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This blog has moved to http://node801.blogspot.com/ Messages for courses are now sent via the universities LMS network and updating this site is cumbersome. I will leave up the postings that were already here, since some are for courses, but others have been transferred to the new site.

Click here to go to my main website, NODE801.

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Saturday, January 24, 2009

BLOG SITE MOVED!!!
THIS BLOG HAS MOVED TO
http://node801.blogspot.com/

I am only using this space for file storage, etc., but I am leaving it up for the foreseeable future since it contains messages to those in my courses.
12:03 pm est

Saturday, December 13, 2008

DNA pioneer's own genes raise questions about the meaning of race
Commentary from By Arthur Caplan, Ph.D.
msnbc.com contributor http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22248094/
updated 8:36 a.m. ET, Fri., Dec. 14, 2007
"An Iceland-based genomics company, deCODE genetics, <BR>conducted an analysis of Watson's DNA, which Watson had<BR> allowed to be placed on the Internet, and found <BR>that 16 percent of his genes are likely to have come <BR>from a black ancestor.....<BR>
Indeed, the racial outing of Watson was quite a surprise —<BR> most likely to the 79-year-old Nobel-prize winner. <BR>This past October he was forced to cancel a tour <BR>promoting his new book in England after opining in a <BR>British newspaper that he felt “inherently gloomy about<BR> the prospects for Africa” because “all our social<BR> policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is <BR>the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really.” <BR> Jim’s fretting left him without a job at home — he retired from his job as <BR>chancellor at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New<BR> York — and no longer especially welcome on the<BR> speaking circuit anywhere serious. Finding out one has <BR>black genes seems especially inconvenient for somebody<BR> proclaiming blacks to be genetically inferior."<BR>
5:29 pm est

Sunday, November 9, 2008

EU regulations to protect Great Apes


Tom Feilden reports on the EU providing protection for primates in medical experimentation and for banning experiments on the great apes all together. "Underpinning the draft directive is the principle of the 3R's -
reducing the number of animals to a minimum, refining experiments to alleviate suffering, and replacing animals
with alternatives wherever possible. It's an approach that has been pioneered here in the UK, and some are already referring to the plan as a Europe-wide adoption of "the British model"."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/today/tomfeilden/2008/11/protection_for_great_apes.html
Listen to his report here:
Tom Feilden reports

The proposals seem fairly consistent with those proposed by Darwin.

10:03 pm est

Fake photos --- the old fashion way
It was a staple of the regimes of the Cold War to doctor photographs. Winston's job at the Ministry in 1984 was rewriting history using such photographs. There is a good, though out of print, work by David King The Commissar Vanishes, which details Stalinist photo techniques.
See the online exhibit at the Newseum
http://www.newseum.org/berlinwall/commissar_vanishes/

Now the BBC has reported similar manipulations of recent photos of the North Korean "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il in their story
'Fake photo' revives Kim rumours
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7715458.stm




7:04 pm est

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Cultural Studies -- Umberto Eco interview
Go to my course materials page to get the pdf of Eco's Casablanca.

Cultural Studies-- Short "interview" with Umberto Eco in New York TImes Magazine
In the New York Times Magazine today is a short "interview" with Eco. "Interview" because reporter writer has been known to violate Times policy and condense or alter or take out of context what was said. The NYTimes own Public Editor did a couple of pieces recently on the issue. Nevertheless, it is worth reading if only because of Eco's views on media, politics, and his "invention" of Dan Brown.
You have to register with the Times (it is free) to view the article.

Questions for Umberto Eco
Media Studies
Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON
Published: November 25, 2007
Q: Although you’re known best as the author of the highbrow murder mystery “The Name of the Rose,” you’re also a prolific political commentator whose essays have now been collected in a book, “Turning Back the Clock,” in which you warn against the dangers of “media populism.” How would you define that term?

A: Media populism means appealing to people directly through media. A politician who can master the media can shape political affairs outside of parliament and even eliminate the mediation of parliament.


Q: Much of your book is an assault on Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister of Italy who used his media empire to assist his political ends.

