Cathy Davidson's blog

Joking on the backchannel.  Fun, yes.  But what does it do to the front channel . . . (not to mention the nucleus accumbens) . . . ?

Spending a month at a scholar and artists' residency like the inimitable and incomparable Bogliasco Foundation in Liguria not only changes your work . . . it changes you!

I'm in Italy.  My county of Durham, NC, went 75% for Obama.  The Pope has taken up texting to court youth.  New media, anyone?

FINALLY, this is the study by an evolutionary biologist that I've been waiting for, one that does not begin from the assumption that humans are the be-all and end-all of evolution nor that what humans think of (and the tiny bit we know about) human "intelligence" is the raison d'etre of evolution, even within homo sapiens.  Theorists have made this point but it is a rare experimental scientist who reverses the equation and the teleologies.  Carl Zimmer of the NY Times reports on Tadeusz Kawecki's work which begins by asking (FINALLY, again), "If it's so great to be smart, why have most animals remained dumb." Duh. Readers of this blog know that I've been flogging this one for a long time . . . but it's nice to have a distinguished evolutionary biologist working from this side of the equation.

Last night we Bogliasco Fellows had the pleasure to attend a concert by a former fellow, the composer and pianist Robert Levin. He played the exact same two sonatas by Beethoven on the fortepiano and then on the pianoforte, the latter being the huge grand piano on which modern audiences have heard Beethoven played many times. Beethoven was not Beethoven on the fortepiano for which he composed. Hmmm . . . was McLuhan really right in that technodeterminism, that the medium is the message? (Short answer: no, but, well, let's think about it).

A shout-out to the team at Princeton for their recent performance on the PLOrk at Carnegie Hall!

Participants will engage in a hands-on workshop May 27 – 30, 2008, with the goal of creating a scholarly project; they will then be free to use the IML labs with support staff during the summer to continue work on the project; and they will be invited to present their completed projects at a showcase event in August. Participants will receive an honorarium of $1,000 for their participation in the workshop.

I'm excited! Lulu, our Creative Commons publisher, has just delivered the first copies of "Electronic Techtonics: Thinking at the Interface," the Proceedings of the First International HASTAC Conference. You can download a PDF for free from Lulu or buy a printed copy (for $12.24) sent from directly to you by clicking here: http://www.lulu.com/content/2124631

 

 

A study center. Liguria. New friends. A mountain house, a mountain walk. A farmer's market. A perfect Sunday. Is this my life? Or is this my blog?

You learn a lot eating three meals a day with artists, photographers, composers, poets, scholars . . . That's the Collaboration by Difference we HASTAC'ers keep harping on!