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Se muestran los artículos pertenecientes a Abril de 2008. Resumen
01/04/2008Narrativas 9
Acaba de salir el número 9 de Narrativas (PDF), la revista editada Atlántico de por medio por Carlos Manzano aquí en Zaragoza y Magda Díaz Morales en Xalapa. Y en este último número tengo—¡y qué ilusión me hace!—un artículo, "Gilgamesh y la escritura". Martes, 01 de Abril de 2008 23:12. Autor: José Ángel García Landa. Enlace permanente. Tema: Literatura y crítica Hay 2 comentarios. 02/04/2008Like a Rolling StoneNo tan bien como Bob Dylan ni como Mick Jagger, sino más bien like a complete unknown, Miércoles, 02 de Abril de 2008 21:07. Autor: José Ángel García Landa. Enlace permanente. Tema: Música No hay comentarios. Comentar. AutoeutanasiasComentario (disentiente, como suele suceder) que pongo en el blog de Víctor Gómez Pin, que defiende el derecho a la eutanasia y al suicidio, en el artículo "Agravios comparativos ante el deseo de morir." Se pregunta el autor en virtud de qué se atribuye alguien la propiedad de las vidas terminales o que ansían la muerte. Dice VGP: "¿Quien debemos en este último caso considerar como propietario de nuestras vidas? ¿La Familia? tengamos o no familia con minúscula ¿La Patria acaso? nos sintamos o no patriotas ¿O quizás se trate de una suerte de posicionamiento filosófico en el que se considera que nadie en aceptables condiciones físicas y sano juicio puede realmente desear su propia muerte?" Y apostillo: No es que el Estado (las Leyes, la Sociedad, etc.) sea propietario de las vidas, pero sí es quien determina los límites de la actuación legítima y legal - en esto como en todo. ¿No pretenderá Vd. que sea cada individuo el que establezca la Ley? Eso no pasa ni en las repúblicas mejor ordenadas. Visto que tiene que haber una ley al respecto (pues la ausencia de ley también sería una ley), el Estado suele determinar (suele, digo)NO que nadie "en aceptables condiciones físicas y sano juicio puede realmente desear su propia muerte"— sino más bien que nadie "en aceptables condiciones físicas y sano juicio DEBE desear su propia muerte". Porque las leyes regulan deberes y obligaciones, no deseos. ¿Que el individuo puede saltarse esta ley, como se salta el semáforo en rojo? Sin duda. Es más: ni siquiera está penado el intento de suicidio. Para más precisión: lo que establecen las leyes es que nadie en su sano juicio etc. puede causar su propia muerte deliberadamente, aunque lo desee. Pero si el intento de satisfacer ese deseo tiene éxito... pues menos penado que estará. Podría decirse que (suceda lo que suceda con el intento de suicidio en algún código atípico) el suicidio mismo no está penado en ninguna cultura—salvo en lo que toca a esas sombras de nosotros mismos (o almas precarias y en disolución) que son nuestras memorias póstumas. Víctor Gómez Pin no entra en diálogo con sus comentadores, con lo cual las opiniones son unidireccionales (o bidireccionales en calles alternadas). Aunque por lo menos abre el blog a comentarios, algo es algo. Miércoles, 02 de Abril de 2008 23:26. Autor: José Ángel García Landa. Enlace permanente. Tema: Filosofía No hay comentarios. Comentar. 03/04/2008Author, Death of the A comment to the post "The Death of the Author" in Project Narrative Weblog: As to the death of the author (sounds more like “the death of the death of the author” by now, if the author was ever dead to begin with…). Barthes’ article (however illuminating, seminal, etc.) is to some extent essentialist: it seems to assume there is only one context for the analysis of literature or for literary operations, just one “literary game” or just one way of speaking the truth about this issue: the (post)structuralist context, game or language. Moreover it couches the whole issue in an apocalyptic tone, mixing the issue of Barthes’s new insight or proposed views on authorship with a completely different issue of literary evolution — that is, if the author is dead for Barthes now, surely he has been dead all along, even if people didn’t know? Foucault’s essay (while still a totalizing affair) reads better in that it seems to allow for different kinds of author-effect, or to recognize the validity of the author-game for certain purposes or in certain contexts. It seems to me that a discussion of authorship and its modes and uses should be above all contextual. How to do things with authors— apart from killing them, that is. Take them to a literary festival, for instance, and analyze their social interactions there, in the flesh. Jueves, 03 de Abril de 2008 15:42. Autor: José Ángel García Landa. Enlace permanente. Tema: Literatura y crítica No hay comentarios. Comentar. 