ENG 102 2024: Resources #19

"In the end, confusion is not a lack of understanding. It's more understanding. Mainstream reporting and some people in power want to make everything clear to people--at the expense of the very issues and people they deal with. They can't. If it's complicated. Leave it as complicated. Give people a chance to think."

--Dai Sil Kim-Gibson, "Dreamland and Disillusion." (Film Quarterly: Fall 2011)

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Allen, Brittany. "For philosophy newbs: five thinkers to follow today." Literary Hub (April 29, 2024) ["To paraphrase the novelist Sheila Heti, I’ve been spending a lot of time lately wondering: how should a person be? These are vexy times, on both global and local theaters. Big questions structure the day. Questions like, what is gender? What is speech? What is democracy? What do we owe one another, or the planet? (Picture the pipe now, rising to my lips…)."]

Andrews, Kristin, Monica Miller, and Gabriel Rosenberg. "Living in a Zoopolis." Hi-Phi Nation (April 18, 2023) ["A zoopolis is a future society that philosophers envision where wild, domesticated, and denizen animals have full political and legal rights. What would that look like? In this episode, we look at how animals were put on trial in medieval European courts, and how animal rights advocates are bringing animals back into the courtrooms to sue people and the US government. We then look at what the science of animal minds tells us about how much agency animals have, and envision what political and legal rights various animals would have in a zoopolis. From there, we discuss and debate whether we should be allowed to farm animals, control their reproduction, and have them work for us. Co-produced with Alec Opperman, guests include historian Gabriel Rosenberg, attorney Monica Miller, and animal minds researcher Professor Kristin Andrews."]

Bellot, Gabrielle. "On America’s Two-Party System… And the Damage It Has Done."  Literary Hub (April 23, 2024)  ["As it is, our tacitly two-party system makes it feel normal, if not outright necessary, to demonize the members of the other political party—at times of heightened tension, as now, to demonize them in the starkest Manichean terms of good versus evil—and to see each election in violently stressful terms, for each election under such a worldview sees victory as safety and loss as an existential threat. (And, in a world where polarization has resulted in authoritarian strongmen like Trump, those existential threats are all too real.) The binary has become a battering ram against the door of the soul. I’d like to dream of a better system. Imagine an America where you don’t just have one of two choices, Democrat or Republic, but six or seven or eleven, each distinct, each unconstrained by the norms of a larger party they are trying to fit themselves within like round pegs into square holes because they are not trying to fit themselves within anything but a party that represents them, that truly represents them. Imagine being able to vote for a progressive party that is wholly committed to such ideals, unconstrained by centrists; moderates, too, could vote for their own interests more easily. And imagine, then, that we no longer rely on such an egoistic winner-take-all system, but one where each political party is awarded a proportional share of power based upon their performance, so that no one party “rules” when an election is decided, but must form coalitions with the other well-performing parties to succeed. Imagine an America where political conversation and compromise weren’t quaint, quiescent notions, relics of romanticization, but necessities for passing legislation, as no one party is likely to dominate the House or Senate as is the case now."]

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge, 2006. ["One of the most talked-about scholarly works of the past fifty years, Judith Butler's Gender Trouble is as celebrated as it is controversial. Arguing that traditional feminism is wrong to look to a natural, 'essential' notion of the female, or indeed of sex or gender, Butler starts by questioning the category 'woman' and continues in this vein with examinations of 'the masculine' and 'the feminine'. Best known however, but also most often misinterpreted, is Butler's concept of gender as a reiterated social performance rather than the expression of a prior reality. Thrilling and provocative, few other academic works have roused passions to the same extent."]

Ford, Phil and J.F. Martel. "Visions of the Wasteland: On George Miller's 'Mad Max' Films." Weird Studies #168 (May 1, 2024) ["There are artists who express the vision of a place, person, or thing so vividly and originally that it sets the bar for all future imaginings. With his four Mad Max films, this is what George Miller did with the image of the Wasteland. No one has been able to capture the stark, raw energy and chaotic beauty of a post-apocalyptic desert quite like Miller. His portrayal not only defines the aesthetic of a cinematic world but also prompts us to think about the meaning of civilization, technology, humanity, and how they intertwine. In this episode, Phil and JF discuss how Mad Max challenges our perception of civilization, and our conception of the human."]

Holland, Tom and Dominic Sandbrook. "Custer vs. Crazy Horse: Horse-Lords of the Plains (Part 3)." The Rest is History (May 8, 2024) ["Of all the great characters entangled in the story of George A. Custer and the American Indian Wars, few are as captivating as Crazy Horse. A mighty warrior of the Lakota Sioux, and a tremendous military tactician, he was a charismatic but enigmatic figure. The Sioux, of which the Lakota are a subculture, are groups of Native American tribes and First Nations people from the Great Plains. Their way of life was transformed by the introduction of horses to North America, but their nomadic lifestyle and dependence upon buffalo hunting was severely threatened by the imposition of telegraph lines, forts and then railroads upon their lands. So it was that, reluctant to be confined to the reservations outlined for them by the U.S. Government, they decided to fight back, under the joint leadership of the politically savvy Red Cloud, and the fated, fearless, tactically brilliant, Crazy Horse… Join Dominic and Tom as they plunge into the world of the Lakota Sioux, looking at the history of their people in the American plains, their rich, complex culture and often gory rituals, and the fascinating characters who would challenge George Custer and the U.S. Government."]

---. "Lord Byron: Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know (Part 1)." The Rest is History (April 14, 2024) ["Few lives from history can have contained as many strange and exciting strands as that of Lord Byron's, whose story reflects the great dramas of the Napoleonic era. A vampiric hero of devilish charisma; a martyr for liberty, a licentious lothario; Byron’s cultural and literary impact cannot be underestimated. The remarkable course of his life, and his mercurial nature can in part be explained by the dark events of his childhood, and the outlandish history of his own family. Born with a club foot - his “satanic mark” - to “Mad Jack” Byron, a former gigolo dogged by incest and financial ruin, and an unpredictable mother, a strange curse seemed to lie over the family. Impoverished before the inheritance of his title and a romantic ruin in Nottinghamshire, the plump and provincial boy would finally find solace at school and university, where he transformed into the glamorous rake he would become. There too would he discover the dubious sexual passions that would haunt his life…"]

Reskinoff, Ned. "Hollywood’s Nomads: On Pamela Robertson Wojcik’s Unhomed." Los Angeles Review of Books (April 10, 2024) ["In Unhomed, Wojcik demonstrates at length that Hollywood’s denialism is a break from precedent: earlier American films show a consistent preoccupation, even fascination, with homelessness and housing insecurity. A professor of film studies at the University of Notre Dame, Wojcik is the author of two other books about the role of home and place in American cinema—Fantasies of Neglect: Imagining the Urban Child in American Film and Fiction (2016) and The Apartment Plot: Urban Living in American Film and Popular Culture, 1945 to 1975 (2010). In her latest, she traces the evolution of film’s itinerant wanderers from the tramps and hobos of the silent era up to the titular drifters of Nomadland (2020). According to the book’s introduction, “Unhomed is about a curiously neglected dominant in American culture: mobility without Manifest Destiny, movement without terminus, geographic mobility that does not produce hope of social mobility.”"]

Robinson, Nathan J., et al. "The Bourgeois Morality of 'The Ethicist.'" Current Affairs (April 24, 2024) ["The New York Times advice column, where snitching liberal busybodies come to seek absolution, is more than a mere annoyance. In limiting our ethical considerations to tricky personal situations and dilemmas, it directs our thinking away from the larger structural injustices of our time."]

West, Stephen.  "How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)." Philosophize This! #187 (August 31, 2023) ["On today's episode we talk about the upsides of a surveillance state. The ongoing social dilemma of freedom vs security. The value of privacy. States of exception. And Deleuze's Postscript on Societies of Control."]

ENG 102 2024: Resources #18

Abraham, Yuval. "‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza." Monthly Review (April 5, 2024) ["During the early stages of the war, the army gave sweeping approval for officers to adopt Lavender’s kill lists, with no requirement to thoroughly check why the machine made those choices or to examine the raw intelligence data on which they were based. One source stated that human personnel often served only as a “rubber stamp” for the machine’s decisions, adding that, normally, they would personally devote only about “20 seconds” to each target before authorizing a bombing–just to make sure the Lavender-marked target is male. This was despite knowing that the system makes what are regarded as “errors” in approximately 10 percent of cases, and is known to occasionally mark individuals who have merely a loose connection to militant groups, or no connection at all. Moreover, the Israeli army systematically attacked the targeted individuals while they were in their homes–usually at night while their whole families were present–rather than during the course of military activity. According to the sources, this was because, from what they regarded as an intelligence standpoint, it was easier to locate the individuals in their private houses. Additional automated systems, including one called “Where’s Daddy?” also revealed here for the first time, were used specifically to track the targeted individuals and carry out bombings when they had entered their family’s residences."]