A: From ’94 to ’95, and from 2001 to 2006, Berlusconi was the richest man in Italy, the prime minister, the owner of three TV channels and controller of the three state channels. He is a phenomenon that could happen and is maybe happening in other countries. And the mechanism will be the same.

But here we have the F.C.C. and other federal agencies to prevent the sort of monopolies that would allow a politician to control the country’s newspapers and TV stations. In the States, there is still a great separation between the media and political power, at least in principle.

Q: So why would any country besides Italy be at risk of having the media takeover you describe?

A: One of the reasons why foreigners are so interested in the Italian case is that Italy was in the last century a laboratory. It started with the Futurists. Their manifesto was in 1909. Then fascism — it was tested in the Italian laboratory and then it migrated to Spain, to the Balkans, to Germany.

Q: Are you saying that Germany got the idea of fascism from Italy?

A: Oh, certainly. According to what the historians say, it is so.

Maybe just the Italian historians. If you don’t like it, don’t tell it. I am indifferent.

Q: You’re saying that Italy was a trendsetter in both fashion — or art — and fascism?

A: Yes, O.K., why not?

Q: What do you make of Berlusconi’s successor, Romano Prodi, who was elected last year and has shifted the government leftward?

A: He is a friend. I like him, but I think he has been overwhelmed by the infighting after the election within his own majority. Berlusconi has the advantage of being a big actor. Prodi is not an actor, which is not a crime, but it is a weakness.

Prodi is an intellectual as opposed to a businessman? Yes, he was a professor of economics. In the early ’90s, Prodi was also a teacher in one of my programs. Suddenly he went into politics.

Q: You’re referring to the department of communications at the University of Bologna, where you’re a professor of semiotics.

A: I retired this month. I am 75.

Q: Have you ever wanted to go into politics?

A: No, because I think everybody must do his job.

Q: Do you see yourself mainly as a novelist?

A: I feel that I am a scholar who only with the left hand writes novels.

Q: I am wondering if you read Dan Brown’s “Da Vinci Code,” which some critics see as the pop version of your “Name of the Rose.”

A: I was obliged to read it because everybody was asking me about it. My answer is that Dan Brown is one of the characters in my novel, “Foucault’s Pendulum,” which is about people who start believing in occult stuff.

Q: But you yourself seem interested in the kabbalah, alchemy and other occult practices explored in the novel.

A: No, in “Foucault’s Pendulum” I wrote the grotesque representation of these kind of people. So Dan Brown is one of my creatures.

Q: Do you care if people read your novels 100 years from now?

A: If somebody writes a book and doesn’t care for the survival of that book, he’s an imbecile.

INTERVIEW CONDUCTED, CONDENSED AND EDITED BY DEBORAH SOLOMON
5:34 pm edt

Sunday, April 6, 2008

The Brian Lehrer Show US Torture Memo
The Brian Lehrer Show US Torture Memo How High Up? Philippe Sands, international lawyer, professor of law at University College London and author of Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and the Betrayal of American Values, discusses his Vanity Fair article on the Bush Administration and torture and whether any individuals might be in legal jeopardy. Link to a 2003 memo from the Department of Justice saying torture of foreign nationals is lawful (pdf)
9:34 am edt

Sunday, March 2, 2008

Science & the Origins of Race: Max Nordau
Science & the Origins of Race: Max Nordau

Nordau's Degeneration is available for download at google books

Read chapters 1-4. They are short.

_______________________
1:45 pm est

Audubon exhibit at the New York Historical Society
There is an exhibit of Audubon painting at the New York Historical Society right now until March 26th.  Audubon's friendship and scientific partnership with John and Maria Bachman is discussed in the readings.  The link below  is to the exhibit.  The New York Historical Society has the collection of Audubon's work for Bird's of America.

Audubon exhibit

exhibits & collections


____________________
11:19 am est

Science and the Origins of Race, SS. 490: Science News Sites
The question came up where to find accessible science news. Here are a few. Remember that some of these may be available via the Pratt's online services.  Make sure to check with them or to ask a reference librarian about their databases.

