Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 14, No. 184.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
[1] From: Arun-Kumar Tripathi <tripathi@statistik.uni- (42)
dortmund.de>
Subject: _Labyrinth_ in "A Search for the Hidden Meaning of
Science"
[2] From: Arun-Kumar Tripathi <tripathi@statistik.uni- (126)
dortmund.de>
Subject: Convergence -The journal of Research into New Media
Technologies
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2000 16:08:33 +0100
From: Arun-Kumar Tripathi <tripathi@statistik.uni-dortmund.de>
Subject: _Labyrinth_ in "A Search for the Hidden Meaning of Science"
Dear Scholars,
((Hi, I thought --this would be a nice venture to read and
explore. Thanks.-Arun))
---------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 13:57:41 GMT
From: History of Science and Technology
Editorial<history_of_science@mitpress.mit.edu>
[--]
NEW BOOKS IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY FROM THE MIT PRESS
Follow the URLs below to our catalog for contents, abstracts, and ordering
information.
Labyrinth
A Search for the Hidden Meaning of Science
Peter Pesic
<http://mitpress.mit.edu/promotions/books/PESLHS00>
Nature has secrets, and it is the desire to uncover them that motivates
the scientific quest. But what makes these "secrets" secret? Is it that
they are beyond human ken? that they concern divine matters? And if they
are accessible to human seeking, why do they seem so carefully
hidden? Such questions are at the heart of Peter Pesics effort to
uncover the meaning of modern science.
Pesic portrays the struggle between the scientist and nature as the
ultimate game of hide-and-seek, in which a childlike wonder propels the
exploration of mysteries. Witness the young Albert Einstein, fascinated
by a compass and the sense it gave him of "something deeply hidden behind
things." In musical terms, the book is a triple fugue, interweaving three
themes: the epic struggle between the scientist and nature; the
distilling effects of the struggle on the scientist; and the emergence
from this struggle of symbolic mathematics, the purified language
necessary to decode natures secrets.
Pesics quest for the roots of science begins with three key Renaissance
figures: William Gilbert, a physician who began the scientific study of
magnetism; Franois Vite, a French codebreaker who played a crucial role
in the foundation of symbolic mathematics; and Francis Bacon, a visionary
who anticipated the shape of modern science. Pesic then describes the
encounters of three modern masters-Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, and
Albert Einstein-with the depths of nature. Throughout, Pesic reads
scientific works as works of literature, attending to nuance and tone as
much as to surface meaning. He seeks the living center of human concern
as it emerges in the ongoing search for natures secrets.
5 3/8 x 8, 160 pp., 11 illus., cloth ISBN 0-262-16190-7
------[2]------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2000 16:10:39 +0100 From: Arun-Kumar Tripathi <tripathi@statistik.uni-dortmund.de> Subject: Convergence -The journal of Research into New Media Technologies
Greetings humanists,
Hi --here is the recent issue of *Convergence* with abstracts --as Convergence 6 no 2 (Summer 2000) on special issue of "Parallel Histories in the Intermedia Age". Convergence is a refereed academic paper journal --which is having creative, social, political and pedagogical potentials raised by the advent of new media technologies. It provides a forum for monitoring as well as exploring developments for vital research. One of the principal aims of *Convergence* is to promote discussion and analysis of the creative and educational potentials of the emergence of new media technologies. On the Editorial Board of "Convergence", one can see the names of hypertext scholars and critics such as George Landow, Jay David Bolter with other scholars such as Roy Ascott and Steve Jones....
---------- Articles
Yvonne Spielmann Visual Forms of Representation and Simulation: A Study of Chris Marker's Level 5
Scott McQuire Impact Aesthetics: Back to the Future in Digital Cinema? Millennial fantasies
Michael Punt Parallel Histories: Early Cinema and Digital Media
Ross Harley Roller Coaster Planet: Kinetic Experience in the Age of Mechanical Transportation
Feature Report
Steven Maras and David Sutton Media Specificity Re-visited
Reviews
Greg Battye The Third Way of Knowing: Situating Knowledge in a Postmodern World. Lynette Hunter, Critiques of Knowing: Situated textualities in science, computing and the arts, and McKenzie Wark, Celebrities, Culture and Cyberspace: the light on the hill in a postmodern world
Pat Brereton Refashioning Media Forms. Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, Remediation: Understanding New Media
Lincoln Dahlberg Dragons and Sea Monsters: A First Map of Cyberspace. Tim Jordan, Cyberpower: The Culture and Politics of Cyberspace and the Internet.