Beslile, Brooke. "AI and the End of Photography." UC Press Blog (March 7, 2024) ["Recent headlines are announcing the end of photography, as AI changes what counts as a photograph or makes it impossible to judge. The New York Times has published multiple, interactive articles prompting readers to test whether they can “believe their eyes” by distinguishing between photographs and AI-generated images. Results suggest that most readers are so bad at this task that our performance skews past random: we are good at getting it wrong. The implications of this uncertainty—or overconfidence—extend beyond problems of fakery and tricks of photorealism to raise broader questions about visual mediation in our moment. As AI changes how images are understood to capture and convey whatever they depict, our everyday ways of seeing and knowing through images seems to be in crisis. What does it mean, if I am more likely to identify an AI-generated image of a human face—which was rendered entirely from patterns of data about other images—as a “real person” and more likely to label a photograph of an actual person a “fake”? This is not just about AI but about aesthetic and cultural logics that condition what a “person” looks like and how personhood is pictured in photographs. My recent book, Depth Effects: Dimensionality from Camera to Computation offers a long view of questions like these, which have become all the more important with the rise of AI."]

Brotz, Lucas. "Jellyfishing for Answers." Future Ecologies 1.8 (October 10, 2018) ["How are human activities changing our oceans, and why do these changes all seem to support a new age of jellyfish? What are these ancient, diverse beings: harbingers of doom, or simply the most well-adapted form of life in the sea? In this episode we go jellyfishing for answers with preeminent jellyfish researchers Dr. Lisa-ann Gershwin and Dr. Lucas Brotz."]

Conti, Paul and Andrew Huberman. "How to Improve Your Mental Health." The Huberman Lab (September 2023) ["This is episode 2 of a 4-part special series on mental health with Dr. Paul Conti, M.D., a Stanford and Harvard-trained psychiatrist currently running a clinical practice, the Pacific Premiere Group. Dr. Conti explains specific tools for how to overcome life’s challenges using a framework of self-inquiry that explores all the key elements of self, including defense mechanisms, behaviors, self-awareness and attention. We also discuss our internal driving forces, how to align them and ultimately, how to cultivate a powerful “generative drive” of positive, aspirational pursuits. Dr. Conti also explains how to adjust your internal narratives, reduce self-limiting concepts, overcome intrusive thoughts, and how certain defense mechanisms, such as “acting out” or narcissism, show up in ourselves and others. The next episode in this special series explores how to build healthy relationships with others."]

 ---. "Therapy, Treating Trauma & Other Life Challenges." The Huberman Lab (June 5, 2022) ["My guest this episode is Dr. Paul Conti, M.D., a psychiatrist and expert in treating trauma, personality disorders and psychiatric illnesses and challenges of various kinds. Dr. Conti earned his MD at Stanford and did his residency at Harvard Medical School. He now runs the Pacific Premiere Group—a clinical practice helping people heal and grow from trauma and other life challenges. We discuss trauma: what it is and its far-reaching effects on the mind and body, as well as the best treatment approaches for trauma. We also explore how to choose a therapist and how to get the most out of therapy, as well as how to do self-directed therapy. We discuss the positive and negative effects of antidepressants, ADHD medications, alcohol, cannabis, and the therapeutic potential of psychedelics (e.g., psilocybin and LSD), ketamine and MDMA. This episode is must listen for anyone seeking or already doing therapy, processing trauma, and/or considering psychoactive medication. Both patients and practitioners ought to benefit from the information."]

Farrell, Maria and Robin Berjon. "We Need to Rewild the Internet."  NOEMA (April 16, 2024)  ["The internet has become an extractive and fragile monoculture. But we can revitalize it using lessons learned by ecologists."]

Frohlich, Xaq. "On the History of Food Labeling." Peoples & Things (March 18, 2024) ["Peoples & Things host Lee Vinsel talks with Xaq Frohlich, Associate Professor of History at Auburn University, about his new book, From Label to Table: Regulating Food in America in the Information Age (University of California Press, 2023). From Label to Table tells the fascinating history of the US Food and Drug Administration’s spreading authority of food regulation over the 20th century, which, after many twists and turns, culminated in the mandatory standardized food label featured on all packaged foods sold in the United States. The pair also talk about more recent controversies, such as labeling around genetically modified organisms, organic farming, and trans fats. Finally, they discuss Frohlich’s plans for future work, including fascinating potential projects on the history of the Mediterranean Diet and the history of food packaging."]

Gardner, Nathaniel. "The Study of Photography in Latin America: Critical Insights and Methodological Approaches." New Books in Latin American Studies (April 18, 2024) ["The Study of Photography in Latin America: Critical Insights and Methodological Approaches (University of New Mexico Press, 2023) provides an insider's perspective to the study of photography. Nathanial Gardner provides readers with a carefully structured introduction that lays out his unique methodology for this book, which features over eighty photographs and the insights from sixteen prominent Latin American photography scholars and historians, including Boris Kossoy, John Marz, and Ana Mauad. The work reflects the advances of the study of photography throughout Latin America with certain emphasis on Brazil and Mexico. The author further underlines the role of important institutions and builds context by discussing influential theories and key texts that currently guide the discipline. The Study of Photography in Latin America is critical to all who want to expand their current knowledge of the subject and engage with its experts."]

Gero, Shane, et al. "Listening to Whales." To the Best of Our Knowledge (August 24, 2024) ["What can we learn from whales – and whales from us? Technology like AI is fueling new scientific breakthroughs in whale communication that can help us better understand the natural world. And, there’s an international effort to give whales a voice by granting them personhood."]

Hinton, David. "An Ethics of Wild Mind." Emergence (April 30, 2024) ["How would our response to the ecological crisis be different if we understood that our own consciousness is as wild as the breathing Earth around us? In this conversation, poet, translator, and author David Hinton reaches back to a time when cultures were built around a reverence for the Earth and proposes that the sixth extinction we now face is rooted in philosophical assumptions about our separation from the living world. Urging us to reweave mind and landscape, he offers an ethics tempered by love and kinship as a way to navigate our era of disconnection."]

Slotkin, Richard. "American Disorder: The Origin of the Culture War."  Open Source (April 25, 2024)  [MB: I'm currently reading this book. Essential history to understand how stories/myths are used to create a sense of national identity (and who does and does not belong) and the current narratives being deployed in our acrimonious cultural wars. "The key battle taking place in this American crisis year of 2024 is happening in our heads, according to the master historian Richard Slotkin. He’s here to tell us all that we’re in a 40-year culture war and an identity crisis by now. It’s all about drawing on legendary figures like Daniel Boone and Frederick Douglass, Betsy Ross and Rosa Parks, Robert E. Lee and G.I. Joe for a composite self-portrait of the country. Richard Slotkin says we’re in a contest of origin stories, in search of a common national myth. His book is A Great Disorder: National Myth and the Battle for America. It is the Trump-Biden fight, of course, but with centuries of history bubbling under it."] 

West, Stephen. "Carl Schmitt on Liberalism, Part 2." Philosophize This! (July 1, 2019) ["So maybe the best place to begin our discussion today is just to say that the fact that the sovereign still exists at some level in our Liberal societies shouldn’t come as an enormous surprise to people. I mean, after all what exactly are systems of norms like the constitution trying to normalize? Carl Schmitt would ask if the constitution is a regulatory document…what exactly is it regulating? He would say that what it is regulating is the more fundamental, underlying political process that has been going on since the dawn of civilization. Liberalism’s been tacked on after the fact…makes us feel good…helps us feel like the world is a lot more peaceful and tolerant than its ever been…but once again, the reality of the world to Carl Schmitt, the reason we haven’t seen a respite from dictatorships, bloodshed and political instability is because we are still engaged in the exact same political process we’ve always been engaged in…one rooted in intolerance…to Carl Schmitt the foundation of the political lies in a distinction between friend and enemy."]