New Scientist
http://www.newscientist.com/home.ns

Scientific American and Scientific American News
http://www.sciam.com/

http://www.sciam.com/section/id/news


BBC Radio's In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg
has very good background discussions that can be downloaded as MP3s
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_archive_home.shtml

Take a look/listen to the other Science programs there
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/

A bit more sensational are
BBC World Service Science
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/default.stm

New York Times Science
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/science/index.html


Perhaps the most respected, though not so accessible both in terms of the publication and because of its cost,  is
Nature
http://www.nature.com/nature/index.html

_______________________
8:13 am est

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Cultural Studies Midterm for Spring 2008
Compare the analyzes of repetition, style, commodity, and fetish as found in the readings by Eco and Horkheimer and Adorno. How does Hall make use of, or critique, these views in his encoding-decoding essay?

This essay should be five pages, rather than the 10 pages noted in the syllabus, and is due on March 12.
You may submit your essay via email.

___________________
7:17 pm est

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Cultural Studies Midterm Question
Compare the analyzes of repetition, style, commodity, and fetish as found in the readings by Eco and Horkheimer and Adorno. How does Hall make use of, or critique, these views in his encoding-decoding essay?

This essay should be five pages, rather than the 10 pages noted in the syllabus, and is due on March 12.

You may submit your essay via email.


A pdf of the slides from today are on available on my site, as well.

_____________________
7:07 pm est

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Online Exhibition of Ernst Haeckel's Art Forms in Nature
Online Exhibition of Ernst Haeckel's Art Forms in Nature

Check out this site, especially the bio and the plates available here:
http://www.mblwhoilibrary.org/haeckel/

Haeckel's illustration of the developing embryos are still standard in many text books, though the accuracy of some of the features has been called into question. Next to Huxley, Haeckel was Darwin's most important popularizer, though Haeckel's views would have been more aligned in general with Spencer than Darwin. Haeckel's Monists had connections with the German Thule Society, which will be mentioned later in the readings.

His illustrations are discussed in the evolution debate that we will be reviewing as well.


________________
9:02 am est

Foucault and other readings


Cultural Studies SS. 330.01 & .02
The links for the upcoming readings that are on my at
http://geocities.com/brbgc/Node801_course_materials.html

_____________________


8:34 am est

Friday, January 18, 2008

History of Science and the Origins of Race
Syllabus and the first chapter of Gossett are available from the Course materials page of my website at http://www.geocities.com/brbgc
10:34 pm est

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Cultural Studies Weds and Thurs.
I have made some changes for the last meeting, so read Stuart Hall in During and this short piece by Deleuze
http://www.n5m.org/n5m2/media/texts/deleuze.htm


_____________________
5:40 pm est

Friday, November 30, 2007

Due Date for Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud
The essays are due no later than Dec. 13. If there is a problem, let me know as grades have to be turned in no later than Dec. 18th.

_____________________

6:45 pm est

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Final Question for Fall 2007


The assignment for your midterm essay was to critique (as in analyze) some of what you find connecting Horkheimer and Adorno's Culture Industry chapter, Eco's essay on Casablanca, and Borges' Pierre Menard.

Keeping in mind what you found in answering this question, discuss them in the context of Stuart Hall's article "Cultural Studies and its Theoretical Legacies" from the During reader.

Hall lays out a genealogy of Cultural Studies that addresses some of the political commitments involved in this work. His implicit argument is that the era when work in Cultural Studies maintained its coherence through these shared objects of study, interventions, commitments, and ideologies has come to an end. Paradoxically, this end comes precisely when Cultural Studies becomes institutionalized in the universities in the United States. This may be, as Marx would have had it, either tragic or farcical. But the question to consider is less whether Cultural Studies is viable as an academic field, than it is to consider whether or not the work that you have encountered is still of use, or if its theoretical legacies render it only of historical interest. What do you think can be salvaged from the wreckage?
______

Your essay should be concise, and should not exceed 8-12 typed pages.




_____________________

8:43 pm est

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Cultural Studies --- Stuart Hall and John D'Emilio Articles

PDFs of the articles
John D’Emillio “Capitalism and Gay Identity.”
Stuart Hall “What is this ‘Black’ in Black Popular Culture?”

are available at
http://www.geocities.com/brbgc/Node801_course_materials.html


_____________________


10:30 am est

Cultural Studies-- Short "interview" with Umberto Eco in New York TImes Magazine
In the New York Times Magazine today is a short "interview" with Eco. "Interview" because reporter writer has been known to violate Times policy and condense or alter or take out of context what was said. The NYTimes own Public Editor did a couple of pieces recently on the issue. Nevertheless, it is worth reading if only because of Eco's views on media, politics, and his "invention" of Dan Brown.
You have to register with the Times (it is free) to view the article.