Mark Wheeler Digital Capitalism: Networking the Global Market System. Dan Schiller, Digital Capitalism: Networking the Global Market System,
Richard Wise A Reader for our times. Hugh Mackay, and Tim T. O'Sullivan, (eds), The Media Reader: Continuity and Transformation. ----- Abstracts: Convergence 6.2 (Summer 2000) special issue -----
Yvonne Spielmann
Visual Forms of Representation and Simulation: A study of Chris Marker's film Level 5
Abstract: Chris Marker in his feature film Level 5 combines formal and structural elements of two different types of media: film and computer. Visually and narratively, he compares the essential characteristics of the analogue (film) and digital (computer) media. The feature film functions like a fictional documentary based on historical documents about the battle of Okinawa, Japan, at the end of the Second World War. Within this narrative Marker develops a complex structure of media discourses where he interrelates, merges, and layers elements of different media and thereby gives an insight into the structure of intermedia and hypermedia and aesthetically differentiates between fiction and simulation.
Scott McQuire
Impact Aesthetics: Back to the Future in Digital Cinema? Millennial fantasies
Abstract: This article engages recent debates about the future of cinema in the digital age. Firstly, it seeks to broaden the rather narrow terms in which the transition to digital cinema is often understood in film theory. Secondly, it tries to assess claims about the demise of narrative frequently associated with the digital threshold. On one level, it is argued that a dialectical understanding of the relation between terms such as narrative and spectacle is needed to advance current debates. On another level, it is suggested that digital technology should not be wholly defined by the current dominance of blockbuster films. In place of technological determinism, an understanding based on the politics of spectacle and distracted spectatorship is advanced.
Michael Punt
Parallel Histories: Early Cinema and Digital Media
Abstract: This article suggests ways in which research into a nineteenth- century technology such as early cinema might be valid in understanding digital technology. It identifies a number of stylistic resemblances between early cinema, personal computing and the internet. It also claims that there is some value in applying one analytical methodology to both 'old' and 'new' media. By looking at digital technology through the filter of an extremely well developed discourse in early film history, softer determinist accounts of digital technology can emerge which are not dependent on the premises of progress nor those of various forms of Postmodernist criticism. In a reverse angle, so to speak, it also argues that a close tracking of digital technology and its critical discourses as they unfold in various entertainment forms can tell us much about the attractions and fascinations that early cinema had a century ago had for its audiences. In short it claims a continuity in audio visual history and criticism which is a valuable addition, even antedote, to the hyperbole and unsupportable technological determinism that digital media has attracted both in academic and commercial commentary.
Ross Harley
Roller Coaster Planet: Kinetic Experience in the Age of Mechanical Transportation
Abstract: This paper addresses the interrelation between mechanical motion and electro-mechanical mediation. It draws attention to the close parallels between various modes of mobile subjectivity associated with moving image/ sound technologies and mechanical forms of transportation. The kinetic experiences associated with the freeway and the roller coaster are offered as two quite different examples of how the interpenetration of media, objects and subjectivities takes place in the realm of moving images and bodies. It is argued that the same modes of perception and motion associated with the car and the roller coaster also figure in a variety of new media forms that appeal to the contemporary body-in-motion/perception- in-motion nexus (from virtual environments to ride films and location-based entertainment). Like other communication networks of the present, both exist as ambivalent spaces for the representation of social interaction and social fears.
----------------- Convergence: The Journal of Research into New Media Technologies
Convergence is a paper journal. To join our e-mailing list, for further information and for details of back issues, see our web site at <http://www.luton.ac.uk/Convergence>
The copyright of all articles, papers, reports and reviews published in Convergence rests with the University of Luton Press. Any author(s) wishing to have their published text reproduced elsewhere should seek the necessary permission via the Editors --Edited by Julia Knight, Jeanette Steemers & Alexis Weedon, Dept of Media Arts, University of Luton, UK Web site: http://www.luton.ac.uk/Convergence -------- Thank you.. Sincerely Arun Tripathi
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