ENG 102 2024: Resources #17

 

      Whether we are inveterate inlanders or dwell perpetually on the tide line, we have an oceanic memory. `Indeed, such are the correspondences between ocean and our psychic depths that the two might be visible and invisible forms of the same reality. In the one, as in the other, subterranean and celestial fluidities coalesce. Their most abyssal regions are largely impenetrable. "Living fossils" in the sea, like the archaic energies in the psyche, have remained largely unchanged over millions of years, lurking in the icy darkness of the bottom waters.  Whole ecosystems, untouched by sunlight, flourish in the psyche, enhancing the waters regardless of our knowledge of their existence. In each of us, salty, amniotic waters, run in our mnemonic veins. Tidal currents course through our deeps and shallows, yielding to the rhythmic pull of the moon and sun. The undulations of our myriad intensities combine in ever-changing patterns reflected on our surfaces, just as the patterns of wave trains - "intermingling, overtaking, passing, or sometimes engulfing one another" (Carson, Rachel. The Sea Around Us. 1981: 109-110) - are endlessly reconfigured over the face of the ocean.
     Ancient and primal, the ocean is our mother of mothers, the great within whose fluid containment life began and from whose fertile precincts the first bold pioneers scuttled out upon the sand. For eons her "wild and clear call" has summoned poet and argonaut, contemplative and castaway to the "dark glory" of her nurturing, mysterious reaches. You can be lulled like a cosmic child in the cradle of her shoals, just as the ego surrenders to the universal mergence of sleep and dream. You can be lifted on a rearing whitecap, or borne on a wave of creative inspiration, and be carried shoreward with transporting exhilaration. You can be cleansed by the artic ice of her impersonal majesty, baptized in the coruscating radiations of her phosphorescent fire. Just as her innumerable progeny, flashing their bioluminescent lamps now here, now there, will light your way over her darkness, so on the mythic night sea journey, the glittering, intuitive, "living lights" in the psyche will help negotiate the depths.
     We are droplets in the vast liquidity of the sea, and just as the ocean can swallow whole our titanic ships and jumbo jets, so our little vessels of human consciousness are liable to engulfment by the deepest waters of the psyche. Its vital energies can loom like mythical sea monsters: sucking us up, spitting us out, dismembering. The churning of its abyss can activate archetypal epicenters of potentially shattering force. Shipwrecked by the elemental dynamism of emotional storm waves, we sink into a bottomless, cold, sepulchral gloom that no ray of sunlight can penetrate. In much the same way the surpassing power of the ocean, whose continuous saltwaters sweep 40 million square miles (nearly 70 percent) over the terrestrial surface, vitiates the sovereignty of the mainland. In the disequilibria of her trenches - which may extend seven miles beneath sea level, the deepest place(s) on the planet - earthquakes are bred. Their convulsive shocks give birth to seismic sea waves that rise up like gigantic renegade tides, overrunning the coastal habitations that form the tenuous boundary between sea and land. Lethal storm waves lashed by hurricane winds and borne up by storm tides invade the "ordered world" and batter it into chaos. Even the teeming abundance at the ocean's sunlit surfaces can detonate a pandemonium of competing appetites. 
    Yet like the upwelling and sinking downward of diverse currents; the displacement of upper layers by the rich, revitalizing, colder waters from below, the inexhaustibly fertile, ever-changing waters of psyche are sustaining and rejuvenating. Traversing its Great Waters brings one side(dness) face to face with its opposite shore. The bitter salt of engagement with unknown depths can be transmuted into wisdom. "Journeying birds alight here and fly away again all unseen, schools of great fish move beneath the waves, the surf flings its spary against the sun" (Beston, Henry. The Outermost House. 1981: 2). 
Source: "Ocean." The Book of Symbols: Reflections on Archetypal Images. Ed. Kathleen Martin. Taschen, 2010: 36, 38.

When we avoid behaviors that would instigate a shark attack, we are recognizing the shark has a mind capable of reading signs and responding to them. Like it or not, we are in communication with them. If we accidently send out signs to a shark that indicate we are prey (if we look too much like a seal in our wet suit, or we produce vibrations in the water like a fish in distress), we know we may instigate an attack, despite the fact that the shark does not typically prey on humans. We can cause the shark to misinterpret the world's signs and make a mistake - a mistake which may be fatal to us. How we see the world matters - but knowing how the world sees us also matters. - Dr. Ha Nguyen [from Ray Nayler's novel The Mountain in the Sea. Picador, 2022: 95]

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Conti, Paul. Trauma: The Invisible Epidemic. Sounds True, 2021. ["A Journey Toward Understanding, Active Treatment, and Societal Prevention of Trauma. Imagine, if you will, a disease—one that has only subtle outward symptoms but can hijack your entire body without notice, one that transfers easily between parent and child, one that can last a lifetime if untreated. According to Dr. Paul Conti, this is exactly how society should conceptualize trauma: as an out-of-control epidemic with a potentially fatal prognosis. In Trauma: The Invisible Epidemic, Dr. Conti examines the most recent research, clinical best practices, and dozens of real-life stories to present a deeper and more urgent view of trauma. Not only does Dr. Conti explain how trauma affects the body and mind, he also demonstrates that trauma is transmissible among close family and friends, as well as across generations and within vast demographic groups. With all this in mind, Trauma: The Invisible Epidemic proposes a course of treatment for the seemingly untreatable. Here, Dr. Conti traces a step-by-step series of concrete changes that we can make both as individuals and as a society to alleviate trauma’s effects and prevent further traumatization in the future. You will discover: The different post-trauma syndromes, how they are classified, and their common symptoms. An examination of how for-profit health care systems can inhibit diagnosis and treatment of trauma. How social crises and political turmoil encourage the spread of group trauma. Methods for confronting and managing your fears as they arise in the moment. How trauma disrupts mental processes such as memory, emotional regulation, and logical decision-making. The argument for a renewed humanist social commitment to mental health and wellness It’s only when we understand how a disease spreads and is sustained that we are able to create its ultimate cure. With Trauma: The Invisible Epidemic, Dr. Conti reveals that what we once considered a lifelong, unbeatable mental illness is both treatable and preventable."]

Ford, Phil, and J.F. Martel. "Make Believe: On the Power of Pretentiousness." Weird Studies #166 (April 3, 2024) ["In culture and the arts, labeling something you don't like (or don't understand) "pretentious" is the easy way out. It's a conversation killer, implying that any dialogue is pointless, and those who disagree are merely duped by what you've cleverly discerned as a charade. It's akin to cynically revealing that a magic show is all smoke and mirrors—as if creative vision doesn't necessitate a leap of faith. In this episode, Phil and JF explore the nuances of pretentiousness, distinguishing between its fruitful and hollow forms. They argue that the real gamble, and inherent value, of daring to pretend lies in recognizing that imagination is an active contributor to, rather than a detractor from, reality."]

Homberg, Jan, et al. "The Seventh Seal." In Our Time (September 21, 2023) ["Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss arguably the most celebrated film of the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007). It begins with an image that, once seen, stays with you for the rest of your life: the figure of Death playing chess with a Crusader on the rocky Swedish shore. The release of this film in 1957 brought Bergman fame around the world. We see Antonius Block, the Crusader, realising he can’t beat Death but wanting to prolong this final game for one last act, without yet knowing what that act might be. As he goes on a journey through a plague ridden world, his meeting with a family of jesters and their baby offers him some kind of epiphany."]

Huberman, Andrew and Matthew Walker. "Protocols to Improve Sleep." The Huberman Lab (April 10, 2024) ["This is episode 2 of a 6-part special series on sleep with Dr. Matthew Walker, Ph.D., a professor of neuroscience and psychology and founder of the Center for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley. We discuss basic and advanced tools for improving sleep and explain how sleep quality is affected by temperature, light and dark, caffeine, alcohol, cannabis, nutrition, meal timing, and different medications. Dr. Walker also provides strategies for coping with a poor night of sleep, wind-down routines, technology in the bedroom, insomnia, visualizations, and building sleep “confidence.” We also discuss the current status of sleep research for developing advanced techniques to optimize sleep. This episode provides numerous zero-cost behavioral protocols for improving sleep quality and restorative power, which can benefit daytime mood, energy, performance, and overall health."]