04/04/2008Swales: Worlds of Genre, Metaphors of Genre Notes from a lecture by John Swales (U of Michigan) at the University of Zaragoza today. My occasional comments in red.John M Swales: "Worlds of Genre – Metaphors of Genre" Sunny Hyon ("Genre in three traditions: Implications for ESL", 1996) discussed three influential traditions in thought about genre: 1) the international ESP tradition 2) the North American Rhetoric Tradition (Bazerman, etc.) 3) Australian Systemic-Functional tradition (from Halliday). Halliday didn't really believe in genre as a category though. According to a web posting by Carol Berkenkotter, "Hyon's categories have stuck" (2006). I miss everywhere a joint discussion of literary conceptions of genre and linguistic/stylistic ones. Bakhtin is the most useful bridge, I guess. Swales questions whether we still have these traditions, though. Views from recent books c. 2004 (Bhatia, Worlds of Written Discourse: A Genre-based view; Devitt, Writing Genres; Frow, Genre; Swales, Research Genres, 2004). Bhatia: genre incorporates context apart from text: professional, institutional or disciplinary contexts. Devitt: genre is a nexus between individual's actions and a socially defined context (situation, culture, genre…). Frow moves from a systemic-functional perspective to speaking of performances of genre, rather than classes to which text belong: he follows Derrida stressing the margins and borders between genres. Swales (Research Genres, 2004): genres as complex networks of various kinds, rather than individual resources. There are some consolidating trends in genre theory: 1. Recognition of a balance between constraint and choice (genres constrain but also give you choices). 2. Genres take a local contextual coloring. (In different cultures, etc.). E.g. Brazilian research papers in linguistics offer "final considerations" instead of "conclusions" (which usefully leaves the door open to offering no conclusions). 3. Evolution due to exigency (e.g. increasing paperwork and monitorization makes administrative genres develop) 4. A nuanced genre consciousness keeps rising. Definitions and metaphors of genre Swales 1990's definition: "Genre is a class of communicative events that share some set of communicative purposes." This definition seems to me a reaction against earlier formalist definitions: it is all function. But it is too one-sided and totalizing. A definition of genre should acknowledge there are several genres of genres. Swales in 2004: "[genre definitions] fail to measure up to the Kantian imperative of being true in all possible worlds and all possible times: for another, the easy adoption of definitions can prevent us from seeing newly explored or newly emerging genres for what they are". His views now stress the co-dependence of genres and generic practices. The earlier definition isolated genres, now genres are seen as connected, embedded, co-dependent. E.g. a linguist's study of shopping lists as a genre found they are not so much a memo of what to buy as a way to prevent you from buying things not on the list. Indirectness everywhere, even in shopping lists. There is a wide interest in genre definitions among information scientists and documentarians struggling with all the new digital genres. Metaphors used to describe genres, and their potential uses: - Frames of Social Action (Bazerman) ----> emphasis on genres as Guiding Principles. Bazerman sees genres as frames for social action, guideposts used to explore the familiar, to create intelligible communicative action. Although sometimes the frame is not clear (e.g. statements of purpose when you apply for a PhD: ambiguous situation). - Language Standards (Devitt ----> emphasis on genres as Conventional Expectations). Genres provide constraint and choice. Matters of etiquette, netiquette, etc. - Biological Species (Fischoff) ----> genres seen as having Complex Historicities. (E.g. the population pressure of academic presentations in conferences leads to the appearance of a new genre, the conference poster). New genres try to find their niche in the communicative world, e.g. in academic practices. Here the analogy with naturalists' practices in the study of biological species may be illustrative. Biologists are either splitters or lumpers. A "species" is a tricky concept in biology. Organisms may be split into two species or lumped together in one. Bird species, f.i. How many species of crossbills? There are Spanish, Scandinavian, Scottish varieties or populations. Therefore, there are 3 or one species, depending on whether you are a splitter or a lumper. DNA considerations are now the fashion, and they lead to splitting: in a few years the lumpers will be back. Likewise, genres are subdivided by splitters – e.g. distinguishing varieties of research