Jacques Rancière prepares for us a parable. A student who is illiterate, after living a fulfilled life without text, one day decides to teach herself to read. Luckily she knows a single poem by heart and procures a copy of that poem, presumably from a trusted source, by which to work. By comparing her knowledge, sign by sign, word by word, with the poem she can, Rancière believes, finally piece together a foundational understanding of her language:

“From this ignoramus, spelling out signs, to the scientist who constructs hypotheses, the same intelligence is always at work – an intelligence that… ]]> Mon, 26 Jul 2010 06:43:36 -0700 http://machinemachine.net/text/arts/rancieres-ignoramus http://www.flickr.com/photos/huge-entity/4593039926/in/set-72157624025953884/

Mr. Daniel posted a photo:

Extract from 'Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes', page 46

]]> Sun, 09 May 2010 12:37:00 -0700 http://www.flickr.com/photos/huge-entity/4593039926/in/set-72157624025953884/ http://www.slate.com/id/2245644 http://www.slate.com/id/2245644 ]]> Sun, 02 May 2010 14:28:00 -0700 http://www.slate.com/id/2245644 http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2010/04/communicating-the-body-interpretating-the-code.html

by Daniel Rourke

Pharaoh Khufu intends to secure his riches beyond the grave, and into the afterlife. He captures the greatest architect known in his kingdom, and forces him – through a threat to his entire people – to build him an impenetrable tomb: a Pyramid no thief can plunder. The architect sets to work, knowing that upon completion of the tomb he himself will be sealed inside with the dead Pharaoh. How is it possible to build the most secret catacomb, a labyrinth impossible to breach, without passing on its secret through the workers who build…

]]> Sun, 18 Apr 2010 21:21:00 -0700 http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2010/04/communicating-the-body-interpretating-the-code.html http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem08.html In 1972 NASA sent into deep space an interstellar probe called Pioneer 10. It bore a golden plaque.

The art historian Ernst Gombrich offers an insightful commentary on this:

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has equipped a deep-space probe with a pictorial message 'on the off-chance that somewhere on the way it is intercepted by intelligent scientifically educated beings.' It is unlikely that their effort was meant to be taken quite seriously, but what if we try? These beings would first of all have to be equipped with 'receivers' among their sense organs… ]]> Tue, 06 Apr 2010 12:14:00 -0700 http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem08.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/books/01lit.html?pagewanted=all This layered process of figuring out what someone else is thinking — of mind reading — is both a common literary device and an essential survival skill. Why human beings are equipped with this capacity and what particular brain functions enable them to do it are questions that have occupied primarily cognitive psychologists.

Now English professors and graduate students are asking them too. They say they’re convinced science not only offers unexpected insights into individual texts, but that it may help to answer fundamental questions about literature’s very existence: Why do we read fiction? Why do we… ]]> Tue, 06 Apr 2010 12:04:00 -0700 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/books/01lit.html?pagewanted=all http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/146805 Sacrifice, speech, writing and art: I am interested in the different ways in which a sacrifice, a sacrament, a spoken word and a written word act as signifiers. The notion for instance that the sacrament, at the point of its acceptance, is understood as becoming the signified. What can you tell me / what has been written about the notions of sacrifice and their relationship to speech, art and the technologies of writing? I am at the very early stages of writing on these themes (so forgive any gross generalisations I make here).

I have a sort of… ]]> Wed, 24 Feb 2010 06:28:14 -0700 http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/146805