Macleod, Alan. "USAID’s disinformation primer: Global censorship in the name of democracy." Monthly Review (April 9, 2024) ["A report from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) outlines how the government agency has been encouraging governments, tech platforms, establishment media outlets and advertisers to work together to censor huge swaths of the Internet. The 97-page “disinformation primer,” obtained by conservative firm America First Legal under the Freedom of Information Act, purports to be fighting fake news. However, much of the organization’s focus appears to be on preventing individuals from finding information online that challenges official narratives and leads to increased questioning of the system more generally. The document calls for regulating video games and online message boards, steering individuals away from alternative media and back towards more elite-friendly sites, and for governments to work with advertisers to cripple organizations that refuse to toe official lines financially. Furthermore, it highlights government-backed fact-checking groups like Bellingcat, Graphika, and the Atlantic Council as leaders in the fight against disinformation, despite the fact that those groups have close connections to the national security state, which is an overwhelming conflict of interest. The news that a government agency is promoting such a program is worrying enough. However, we shall also see how USAID itself has promoted fake news to push for regime change abroad."]

Skiveren, Nicolai. "Cinematic Waesthetic: Wasted Worlds, Wasted Lives and Becoming-Waste in Contemporary Science Fiction Film." Revenant #10 (March 2024) ["This article explores the aesthetic, affective, and epistemological connections that bind together science fiction (SF) as a genre of cognitive estrangement, and the varied forms of waste that have come to permeate the genre’s filmic depictions of the future. Whether it be in the shadowy alleyways of Blade Runner 2049 (2017), the shantytowns of District 9 (2009), or the ravaged environments of Idiocracy (2006), waste is always there, lurking in the background, enveloping its human and nonhuman subjects with its elusive yet distinct atmosphere. And yet, it remains unclear what purpose(s), if any, waste might serve within these film-worlds. Because despite the seemingly central place that waste occupies in our cultural imaginaries of the future, no one has yet presented a systematic reflection on its affective, symbolic, and narrative significance. This article therefore brings together writings on ecological SF (Caravan 2014) and critical waste studies (Bauman 2004; Hawkins 2005; Viney 2014) to scrutinize the waste found across the above SF films. The article proposes that waste in contemporary SF film can be seen to operate mainly within three overlapping modes: ‘Wasted worlds,’ ‘Wasted lives,’ and ‘Becoming-waste.’ Drawing especially on Adrian Ivakhiv’s tripartite model for an eco-philosophy of the cinema, this article calls attention to the often subtle ways in which waste participates in (i) cinematic world-building, (ii) representations of otherness, and (iii) depictions of radical forms of change. Taken together, these three modes represent a suggestive image of how waste forms part of contemporary SF film."]

Tyson, Neil deGrasse. "The Universe Is Under No Obligation To Make Sense To Us." To the Best of Our Knowledge (August 19, 2017) ["If you want a quick hit of cosmic wonder, Neil deGrasse Tyson is the go-to guy. How many other astrophysicists can bring down the house on late night TV? His day job is running the Hayden Planetarium in New York City, but his mission is blowing the public’s mind with science. Speaking with Steve Paulson in 2017, Tyson makes the case for why constantly searching for answers doesn't have to dispel our sense of awe and wonder faced with the seemingly unknowable universe."]

West, Stephen. "A conservative communist's take on global capitalism and desire. (Zizek, Marx, Lacan)." Philosophize This! #199 (April 15, 2024) ["Today we talk about the distinction between left and right. Lacan's thoughts on desire. How Capitalism captures desire and identity. I would prefer not to. Moderately conservative communism."]

---. "Improving our world through applied ethics. (Peter Singer, Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek)." Philosophize This! #209 (August 26, 2024) ["Today we talk about Peter Singer's response to an anticapitalist critique of his work. Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek's thoughts on the wrong ways to be thinking about ethical terminology. Philosophy in schools. Creative activism. The ongoing impact of the Effective Altruist movement."]

Michael Benton: On Difference

100 days of gratitude - Day 2 Difference

I am grateful that my world and society are so diverse and I celebrate the many different beings and things that remind me of that wonder. I feel sorry for those that fear this difference, those that find it a threat. I would never want to live in a world where people all look like I do, think like I do or believe what I do. A founding statement that has always guided me is the Russian thinker/writer Mikhail Bakhtin when he states in the book: Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. trans. C. Emerson. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1984.
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"Everything that pertains to me enters my consciousness, beginning with my name, from the external world through the mouths of others (my mother, and so forth), with their intonation, in their emotional and value-assigning tonality. I realize myself initially through others: from them I receive words, forms, and tonalities for the formation of my initial idea of myself. … Just as the body is formed initially in the mother’s womb, a person’s consciousness awakens wrapped in another’s consciousness. (xx)

Truth is not born nor is it found inside the head of an individual person; it is born between people collectively searching for the truth, in the process of their dialogic interaction." (110)

"I am conscious of myself and become myself only while revealing myself for another, through another, and with the help of another. The most important acts constituting self-consciousness are determined by a relationship toward another consciousness (toward a thou) … The very being of man (both external and internal) is the deepest communion. To be means to communicate … To be means to be for another, and through the other for oneself. A person has no internal sovereign territory, he is wholly and always on the boundary: looking inside himself, he looks into the eyes of another or with the eyes of another … I cannot manage without another, I cannot become myself without another." (287)

"Monologism at its extreme denies the existence outside itself of another consciousness with equal rights and equal responsibilities, another I with equal rights (thou). With a monologic approach…another person remains wholly and merely an object of consciousness, and not another consciousness. No response is expected from it that could change everything in the world of my consciousness. Monologue is finalized and deaf to the other's response, does not expect it and does not acknowledge in it any decisive force. Monologue manages without the other, and therefore to some degree materializes all reality. Monologue pretends to be the ultimate word. It closes down the represented world and represented persons." (Bakhtin: 292-93)

"The dialogic nature of consciousness. The dialogic nature of human life itself. The single adequate form for verbally expressing authentic human life is the open- ended dialogue. Life by its very nature is dialogic. To live means to participate in dialogue: to ask questions, to heed, to respond, to agree, and so forth. In this dialogue a person participates wholly and throughout his whole life: with his eyes, lips, hands, soul, spirit, with his whole body and deeds. He invests his entire self in discourse, and this discourse enters into the dialogic fabric of human life, into the world symposium." (Bakhtin: 293)
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I seek to engage in a conversation with (speaking with and thinking with) the differences I encounter daily. To not be mindlessly afraid of what is different from me. To appreciate/understand the uniqueness of everything/everyone. I do not seek difference for difference's sake (when the cultivation of difference becomes another form of rout conformity and silencing of difference - when alternative becomes just another consumer fashion or how subcultures police the interests/expression of their adherents), instead it is the expression of authentic identity that produces something special and allows for others to do the same.
Meditating in my backyard I was gazing at the back of my fence where there is a collection of purple flowers and I noticed one in the middle of them growing from the same vine that was completely different, kind of an albino mutation that lacked the purple of the others, but had its own special beauty. I gazed upon it in wonder and thought on how did this special little flower come to be. An accident of nature or something else - who knows, it not only shined in uniqueness, it also brought into focus the beauty of all of the flowers. The contrast, the difference, enhances them all.

Outside, Within: Music Mix #33

 Mabe Fratti; Francoise Hardy; Cat Power; Ani DiFranco; Yo La Tengo; Radiohead; The Red Clay Strays; Steely Dan; Chuck Prophet; The Pogues; Modest Mouse; King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard; Viagra Boys; Alex G; The Smashing Pumpkins; Slothrust; The Frights; Sir Chloe; Artic Monkeys; Wet Leg; Harvey Danger; Mother Mother; Beck; Louis Cole; Car Seat Headrest; St Vincent; Suki Waterhouse; Alabama Shakes; Bonnie Raitt; Jobi Riccio; Trixie Whitley; JD McPherson; Quicksilver Messenger Service; Bleachers; Otis Redding; Pharrell Williams; Earth, Wind, and Fire; Neil Young; The Bridge City Sinners; Shakey Graves; Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats; Jane's Addiction; Supertramp; Gorillaz; Jack White

Outside, Within: Music Mix #33 

ENG 102 2024: Resources #16

Communication is not what sets humans apart. All life communicates, and at a level sufficient to its survival. Animal and even plant communication are, in fact, highly sophisticated. But what makes humans different is symbols - letters and words that can be arranged in the self-referential sets we call language. Using symbols, we can detach communication from its direct relation to things present around us. We can speak with one another about things not here and now. We can tell stories. Tradition, myth, history, culture - these are storage systems for knowledge, and they are all products of the symbol. And the use of symbols is something we have not seen outside our own species. - Dr. Ha Nguyen [from Ray Nayler's novel The Mountain in the Sea. Picador, 2022: 75]

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Challenger, Melanie. "Animals in the Room: Why We Can and Should Listen to Other Species." Emergence Magazine Podcast (2022) ["How might our human systems work differently if they were adapted to receive input from the nonhuman creatures they involve and impact? In this week’s narrated essay, writer and ethicist Melanie Challenger considers what it would take to expand the democratic imagination to include and represent animal voices in the decisions that affect them. Advocating for a quieting of our own narratives so that we might recognize political signals from the behaviors of the vast community around us, she envisions the revolutionary mechanisms which could make present the expressions of animals within our systems of power."]