articles: review articles, research articles proper, argumentative essays, etc. - Families and Prototypes (Wittgenstein, Rosch) ----> emphasis on genres' Variable links to the Center. Here we have discussions of central and peripheral exemplars, e.g. definitions of "the 'standard' Ph.D. thesis". Unlike Malcolm Ashmore's thesis (1980s, U of Chicago)—an experimental thesis, dramatizing his supervisor, using various genres (an encyclopedia of the sociology of science, a fictional transcript of his own defense…). (David Walton, Universidad de Murcia, also wrote an extremely experimental, self-reflexive Ph.D. thesis, on Oscar Wilde). - Institutions ----> genres as Shaping Contexts, Roles. Institutions are more than their material manifestations (they include the accepted or usual procedures, etc.). E.g. in the case of the university the lecture (a genre) is only a part of a course, part of a degree programme – genres are situated within a framework of institutional procedures and expectations. - Speech acts ----> genres as Directed Discourses. E.g. letters of authorization, patents, carpe diem poems… 2 examples of generic practice: Dissertation defenses and Art Monographs 1) The Ph.D. defense Ph.D. dissertations are similar texts everywhere – but there are different modes of examining them around the world. - Disputas in Norway, / viva voce in England / oral examination in America - Committee members in America, Internal/external examiner in Britain, Opponent in Norway. - Grand ceremony – closed room / vs. open meeting, etc. Extremely formal in Norway; more formal in UK than in USA. - Advisor or superviser: present under permission in UK but silent, in US the advisor chairs the committee— many local differences. Data from several dissertation defenses recorded (MICASE corpus, etc.). Emerging structure in America's defenses: - Greetings (personal introductions) - Chair asks audience to leave - Committee agrees. - Defense proper (summary, candidate attempts a presentation, rounds of question, free questioning, questions from committee, questions from audience). - Closing segment, leave-takings, decision, party arrangements, photo-ops. Turn percentages of interactants differ widely in the examples. AI candidate: high percentage of turns for candidate, low for chair, high for members of committee. In a Ph.D. on social psychology, much lower percentage for candidate and more for chair and members (showing more disagreement and interaction among committee members). Informality reconsidered: The Ph.D. defense is an important event but it is handled in an apparently informal way. (Everybody knows the preestablished arrangements). Humor used to reduce tensions. Laughter is distributed every few minutes (most of it at the candidate's expense). This moderates the insistence of institutional regulations. Laughter (Bakhtin) demolishing formality, etc. Research talk informality. Frequency study of the use of the vague term "thing" per 10.000 words: astonishingly high frequency in defenses. US Ph.d. defense, not a meaningless ritual: - academic conversation certifying membership, - things can go wrong, - chair wants no arguments between committee members, committee must show expertise and humanity, - High-level editorial meeting - Celebratory relief at the end of a long journey - Dysfluent at times: informal language, laughter, mistakes... Institutional framework is handled with a very light touch. Cloaked by humour, etc. Formal standards of writtenesque language do not apply. Formality not acceptable in USA—more formal and indirect language in UK. 2nd example: the Art History Monograph (a genre which goes back to Vasari's study of artists' lives and personalities in 1550) Focus on monographs studying Thomas Eakins' picture "The Gross Clinic" (1875). 4 monographs on Eakins: Lloyd Goodrich (1933): Viewpoint of the painter is presented as objective, artist as genius: "The hand that guides the brush is as steady as the hand that guides the scalpel" (1933) Johns (1983) represents the new social history of art. Focus not so much on the individual but on times and social circumstances. Here the picture is seen as emphasizing advance in medical science in the 19th century, etc. Fried (1987): Ambivalence: surgeon threatening castration, or having enacted it, psychoanalytical reading. Henry Adams (2005). Again, psychoanalytic reading, this time bolstered with details of Eakins problematic family relationships and sexual tendencies. The lessons drawn from the painting are very different. (Perhaps this issue should be faced squarely from another angle — benefitting from the insights of critical theory and of the history of criticism as a kind of genre analysis in its own right, "from within") The art