Author: Alan N. Shapiro
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On the Sociology of Music, by Alan N. Shapiro and Chris Williams
Here we make the first presentation of our ideas about the reality of popular music in contemporary society. But what is reality? What is the relationship between reality and mediality? Between reality and virtuality? Between reality and simulations? What is music in the context of our social system of consumer culture?
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Radical skepticism and the logic of Shakespeare’s artistry, by Robert Schneider
Robert Schneider is the author of a book-length reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice called Shylock, The Roman. This book is important as a basis for investigating the relationship between Shakespeare and Star Trek as twin canonical texts of what universities call “Western Civ.”
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The Best of All Possible Worlds: Modal Metaphysics and Possibilia, by James Shapiro
A brilliant intellectual whose work spanned many fields—mathematics, geometry, physics, etc., in addition to his philosophical contributions—Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz remains best known for his rather unique version of “theodicy.” This term refers to an argument defending the benevolence of God and His methods, despite the worldly suffering and injustice that has and always will occur.
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Media theory: beyond the dualities of form and content, critical and enthusiastic, real and fake, by Alan N. Shapiro
On January 26, 2012, I gave a lecture in the Speakers’ Series of the Centre for the Study of Theory, Culture and Politics at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. My topic was: “Media theory: beyond the dualities of form and content, critical and enthusiastic, real and fake.”
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Introduction to Polona Tratnik, by Anja Wiesinger
In a biological sense, being part of the human skin, hair regulates the body temperature. It is home to millions of bacteria that interchange with the environment and help build the body’s resistance to harmful organisms. Hair is not able to grow or continue to live when departed from the human body and cut off…
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From The Technological Herbarium, by Gianna Maria Gatti: Artworks of Nicola Toffolini (translated by Alan N. Shapiro)
Nicola Toffolini works on the nature-technology marriage by elaborating singular ecosystems enclosed in glass and aluminium cases of marked formal elegance. Inside plants have been placed which, in order to live, depend on sophisticated electronic mechanisms, which visitors operate from the outside interactively.