Dorian, MJ. "Creativity Tip 23: Be Driven By A Vision." Creative Codex #23 (March 26, 2024) ["All creative geniuses have visions throughout their lives which guide their work. What does it mean to have a vision? How does a vision differ from a goal? How do you discover your own vision? Let's talk about it. This insight developed from recent studies and reflections I've been engaged in, it is part of my current attempt to define creative genius through several traits which all creative geniuses seem to share. In searching through all of the insights gathered over five years of doing this show, I've noticed that all of the figures we have covered have a vision which, in some way, guides their creativity."]

Holland, Tom and Dominic Sandbrook. "Luther: The Man Who Changed the World (Part 1)." The Rest is History (March 24, 2024) ["The Reformation, launched in 1517, stands as one of the most convulsive and transformative events of all time, shattering Christendom and dividing Europe for centuries. Its outcome determined the fates of Kings and Emperors, and saw the souls of millions consigned to the fiery pit of heresy. The man behind it all was Martin Luther, a humble monk of obscure origins. Bold, intellectually arrogant, and a master of spin, the assault he unleashed on the medieval Church had him excommunicated by the Pope. But what was it about Luther’s humble upbringing in Saxony and his strained relationship with his intimidating father that led him down a path of insolence? And was the religious revolution that he sparked inevitable? Join Tom and Dominic as they discuss the early life of Martin Luther, the apocalyptic environment from which he and his radical ideas emerged, and the Catholic Church he would come to take on…"]

Katz, Sandor. "Fermentation as Metaphor: A Conversation." Emergence Magazine Podcast (October 22, 2020) ["In this interview, Sandor Katz discusses his new book, Fermentation as Metaphor. A world-renowned expert in fermented foods, Sandor considers the liberating experience offered through engagement with microbial communities. He shares that the simple act of fermentation can give rise to deeply intimate moments of connection through the magic of invisible forces that transform our foods and our lives, generation by generation."]

Laycock, Joseph. "Late Night With the Devil Reflects The Role of Talk Shows in Sensationalizing the Satanic Panic of the 1980s." Religion Dispatches (March 26, 2024) ["Despite its supernatural premise, Late Night with the Devil is a work of realism. Most of the characters and events in the film are references to actual figures from 1970s occulture. It also reflects on the way that talk shows became a vector through which rumors of Satanic cults spread, fueling the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. As described in my book The Exorcist Effect, filming a live exorcism was a goal of network news media for two decades."]

Meagher, Kevin. "The Future of Ireland: Why a United Ireland is Inevitable." The Future of ... (January 17, 2024) ["In A United Ireland: Why Unification in Inevitable and How It Will Come About (Biteback Publishing, 2017), Kevin Meagher argues that a reasoned, pragmatic discussion about the most basic questions regarding Britain's relationship with its nearest neighbour is now long overdue, and questions that have remained unasked, and perhaps unthought, must now be answered. Indeed, in the light of Brexit and a highly probable second independence referendum in Scotland, the reunification of Ireland is not a question of if, but when and how. Listen to Meagher explain to Owen Bennett Jones why he thinks a united Ireland is inevitable and how he thinks it will happen. Kevin Meagher was a Special Adviser to former Labour Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward. He is the associate editor of the Labour Uncut blog and frequently writes about Irish politics for the New Statesman."]

Rohr, Richard. "Growing Up Men." On Being (June 13, 2019) ["Men of all ages say Richard Rohr has given them a new way into spiritual depth and religious thought through his writing and retreats. This conversation with the Franciscan spiritual teacher delves into the expansive scope of his ideas: from male formation and what he calls “father hunger” to why contemplation is as magnetic to people now, including millennials, as it’s ever been. Richard Rohr is a Franciscan writer, teacher, and the founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His many books include Falling Upward, Divine Dance, and most recently, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe."]

Roshi, Susan Murphy. "Earth as Koan, Earth as Self." Emergence (April 1, 2024) ["What becomes possible when we open and orient our consciousness towards uncertainty, emptiness, and a sense of relationship with the world beyond the self? Australian writer and Zen teacher Susan Murphy Roshi immerses us in the tradition of Zen koan and the power of the not-knowing mind to open a treasury of resources for navigating the climate crisis."]

Solloway, Jack. "How to Be Original." Bloomsbury Visual Arts (June 2024) ["It’s a truism that art is not created in a vacuum and that artists are always indebted to a wider community of creators and facilitators in the industry which provides the conditions for their work. Yet when something is truly original and singular in its execution, it is undeniably so. How can this be? In this featured content, we examine originality, its myths and characteristics, as well the dance between inspiration and influence in creating original artwork."]

West, Stephen. "The Buddha." Philosophize This! #9 (November 10, 2013) ["... the life of Siddhartha Gautama and his Heisenberg-esque transformation into Buddha. We learn how Buddha left a lifestyle of being fed grapes and being fanned with palm leaves to pursue a life of celibacy, starvation, and sleep deprivation. We also learn about how Buddha reached enlightenment while sitting beneath a fruit tree à la Isaac Newton, and about the four noble truths which he believed were the key to ending human suffering once and for all. "]

Yunkaporta, Tyson. "Deep Time Diligence." Emergence (February 19, 2024) ["Aboriginal scholar and author Tyson Yunkaporta illustrates how deep time thinking, born of an intimate relationship between a place and its community, can radically reshape our relationship to the cosmic order."]

ENG 102 2024: Resources #15

Barclay, Donald A. Fake News, Propaganda, and Plain Old Lies: How to Find Trustworthy Information in the Digital Age. Rowman & Littlefield, 2020. ["Are you overwhelmed at the amount, contradictions, and craziness of all the information coming at you in this age of social media and twenty-four-hour news cycles? Fake News, Propaganda, and Plain Old Lies will show you how to identify deceptive information as well as how to seek out the most trustworthy information in order to inform decision making in your personal, academic, professional, and civic lives. • Learn how to identify the alarm bells that signal untrustworthy information. • Understand how to tell when statistics can be trusted and when they are being used to deceive. • Inoculate yourself against the logical fallacies that can mislead even the brightest among us."]

Hauke, Alexandra. "Dreaming of Leviathan: John Langan's The Fisherman and American Folk Horror."  The Revenant #5 (March 2020) ["In what follows, I offer a reading of John Langan’s 2016 novel The Fisherman through this multifaceted lens of American folk horror in order to delineate the ways in which it emerges as an archive of legendary cautionary tales rooted in the (hi)stories of American fear, folklore, and literature as well as in the adversities of a contemporary American condition. A multilayered narrative whose present-day frame story is engulfed in the myriad of embedded myths that terrify both readers and protagonists, Langan’s second novel becomes a space where trauma, grief, and loneliness leave the widowed protagonists desperate, vulnerable, and thus susceptible to the dark promises of the Fisherman; the book’s eponymous source of terror turns to folk materials in an attempt to win his fight with the limits of humanity and mortality. By dipping into the principal anxieties at the core of the American culture of fear, the literary archives of the folk horror chain, and collections of mythic stories from the eastern US, The Fisherman establishes itself as a newly imagined version of the dominant American national narrative, shaped by the ‘terrible reality’ of its past (Langan 2016: 222). By reading the text within the temporal, spatial, and socio-cultural contexts of its intra- and metadiegetic worlds, I will show how this rendition of a national narrative—rooted in the horrors of the US’s colonial past and its Puritan heritage—lends itself especially well to folk horror because it speaks to the idea that folk horror constitutes not only horrors of the people but, first and foremost, horrors committed by the people. Therefore, in The Fisherman, as in American folk horror overall, the horror is and has always been the American folk themselves."]