monograph is facing an institutional decline. (Guercio 2006, Art as Existence). A number of conflicting tendencies influence the evolution of this critical genre: the classical idealization of artist, vs contemporary views of problematic identities; major art historians, 20th-c. authorities (Gombrich etc.) did other genres (theory), not monogaphs on individual artists; feminist and postcolonial critics vs. traditional white male artists—lack of interest in canonical artists. Decline of the genre in the academia – monographs on artists are no longer being written by academics, but by art dealers, curators, specialists in auction houses…. Increased commodification of the genre: there is a stronger commercial motivation behind the monograph. Criticism helps to raise the status of the art object. A dance between theory, interpretation, description and illustrative detail in the monographs. In Ph.D. defenses, architecture students fail if they just talk about either theory or their design: they have to relate one to the other. Conventions in writing about art change. Final considerations: Frow: When discourses are well constructed, they perform the genre. Now, as performances proliferate, genres drift and change, and analysts try to follow the drift of these transformations. Discussion: C. Inchaurralde: we become conscious through the use of genres. That leads to new ideas and to the growth of thoughts. Writing text is also as a matter of creating, not of communicating a preexistent idea (even the shopping list). An interesting consideration, Swales acknowledges. Inchaurralde again, on the danger of writing atypical theses - not advisable to be too original in this respect... F. Collado: On US thesis defenses - can candidates fail at that point? Is there a real risk? (Yes they can). J. A. García Landa (myself) on disciplinary issues: As students of genre place more and more emphasis on interactional and contextual issues, and not on purely formal matters of textual structuring—isn't there a danger of a lack of disciplinary limits in that study, a kind of theoretical anxiety or crisis? That is, the question may arise, "am I still doing linguistics, or am I doing something else—sociology, ethnomethodology, whatever"? Is there a way in which disciplinary limits can be usefully asserted? Swales recognizes this is a real issue, and that it is to some extent a matter of choice of focus—and of contextual relevance of the analyst's task. As to his own approach, he would rather not drift too far away from textual linguistics and stylistics. I suggest that an interdisciplinary or exploratory angle may help see new aspects to this issue, but also that a disciplinary focus on textuality helps concentrate on some issues which may be disregarded or may lack sufficient focus if the emphasis falls on wider contextual issues. Viernes, 04 de Abril de 2008 12:37. Autor: José Ángel García Landa. Enlace permanente. Tema: Literatura y crítica No hay comentarios. Comentar. Current Recursions "The recursive property briefly outlined earlier ... may be a distinct human property". Chomsky's notion that the recursive potential of human language is an evolutionary breakthrough in communication was under attack in the recent Barcelona conference, according to this post in Babel's Dawn, "Recursion can be a 'side effect'":A few hours after Derek Bickerton argued that recursive processes are not needed to generate sentences, Joris Bleys argued in a workshop that even if they are needed they require no special evolutionary jumps to appear. Recursion (the transformation of preliminary phrases into final sentences by embedding some preliminary phrases into others) can simply be a side-effect of trying to keep linguistic knowledge as simple as possible. If the Bickerton and Bleys papers stand there seems to be no syntactical reason why language should be limited to humans. This last perspective comes from the field of artificial intelligence. The paper on recursion and evolution by Chomsky et al. is here. My comment to the post in Babel's Dawn: OK, a formal account may be given of how to generate a grammar with minimal ingredients. Chomsky would be happy enough with that. There remains though a case for evolutionary discontinuity, since the interpretation of these recursions and ever more complex boxings requires a processing ability that animals do not have. The ingredients of the grammar are simple enough, but their combinations soon become unwieldy for a parrot's brain to handle. This account of grammar still requires an ability to draw imaginary mental frames around formal units - a framing ability of the mind which is beyond the abilities of animal brains. Which is the neural mechanism which allows this complex