Alan N. Shapiro, Technologist and Futurist

Blog and text archive about media theory, science fiction theory, future design, social choreography, Computer Science 2.0, new media art, robots and androids, Star Trek, The Prisoner, Jean Baudrillard, Albert Camus, Michel Foucault, and Marshall McLuhan

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Germans overestimate (and underestimate) their knowledge of English

August 21st, 2010 in Category: Language

I received an e-mail from amazon.de. They want to sell me a book by Vattimo called "The Responsability of Philosophy." The only problem is that the correct spelling of the word is: responsibility. They want to make money from people who read books in English, but they can't take the responsibility to learn how to spell.
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Around the Town (a Sports Gambling story), part 4 of 4

August 21st, 2010 in Category: American Slang, Language, New American Studies

MOE: If your team this week is the Cowboys, then you’re leaving yourself wide open for it. Don’t worry, Bill. The Niners won’t run it up too bad on the ‘Boys this time. But expect a thrashing!
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Around the Town (a Sports Gambling story), part 3 of 4

August 9th, 2010 in Category: American Slang, Language, New American Studies

LINDA: Nice job against the Packers, but don’t expect the Niners to lie down so easy. We intend on kicking the Cowboy’s butts. Just two more wins and our boy Steve goes to Disneyland and we’re on the way to a dynasty.
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Around the Town (a Sports Gambling story), part 2 of 4

August 5th, 2010 in Category: American Slang, Language, New American Studies

As they reached the south side of the Park, Siggy looked back at the sweep and majesty of this historical landmark. He noticed the variety of people who call this park their own. There were drug dealers and mothers with tots in strollers. There were old geezers and students from nearby New York University.
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Radical skepticism and the logic of Shakespeare’s artistry, by Robert Schneider

July 31st, 2010 in Category: English Literature

Robert Schneider is the author of a book-length reinterpretation of Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" called "Shylock, The Roman" (Pulpless.com, 2001). I find this book to be the basis for investigating the relationship between Shakespeare and Star Trek as twin canonical texts of "Western Civ."
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Star Trek: Technologies of Disappearance, by Alan N. Shapiro

July 29th, 2010 in Category: Book Descriptions, Media Studies, Science & Technology, Science Fiction Studies, Star Trek

In his lengthy review-essay of "Star Trek: Technologies of Disappearance" in "Science Fiction Studies", coeditor Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr. remarks: "Shapiro’s study of Star Trek is one of the most original works of sf-theory since Scott Bukatman’s 'Terminal Identity' (1993)."
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Journal Entry: The Void, by Mary Fox

July 28th, 2010 in Category: Creative Writing, Fiction, Martin Heidegger, P.D. Ouspensky

What follows is neither philosophical, nor academic. It is both self-indulgent and self-referential, as a journal can only be. It presents no “truths” and it is peppered with inconsistencies and flaws, because I am. I began my journal in May of this year in an attempt to retrieve myself from a guilt-ridden existential “tailspin.”
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“The Raven”

July 22nd, 2010 in Category: American Literature, Seven of Nine

Seven of Nine is an apprentice member of Voyager's crew who has "brought back" precise skills and efficiency from her long experience with the Borg. But she is a poor consumer. She does not know how to relax or enjoy, to participate in activities which are not directly productive.
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Baudrillard’s Second Life, by René Capovin

July 22nd, 2010 in Category: Jean Baudrillard, Media Studies

Baudrillard's appropriation of McLuhan's formula "the medium is the message" comes to be understood in the light of this radical critique of the media, recognized as an instance of making people passive. The Canadian scholar saw here liberatory possibilities, summed up in the noted image of the "global village."
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Around the Town (a Sports Gambling story), part 1 of 4

July 22nd, 2010 in Category: American Slang, Creative Writing, Sports Gambling

As they went inside Grand Central Station, Moe and Siggy saw more hurried commuters moving ahead with tunnel vision. Nobody wanted to look at the homeless. The bag ladies and street people would just put a damper on one’s day.
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A Critique of the Idea of Neutral Language, by Marc Silver

May 26th, 2010 in Category: Chaim Perelman, Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, Language, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Sigmund Freud, Wikipedia

There has been intense scrutiny brought to bear upon the ways in which various disciplines deploy rhetorical devices to “argue their case,” as well as to consolidate their identities and maintain them intact. Marc Silver builds his argument upon such topical foundations, but also shifts the ground in new and original ways.
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Lost: The Crash Out of Globalization and into the World, by Alan N. Shapiro

May 24th, 2010 in Category: Lost, Martin Heidegger, Media Studies, Polysexuality

Combining elements of drama, mystery, science fiction, fantasy, adventure, thriller and Reality-TV, "Lost" is arguably the most original and influential TV program since "Star Trek" in the 1960s.
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Stefanie Schmidt, Film und Erinnerung

May 24th, 2010 in Category: Book Descriptions, Gilles Deleuze, Henri Bergson, Jacques Lacan, Media Studies, Sigmund Freud

Im Hinblick auf einen vergleichenden Bezug zu der zeitphilosophiscen Filmtheorie von Gilles Deleuze werden die bildhaften und sprachlicen Aspekte des Gedächtnisses und des Films, wie sie enmal in Anschluss an die Linie Freud/Lacan und zum anderen bei Bergson/Deleuze entwickelt werden, diskutieret.
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Arguing the Case, by Marc Silver

May 23rd, 2010 in Category: Book Descriptions, Language

Employing analytical methods deriving from linguistics, logic, psychoanalysis and cultural and literary criticism, Marc Silver reveals the common premises and common illusions behind the claims being made about the “human sciences” today.
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Transmediale: The Long Conversation

April 15th, 2010 in Category: Media Studies

On February 5, 2010, Shapiro spoke at the FUTURITY NOW! Transmediale Festival in Berlin, as part of the LONG CONVERSATION event, engaging in dialogues onstage in the auditorium of the HOUSE OF WORLD CULTURES with the artists Jem Finer and Ken Rinaldo.
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