Holland, Tom and Dominic Sandbrook. "Baghdad: Arabian Nights." The Rest is History #379 (October 2023) ["The setting for so many of the Arabian Nights, like the stories of Sinbad the Sailor, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, or Aladdin, Baghdad during the Islamic Golden Age had a shimmering image, a dimension of mystery and wonder… Join Tom and Dominic in the final part of our series on the history of Baghdad, as they explore the tales of One Thousand and One Nights, and the city of Caliphs, Hadiths, thieves, and of course, pigeon racing!"]

Huberman, Andrew and Becky Kennedy. "Protocols for Excellent Parenting & Improving Relationships of All Kinds." The Huberman Lab (February 26, 2024) ["In this episode, my guest is Dr. Becky Kennedy, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist, bestselling author, and founder of Good Inside, an education platform for parents and parents-to-be. We discuss actionable protocols for raising resilient, emotionally healthy kids and effective alternatives to typical forms of reward and punishment that instead teach children valuable skills and strengthen the parent-child bond. These protocols also apply to other types of relationships: professional, romantic, friendships, siblings, etc. We explain how to respond to emotional outbursts, rudeness, and entitlement, repair fractured relationships, build self-confidence, and improve interpersonal connections with empathy while maintaining healthy boundaries. We also discuss how to effectively communicate with children and adults with ADHD, anxiety, learning challenges, or with “deeply feeling” individuals. The conversation is broadly applicable to all types of social interactions and bonds. By the end of the episode, you will have earned simple yet powerful tools to build healthy relationships with kids, teens, adults, and oneself."]

Kapp, Steven K. Autistic Community and the Neurodiversity Movement: Stories from the Frontline. Springer Singapore, 2019. ["This open access book marks the first historical overview of the autism rights branch of the neurodiversity movement, describing the activities and rationales of key leaders in their own words since it organized into a unique community in 1992. Sandwiched by editorial chapters that include critical analysis, the book contains 19 chapters by 21 authors about the forming of the autistic community and neurodiversity movement, progress in their influence on the broader autism community and field, and their possible threshold of the advocacy establishment. The actions covered are legendary in the autistic community, including manifestos such as “Don’t Mourn for Us”, mailing lists, websites or webpages, conferences, issue campaigns, academic project and journal, a book, and advisory roles. These actions have shifted the landscape toward viewing autism in social terms of human rights and identity to accept, rather than as a medical collection of deficits and symptoms to cure."]

Klemp, Nate. "Mindfulness in a Distracted World." Entitled Opinions (February 15, 2024) ["A conversation with Nate Klemp, a philosopher, writer, and founding partner at Mindfulness Magazine, on practicing mindfulness in our fast-paced, technology-dependent world. He is also co-author of the New York Times bestseller Start Here."]

Pogue, Neall W. "The Nature of the Religious Right: The Struggle between Conservative Evangelicals and the Environmental Movement." New Books in Religion (January 18, 2024) ["How does the Bible instruct humans to interact with the Earth? Over the last few decades, white conservative evangelical Christians have increasingly taken positions against environmental protections. To understand why, Meghan Cochran talks with Neall W. Pogue about his book The Nature of the Religious Right: The Struggle between Conservative Evangelicals and the Environmental Movement (Cornell University Press, 2022) in which he examines how the religious right became a political force known for hostility toward environmental legislation. Until the 1990s, theologically based, eco-friendly philosophies of Christian environmental stewardship were uncontroversial. However, when some in the evangelical community began to lean towards environmental activism in response to human caused climate change, their effort was overwhelmed by some conservative leaders who stressed a position against environmentalism. They ridiculed conservation efforts, embraced conspiracy theories, and refuted the expanding scientific literature. Pogue explains how different ideas of nature helped to construct a conservative evangelical political movement that rejected long-standing beliefs regarding Christian environmental stewardship."]

Randall, Alice. "Beyoncé country." Today, Explained (March 22, 2024) ["Beyoncé has a new country album. The first single has already broken records and drawn criticism from those who think of country music as a “white” genre. Except it’s not. Author and songwriter Alice Randall tells the story of country music’s very Black roots."]

Russell, Stuart Jonathan. Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control. Viking, 2019. ["A leading artificial intelligence researcher lays out a new approach to AI that will enable us to coexist successfully with increasingly intelligent machines. In the popular imagination, superhuman artificial intelligence is an approaching tidal wave that threatens not just jobs and human relationships, but civilization itself. Conflict between humans and machines is seen as inevitable and its outcome all too predictable. In this groundbreaking book, distinguished AI researcher Stuart Russell argues that this scenario can be avoided, but only if we rethink AI from the ground up. Russell begins by exploring the idea of intelligence in humans and in machines. He describes the near-term benefits we can expect, from intelligent personal assistants to vastly accelerated scientific research, and outlines the AI breakthroughs that still have to happen before we reach superhuman AI. He also spells out the ways humans are already finding to misuse AI, from lethal autonomous weapons to viral sabotage. If the predicted breakthroughs occur and superhuman AI emerges, we will have created entities far more powerful than ourselves. How can we ensure they never, ever, have power over us? Russell suggests that we can rebuild AI on a new foundation, according to which machines are designed to be inherently uncertain about the human preferences they are required to satisfy. Such machines would be humble, altruistic, and committed to pursue our objectives, not theirs. This new foundation would allow us to create machines that are provably deferential and provably beneficial."]

Sheldrake, Merlin. Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures. Random House, 2020. ["A mind-bending journey into the hidden world of fungi that will change your understanding of life on earth. "A dazzling, vibrant, vision-changing book . . . I ended it wonderstruck at the fungal world--the secrets of which modern science is only now beginning to fathom."--Robert Macfarlane, author of Underland.  When we think of fungi, we likely think of mushrooms. But mushrooms are only fruiting bodies, analogous to apples on a tree. Most fungi live out of sight, yet make up a massively diverse kingdom of organisms that supports and sustains nearly all living systems. Fungi provide a key to understanding the planet on which we live, and the ways we think, feel, and behave. In Entangled Life, the brilliant young biologist Merlin Sheldrake shows us the world from a fungal point of view, providing an exhilarating change of perspective. Sheldrake's vivid exploration takes us from yeast to psychedelics, to the fungi that range for miles underground and are the largest organisms on the planet, to those that link plants together in complex networks known as the "Wood Wide Web," to those that infiltrate and manipulate insect bodies with devastating precision.
Fungi throw our concepts of individuality and even intelligence into question. They are metabolic masters, earth makers, and key players in most of life's processes. They can change our minds, heal our bodies, and even help us remediate environmental disaster. By examining fungi on their own terms, Sheldrake reveals how these extraordinary organisms--and our relationships with them--are changing our understanding of how life works."]

Strach, Patricia and Kathleen S. Sullivan. "The Politics of Trash: How Governments Used Corruption to Clean Cities, 1890–1929." New Books in Political Science (January 18, 2024) ["Political Scientists Patricia Strach (The University at Albany, State University of New York) and Kathleen S. Sullivan (Ohio University) have written a fascinating and important exploration of trash. More precisely, this is a complex examination and analysis of the development of our municipal sanitation processes and structures, highlighting intersecting policy areas, urban and local politics, and racial, gender, and class politics. The Politics of Trash: How Governments Used Corruption to Clean Cities, 1890–1929 (Cornell UP, 2023) has it all: corruption, gender and racial hierarchies, blame defection, rejection of expertise, case studies across a host of different cities around the country, and the collection of, the disposal of, and the innovations of garbage. Strach and Sullivan examine this multidimensional policy issue from an American political development perspective when the issue really took root in the United States in the latter part of the 19th century. At this point, urban areas saw demographic growth from migration from rural areas as well as the waves of immigrants who came to the U.S. Most U.S. cities found themselves facing the same problem: unsanitary living situations. The initial research found that there were three different forms of trash collection, and they highlighted the processes in San Francisco, New Orleans, and Pittsburgh. San Francisco had no formal municipal collection process; instead, the citizens of San Francisco contracted directly with scavengers themselves to remove the garbage. Pittsburgh, as a municipality, contracted out the responsibility—but the process there was one that fed fees back to the municipal leadership. New Orleans, awash in local government corruption, ultimately had a municipal collection program, which was generally far from effective. While these three cities were the basis for the initial research, St. Louis and Charleston were also added to the case studies, with Birmingham and Louisville as secondary examples within the study. The Politics of Trash also explores the way in which citizens need to engage with and comply with the sanitation programs. In order to urge compliance, cities often called on women’s civic organizations to model and advocate for participation in the garbage process. Obviously, these were white women’s civic organizations and while they had been advocates for sanitation processes, they were generally cut out of the development process since women were not to be too close to politics itself. Strach and Sullivan spent time with the Good Housekeeping magazine archives in order to flesh out this dimension of the analysis. The research also highlights how blame was put on immigrants and people of color when the sanitation programs failed—often because of corruption and lack of sufficient resources. The authors note throughout the text that the form that we remove and dispose of waste/garbage/trash now is the same as it was 100 years ago. And while we often separate compostables from recyclables from trash, this is not all that different than the ways that people disposed of their garbage in Pittsburgh, and Charleston, and San Francisco a century ago. And many of the same forms of removal remain in place. The Politics of Trash is a lively and fascinating analysis of a part of our lives that we often don’t consider to be political, but it is political, and has been for quite some time."]