framing? How did it develop? There's some kind of discontinuity there, even though the mechanism may be based on more basic or general cognitive abilities. Babel's Dawn: I have no trouble with the notion of “discontinuity,” if it means that there is some fundamental break between what humans do and what other animals can do. I balk at the idea that we must have “an ability to draw imaginary mental frames around formal units,” because the argument assumes the reality of those formal units. They may be real, but I see no reason to assume as much from the outset. The history of science is full of abstractions (including the gravitational force) that once were taken to be real, but were not. Questions like <> and <> strike me as off target precisely because they try to explain an abstraction rather than a phenomenon. JoseAngel again: But that's what the whole thing is all about—abstractions, the ability to see either "two" or "one plus one" in something which is the "same" phenomenon. Or, to put it otherwise, to see that "1+1" both is and isn't "2". Frames may be imaginary, but they do acquire a substantiality, and semiotic phenomena are phenomena all right. Viernes, 04 de Abril de 2008 17:45. Autor: José Ángel García Landa. Enlace permanente. Tema: Semiótica No hay comentarios. Comentar. La Casa del Sol NacienteViernes, 04 de Abril de 2008 20:42. Autor: José Ángel García Landa. Enlace permanente. Tema: Música No hay comentarios. Comentar. 05/04/2008American PieAhora que me dedico a videocantante por la red, me da por curiosear y comparar versiones, y ver cómo se les da a otros aficionados. Los hay impresionantes—esto de YouTube va a ser una revolución en la música, el entretenimiento y los cazatalentos. Todas quieren ser la siguiente Norah Jones, y muchas podrían. Me gusta esta chica, ewmarsto. Lo hace ella mejor en casa con su vídeo y su guitarrica silenciosa o sus cuatro noticas de piano que otras con cuarenta mil voltios, aclamaciones millonarias y conciertos en macroestadio. La canción, de Don McLean, ya se escribió como nostálgica en los setenta, y más nostálgica era cuando la oía yo en el campus de Providence hace veinte años. Ahora es triplemente nostálgica... igual un día saco mi versión. Entretanto, aquí está la de ewmarsto: Y aquí hay un "Summertime" al que sólo le falta un micrófono mejor: Con el encanto (y a veces el talento impresionante) que tienen estas versiones de aficionados — y cuando no, pues tienen el encanto de lo gracioso y ridículo—pues no sé quién va a ir a ver a los profesionales, tan maleados ya por su profesión, o a comprarles nada... Sábado, 05 de Abril de 2008 21:44. Autor: José Ángel García Landa. Enlace permanente. Tema: Música No hay comentarios. Comentar. 07/04/2008En el muelle
Hoy el único embarcadero que hemos visto ha sido el que acaban de hacer en el Ebro al lado del puente de Las Fuentes. Pero he colgado en mi FlickR algunas fotos de la excursión a San Carlos de la Rápita, con motivos marineros entre otros. Recomiendo verlas: las hay bonitas, y con un adecuado discurso crítico para apoyarlas, y en una sala de exposiciones, darían mucho de sí. (PS: A veces ya no distingo ni yo mismo cuando hablo vanidosamente en serio y cuándo en broma... es que voy hilando fino.)  Lunes, 07 de Abril de 2008 00:03. Autor: José Ángel García Landa. Enlace permanente. Tema: Imágenes No hay comentarios. Comentar. Autores ilusos, estafados o semimuertos
Comentario éste que pongo en el debate de Mi Literaturas sobre si publicar es necesario para un escritor. También pongo este otro en la discusión sobre si es ético descargarse libros gratis de la red. Bueno, ¿habrá que presuponer que estamos hablando de libros sometidos a copyright, digo yo? Si quieres obedecer a las leyes de tu país (incluidas las del copyright) o salvaguardar los derechos de autores que quieren cobrar por su obra, pues tendrás que abstenerte de usar servicios que vulneran esas leyes o esos derechos. Si no, allá cada cual con sus contradicciones, contradecirse humanum est. Habrá que tener en cuenta que en según qué países las leyes son más flexibles; igual habrá que descargárselas de servidores de ese país... cosa que empieza a resultar ridícula. Y así los nuevos medios globalizadores acentúan nuestras paradojas y contradicciones. Lo que sí tengo claro es que si sé que un autor no quiere regalarme su obra (porque tengo la pista de que la ha publicado en una editorial con derechos de autor y no en Internet con Creative Commons, o porque se lo he oído directamente) pues no me estoy comportando éticamente con ese autor si me la descargo gratis con un sistema que vulnera ese derecho y que es rechazado por el autor. Claro que también hay autores que publican en una editorial y luego hacen declaraciones