Questions for Umberto Eco
Media Studies
Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON
Published: November 25, 2007
Q: Although you’re known best as the author of the highbrow murder mystery “The Name of the Rose,” you’re also a prolific political commentator whose essays have now been collected in a book, “Turning Back the Clock,” in which you warn against the dangers of “media populism.” How would you define that term?

A: Media populism means appealing to people directly through media. A politician who can master the media can shape political affairs outside of parliament and even eliminate the mediation of parliament.


Q: Much of your book is an assault on Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister of Italy who used his media empire to assist his political ends.

A: From ’94 to ’95, and from 2001 to 2006, Berlusconi was the richest man in Italy, the prime minister, the owner of three TV channels and controller of the three state channels. He is a phenomenon that could happen and is maybe happening in other countries. And the mechanism will be the same.

But here we have the F.C.C. and other federal agencies to prevent the sort of monopolies that would allow a politician to control the country’s newspapers and TV stations. In the States, there is still a great separation between the media and political power, at least in principle.

Q: So why would any country besides Italy be at risk of having the media takeover you describe?

A: One of the reasons why foreigners are so interested in the Italian case is that Italy was in the last century a laboratory. It started with the Futurists. Their manifesto was in 1909. Then fascism — it was tested in the Italian laboratory and then it migrated to Spain, to the Balkans, to Germany.

Q: Are you saying that Germany got the idea of fascism from Italy?

A: Oh, certainly. According to what the historians say, it is so.

Maybe just the Italian historians. If you don’t like it, don’t tell it. I am indifferent.

Q: You’re saying that Italy was a trendsetter in both fashion — or art — and fascism?

A: Yes, O.K., why not?

Q: What do you make of Berlusconi’s successor, Romano Prodi, who was elected last year and has shifted the government leftward?

A: He is a friend. I like him, but I think he has been overwhelmed by the infighting after the election within his own majority. Berlusconi has the advantage of being a big actor. Prodi is not an actor, which is not a crime, but it is a weakness.

Prodi is an intellectual as opposed to a businessman? Yes, he was a professor of economics. In the early ’90s, Prodi was also a teacher in one of my programs. Suddenly he went into politics.

Q: You’re referring to the department of communications at the University of Bologna, where you’re a professor of semiotics.

A: I retired this month. I am 75.

Q: Have you ever wanted to go into politics?

A: No, because I think everybody must do his job.

Q: Do you see yourself mainly as a novelist?

A: I feel that I am a scholar who only with the left hand writes novels.

Q: I am wondering if you read Dan Brown’s “Da Vinci Code,” which some critics see as the pop version of your “Name of the Rose.”

A: I was obliged to read it because everybody was asking me about it. My answer is that Dan Brown is one of the characters in my novel, “Foucault’s Pendulum,” which is about people who start believing in occult stuff.

Q: But you yourself seem interested in the kabbalah, alchemy and other occult practices explored in the novel.

A: No, in “Foucault’s Pendulum” I wrote the grotesque representation of these kind of people. So Dan Brown is one of my creatures.

Q: Do you care if people read your novels 100 years from now?

A: If somebody writes a book and doesn’t care for the survival of that book, he’s an imbecile.

INTERVIEW CONDUCTED, CONDENSED AND EDITED BY DEBORAH SOLOMON



_____________________

10:29 am est

Friday, November 9, 2007

Video shorts from class available on OurMedia
Adorno on Popular music and Protest
http://ourmedia.org/node/365851

Horkheimer on Critical Theory
http://ourmedia.org/node/366663

Freud on Psychoanalysis
http://ourmedia.org/node/346752


_____________________

5:52 pm est

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Sigmund Freud's BBC Statement

ADORNO On Popular Music & Protest

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lathe biosis -- Epicurus