West, Stephen. "Are You Left or Right?" Philosophize This! #50 (February 6, 2015) ["On this episode of the podcast, we discuss the contrasting political philosophies of Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine. First, we find out the origin of the terms “left” and “right” in relation to politics, and find out that the meanings of these terms are not as simple as they may first seem. Next, we discuss the opposing viewpoints of Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine on how society should progress and implement change. Finally, we think about how their ideas relate to modern issues and consider whether or not their positions are mutually exclusive."]

ENG 102: Ethical Reasoning

 Ethics and politics look at both how we should regard and accommodate each other and what kind of things make it possible to, for example, treat each other with respect and what kinds of things don't. That I might view you as "weird" or even "inhuman" (politics) may very much dictate how I then treat you (ethics). When we examine more closely how we think about the world, it turns out that ethics and politics are inseparable. (21) -- Veronique Pin-Fat "How Do We Begin to Think About the World." (2014)

Ethical Reasoning is reasoning about right and wrong human conduct. It requires students to be able to assess their own ethical values and the social context of problems, recognize ethical issues in a variety of settings, think about how different ethical perspectives might be applied to ethical dilemmas and consider the ramifications of alternative actions. An intellectual's ethical self identity evolves as they practice ethical decision-making skills and learn how to describe and analyze positions on ethical issues.

Core Beliefs: Those fundamental principles that consciously or unconsciously influence one's ethical conduct and thinking. Even when unacknowledged, core beliefs shape one's thinking and actions. Core beliefs reflect an individual's interaction and absorbtion of ideas from their environment, religion, culture, education, profession, entertainments and other media forums (social media/news sources).

Ethical Perspectives/Concepts: The different theoretical means through which ethical issues are analyzed. A primary focus is on how ethical theories and concepts are engaged & contested to develop and explain one's own ethical position.

Context/Situation/Synthesize: 1) Understanding the complex context of important social and/or political issues. 2) Recognizing the situational aspect of some positions, insights and/or solutions. 3) Demonstration of an ability to understand and discuss more than one ethical position and/or dilemma (positions that reflect different ways of thinking about an ethical issue). Key to this is the synthesis of multiple sources/perspectives in order to develop one's own unique ethical perspective/position on important social or political issues.

ENG 102 2024: Resources #14

Bates, David. "The Artificiality of Natural Intelligence." Entitled Opinions (February 1, 2024) ["In this philosophy-heavy episode, Professor Robert Harrison and David Bates, Professor of Rhetoric at UC Berkeley, discuss the “unnatural” origins of human technology and the difficulty of drawing sharp distinctions between artificial and natural intelligence."]

Capper, Daniel. "Roaming Free Like a Deer: Buddhism and the Natural World." Emergence (February 5, 2024) ["Daniel Capper's book Roaming Free Like a Deer: Buddhism and the Natural World (Cornell UP, 2022) delves into ecological experiences in seven Buddhist worlds, spanning ancient India to the modern West, offering a comprehensive analysis of Buddhist environmental ethics. Capper critically examines theories, practices, and real-world outcomes related to Buddhist perspectives on vegetarianism, meat consumption, nature mysticism, and spirituality in nonhuman animals. While Buddhist environmental ethics are often seen as tools against climate change, the book highlights two issues: uncritical acceptance of ideals without assessing practical impacts and a lack of communication among Buddhists, hindering coordinated responses to issues like climate change. The book, with an accessible style and a focus on personhood ethics, appeals to those concerned about human-nonhuman interactions."]

Cave, Nick. "Nick Cave on the encounters that brought him to 'Wild God'." All Songs Considered (August 20, 2024) ["On August 30, the Australian-born rock titan Nick Cave will release Wild God, a new album with his band The Bad Seeds. It's a high point in Cave's career, and NPR Music's Ann Powers spoke with him about the struggles — personal, musical and religious — he faced on the road to making the album. Wild God is filled with songs about encounters with the divine, which does not always take a benevolent form. And it follows a decade in which Cave, having publicly faced tragedy in his own life, has evolved from post-punk's louchest fallen angel into a revered figure among his audience in a new way: a dignified seeker whose courage and wisdom resounds beyond musical boundaries thanks to advice he has shared in interviews, writing projects and public appearances. Perhaps it's not surprising that so many of the songs reckon with the moment of revelation or transformation, or the demand for conversion from a ... As for the state of his own religious conviction, Cave says that the struggle is the point: "I would say I'm in the process of conversion," he tells Powers. Wherever he is on that road, he's found something ecstatic to share."]

Coté, Charlotte. "A Drum in One Hand, a Sockeye in the Other: Stories of Indigenous Food Sovereignty from the Northwest Coast." New Books in the American West (January 30, 2024) ["Food is at the center of everything, writes University of Washington professor of American Indian Studies Charlotte Coté. In A Drum in One Hand, A Sockeye in the Other: Stories of Indigenous Food Sovereignty from the Northwest Coast (U Washington Press, 2022), Coté shares stories from her own experience growing up and living in the Pacific Northwest. From salmon, to wild berries, to community gardens, the food abundance of this region is central to Indigenous decolonization and sovereignty. Coté connects protecting the free movement and ecological health of salmon runs to issues as global as climate change, arguing that in order to understand the big picture, you need to start with what people put on their dinner tables. A Drum in One Hand, a Sockeye in the Other is a book about resilience, healing, and sustenance in the face of challenges, and about the real, material, work people are doing to decolonize their diets and in doing so, healing the land and their communities."]

Crawford, Kate. The Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence. Yale University Press, 2021. ["The hidden costs of artificial intelligence, from natural resources and labor to privacy and freedom. What happens when artificial intelligence saturates political life and depletes the planet? How is AI shaping our understanding of ourselves and our societies? In this book Kate Crawford reveals how this planetary network is fueling a shift toward undemocratic governance and increased inequality. Drawing on more than a decade of research, award-winning science, and technology, Crawford reveals how AI is a technology of extraction: from the energy and minerals needed to build and sustain its infrastructure, to the exploited workers behind “automated” services, to the data AI collects from us. Rather than taking a narrow focus on code and algorithms, Crawford offers us a political and a material perspective on what it takes to make artificial intelligence and where it goes wrong. While technical systems present a veneer of objectivity, they are always systems of power. This is an urgent account of what is at stake as technology companies use artificial intelligence to reshape the world."]

Doctorow, Cory. "How Big Tech Went to Sh*t." On the Media (September 1, 2023) ["Cory Doctorow, journalist, activist, and the author of Red Team Blue, on his theory surrounding the slow, steady descent of the internet. Brooke asks Cory if the troubles that plague some corners of the internet are specific to Big Digital, rather than the economy at large-- and how our legal systems enabled it all. Cory and Brooke discuss possible solutions to save the world wide web, and how in a sea of the enshittified there's still hope."]

Empson, Olivia. "Author Khaled Hosseini on book bans in the US: ‘It betrays students’." The Guardian (February 13, 2024) ["Hosseini’s The Kite Runner has joined a growing list of titles ‘under review’ or challenged by school boards, with nearly 5,894 books banned from July 2021 to June 2023"]

Felker-Kantor, Max. "Dare to Say No: Policing and the War on Drugs in Schools." New Books in Policing, Incarceration, and Reform (February 17, 2024) ["With its signature "DARE to keep kids off drugs" slogan and iconic t-shirts, DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) was the most popular drug education program of the 1980s and 1990s. But behind the cultural phenomenon is the story of how DARE and other antidrug education programs brought the War on Drugs into schools and ensured that the velvet glove of antidrug education would be backed by the iron fist of rigorous policing and harsh sentencing. Max Felker-Kantor has assembled the first history of DARE, which began in Los Angeles in 1983 as a joint venture between the police department and the unified school district. By the mid-90s, it was taught in 75 percent of school districts across the United States. DARE received near-universal praise from parents, educators, police officers, and politicians and left an indelible stamp on many millennial memories. But the program had more nefarious ends, and Felker-Kantor complicates simplistic narratives of the War on Drugs. In DARE to Say No: Policing and the War on Drugs in Schools (UNC Press, 2023), he shows how policing entered US schools and framed drug use as the result of personal responsibility, moral failure, and poor behavior deserving of punishment rather than something deeply rooted in state retrenchment, the abandonment of social service provisions, and structures of social and economic inequality."]

