others are opaque to us. We never know what they’re thinking, what they want, or how they see us. Fantasy provides the answer to that question, creating a sort of schema, not unlike a mathematical function where any random variable we encounter can be placed in the argument position to generate a value according to a rule, that allows us to thematize how others see us, what they want, and what they think of us. If Freud’s encounter with his image as other is uncanny, if it explodes the sustaining framework of his unconscious fantasy organizing interpersonal relations, then this is because, in this fleeting moment, he encounters the otherness of the other or the fact that he cannot master his own image. He sees himself as an other might see him, not as his narcissistic fantasy structure portrays him to himself. His image becomes an object in excess of his self; an object that he cannot master.
- 2 more annotation(s)...
Summarizes and discusses N. Katherine Hayles, Andy Clark (on extended mind) and Terence Deacon and Merlin Donald on evolution of symbolic communication.
Pity the culture snob, as Kindles, iPods, and flash drives swallow up the visible markers of superior taste and intelligence. With the digitization of books, music, and movies, how will the highbrow distinguish him- or herself from the masses?
online encyclopedia of western designs and ideograms. Symbols.com contains more than 1,600 articles about 2,500 Western signs, arranged into 54 groups according to their graphic characteristics.
Patches for classified missions can sometimes provide otherwise-unavailable insights into the nature of those missions.
Selected Tags
Related Tags
Top Contributors
Groups interested in symbols
-
Symbols in Death of a Salesman
Items: 8 | Visits: 12
Created by: John Gemino
Highlighter, Sticky notes, Tagging, Groups and Network: integrated suite dramatically boosting research productivity. Learn more »
Join Diigo