Goff, Philip. "Why? The Purpose of the Universe." New Books in Philosophy (December 23, 2023) ["Does the universe have a purpose? If it does, how is this connected to the meaningfulness that we seek in our lives? In Why? The Purpose of the Universe (Oxford University Press, 2023), Philip Goff argues for cosmic purposivism, the idea that the universe does have a purpose – although this is not because there is an all-powerful God who provides it with one. Instead, Goff argues, fundamental physics provides us with reason to think it is probable there is a cosmic purpose – and, moreover, the best explanation of these reasons is to posit cosmopsychism: the idea that there are fundamental forms of consciousness such that the universe itself is a conscious mind. Goff, who is professor of philosophy at Durham University, argues that these claims are not as extravagant as they may initially seem, and that his view provides a way for understanding human purposes that lies between secular humanism and religious or spiritual perspectives."]

Goff, Philip and Stephen West. "What if Everything is Consciousness?: On Panpsychism." Philosophize This! #180 (May 24, 2023) [Philip Goff's book Galileo's Error: A New Foundation for a Science of Consciousness: "Understanding how brains produce consciousness is one of the great scientific challenges of our age. Some philosophers argue that consciousness is something “extra,” beyond the physical workings of the brain. Others think that if we persist in our standard scientific methods, our questions about consciousness will eventually be answered. And some even suggest that the mystery is so deep, it will never be solved. Decades have been spent trying to explain consciousness from within our current scientific paradigm, but little progress has been made. Now, Philip Goff offers an exciting alternative that could pave the way forward. Rooted in an analysis of the philosophical underpinnings of modern science and based on the early twentieth-century work of Arthur Eddington and Bertrand Russell, Goff makes the case for panpsychism, a theory which posits that consciousness is not confined to biological entities but is a fundamental feature of all physical matter—from subatomic particles to the human brain. In Galileo’s Error, he has provided the first step on a new path to the final theory of human consciousness."]

Haidt, Jonathan. "Escaping the Matrix." Hidden Brain (March 11, 2024) ["A little more than a decade ago, researchers began tracking an alarming trend: a dramatic uptick in anxiety and depression among young Americans. Psychologist Jonathan Haidt, like many other researchers, says the increase is related to our use of social media and devices. But he believes it’s also deeper than that — connected to our deepest moral beliefs and how they shape the way we view the world. He says there are simple steps we can take to improve the mental health of kids growing up in the smartphone era." The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, by Jonathan Haidt, 2024. The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure, by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, 2018. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, by Jonathan Haidt, 2013. The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, by Jonathan Haidt, 2006.]

The Zone of Interest (USA/UK/Poland: Jonathan Glazer, 2023)

 The Zone of Interest (USA/UK/Poland: Jonathan Glazer, 2023: 105 mins)

Ehrlich, David. "The Zone of Interest: Jonathan Glazer’s Holocaust Anti-Drama Is a Chilling Look at the Banality of Evil." IndieWire (May 19, 2023) ["A domestic still life about the commandant of Auschwitz, Glazer's first film since "Under the Skin" is another forensic analysis of human empathy."]

Flight, Thomas. "Why The Zone of Interest Does Not Let You See." (Posted on Youtube: May 2024) ["A look at how The Zone of Interest uses off-screen space and sound design in one of the most hauntingly powerful ways I've ever seen in a film. Featuring an interview with Johnnie Burn, sound designer who just won an Oscar for his work on this film."]

Friedel, Christian, et al. "The Zone of Interest." Film at Lincoln Center #490 (October 11, 2023)

Goi, Leonardo. "Cannes Dispatch: The Obscenity of Evil."  Notebook (May 23, 2023)

Greenwell, Garth. "An Unquiet House: Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest." To a Green Thought (February 5, 2024) ["I wasn’t sure what I thought after seeing the film for the first time. All I knew was that something had happened to me: the film wouldn’t let me go, it was like a dark stain spreading in my interior. The film disquieted me in a way that felt more important than whether it was “good” or “bad,” certainly more important than any argument I might make justifying my response. I talked about it with friends. I bought the Martin Amis novel on which the film is putatively based (it’s also up for the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, though it’s hardly an adaptation at all) and read it in a day. I went to the film again, this time not in a little art cinema but in the huge AMC in Times Square, my first time in that bizarre labyrinth of a space, where I felt a little like a lost figure in an Escher engraving, riding endless escalators up and up. Ten minutes into the movie—maybe it didn’t even take that long—I felt sure I was seeing something great."]

Hudson, David. "Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest." Current (May 22, 2023) 

Liu, Jasmine. "Selective Hearing." Film Quarterly (December 4, 2023) ["The film takes no great interest in the psychology of the protagonists, their moral culpability, their exemplification of the banality of evil, or the other myriad bafflements that have stumped legal jurists, historians, and philosophers for the greater part of the past century. Instead it asks how a middle-class German couple’s perception of the violence unfolding before their eyes, ears, noses, and hands came to be configured in a specific, monstrous way—a question that turns its attention from the individual in a vacuum to the individual as embedded within a larger social (and physical) architecture. Rather than wondering about isolated people who choose to be cruel and those who choose to be humane, The Zone of Interest conducts an inquiry into our selective experience of sensory data and the ethical implications of that selection. ... On their faces, these investigations—though fictionalized, The Zone of Interest counts as one—put people on trial for blatant denialism. More profoundly, they put systems on trial for producing the conditions under which denialism appears plausible to those who internalize it. In 2021, anthropologist Callie Maidhof attempted to parse how people living in the shadow of Israel’s Separation Barrier, a present-day manifestation of extreme architecture, justified it to themselves. She conducted her fieldwork in Alfei Menashe, an Israeli settlement on the western edge of the West Bank. She was surprised to learn in speaking with settlers that they “barely gave [the Separation Barrier] a passing thought.” Alfei Menashe, which has the look of any Midwestern American suburb—with prim fruit trees, fences, SUVs, swing sets, and dogs—lies a wall away from settlements densely packed with Palestinians living under subhuman conditions, where the air is regularly polluted with the stench of tear gas and tires burnt in protest of the occupation. Maidhof argued that, to get by, Israeli settlers practiced a strategy of “unseeing,” which was “not a lack of vision,” but rather “a perceptual practice that makes and remakes space,” so that certain things lying in plain sight could be ignored."]

Romm, Jake. "We Never Left The Zone of Interest." Verso Books (June 28, 2024) ["Jonathan Glazer’s Zone of Interest was fated for an odd reception. Not simply because he has produced another of the always controversial films about the Shoah. Not only because the film was released while Israel, which has used the Shoah as both a shield and a bludgeon, is perpetrating its own genocide against the Palestinians. But because Glazer’s film is materialist, implicating not just the viewer but the world itself."]

Solly, Meilan. "The Real History Behind ‘The Zone of Interest’ and Rudolf Höss." The Smithsonian (January 4, 2024) ["Jonathan Glazer’s new film uses the Auschwitz commandant and his family as a vehicle for examining humans’ capacity for evil."]

Wilson, James. "The Zone of Interest: Oscar-Nominated Film Producer on the Holocaust, Gaza & 'Walls That Separate Us.'" Democracy Now (March 5, 2024) ["Ahead of the 96th Academy Awards, we’re joined by James Wilson, producer of the Oscar-nominated film The Zone of Interest, who raised Israel’s assault on Gaza in his BAFTA Award acceptance speech last month. The film follows the fictionalized family of real-life Nazi commandant Rudolf Höss as they live idyllically next to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Wilson says the film serves as a metaphor for the occlusion of “systemic violence, injustice, oppression, from our lives,” and challenges audiences’ complicity by asking them to identify with Höss and his wife Hedwig. “The idea of this film was to look for the similarities, rather than the differences, between us and the perpetrator,” says Wilson."]