a favor de la libre circulación. Como yo, sin ir más lejos, y para abundar en la contradicción. Mi último comentario sobre autores, hoy, en el Project Narrative Weblog, sobre la muerte del autor, en respuesta a esta opinión de Brian Chanen: Brian Chanen // April 4, 2008 at 3:01 pm: I have recently been teaching two quite different texts side by side: Angela Carter’s The Magic Toyshop and William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition. In both texts the young female characters, in their search for a type of agency, or for an autonomous self, only manage to re-situate themselves within a still problematic web of influences, voices, allusions. In terms of contemporary relevancy, Barthes’s “multi-dimensional spaces,” “tissue of quotations drawn from innumerable centers of culture…” (to quote only above) speaks eloquently to contemporary network culture. Authorship like this, in a response to a blog on a site connected to sites, to what extent is my voice any more than a restless mix? JoseAngel // April 7, 2008 at 6:49 am Still, both Angela Carter and William Gibson speak from an authorial position defined by a cluster of commercial, legal and intellectual conventions- e.g. they assert their “moral rights” as authors. Authorship may be analyzed as a form of creative agency (a pretentious one perhaps, as Barthes’s analysis implies) but also as a set of conventions for presenting (”one’s”) discourse publicly, acknowledging it or claiming it as one’s own… As Brian Chanen suggests in the previous comment, new media redefine this public “face” of writers and readers by providing new interactional abilities and opportunities. Not that authorship disappears, of course, but it is interestingly complicated. The widespread use of nicknames in blogs etc. offers an interesting case of a continnuum between authorship in one’s own name (”veronymical” as someone called it), various degrees of pseudonymous presence, and complete anonymity. E.g. I assume people are using their real names in this relatively academic forum. Although the issue of the signature is only part of the question. Los autores no sé, pero los lectores de este blog (digo el americano, jeje...) parecen muertos, o moribundos, o callados... Lunes, 07 de Abril de 2008 22:08. Autor: José Ángel García Landa. Enlace permanente. Tema: Literatura y crítica Hay 3 comentarios. 08/04/2008Arablogs
Me inscribo como el blog número 500 (creo) del portal Arablogs, del CATEDU (Centro Aragonés de Tecnologías para la Educación). No se puede decir que haya llegado muy pronto, no...
Martes, 08 de Abril de 2008 21:17. Autor: José Ángel García Landa. Enlace permanente. Tema: Blogs No hay comentarios. Comentar. 09/04/2008Illo CaudilloAl igual que Fray Josepho, yo también hacía mis pinitos con los clásicos en mi juventud ya lejana (eran los tiempos en que estudiaba a Garcilaso y Góngora) componiendo alguna copla de pie quebrado en versión rock, unas endechas a la guerra fría, o (recuerdo, recuerdo) una "Redondilla del autoestopista" escrita mentalmente mientras hacía tiempo con el dedo en las carreteras. Cosa a la que me dediqué muchas horas y kilómetros. Miércoles, 09 de Abril de 2008 12:44. Autor: José Ángel García Landa. Enlace permanente. Tema: Literatura y crítica No hay comentarios. Comentar. Language, feedback, interaction A comment to Babel's Dawn on the origin of language."Language may have evolved us as much as we evolved it." — That can be taken for granted. Language provides a basic tool to organize and coordinate action, past, present and future - and it is through coordinated action (that is, social interaction gone rampant) that human groups become more complex, divide work, communicate, exchange, create traditions and cultural objects, and globalize economy. Of course each of these steps acts back on language, developing it as needed to accomodate a new situation. It is this process of continual feedback of new situations on the established language and social processes that characterizes human reality. It is a continuous process, but if one had to look for a kind of jump anywhere, I would look for the origin of what linguists call the double articulation of language: the double level structure of standard sounds to make words, and of words to make phrases. Show the mental makeup that allows these signs to be treated in an isolated way, and combined, and you will have given much insight into the device that hand-started the whole cultural dynamics. Or the whole cultural dialectics of emergence. Including the turning back of language on itself, to represent and analyze language. Er—guess I meant to write "the device that jump-started the whole cultural dynamics". But hands may have had something to do with it as well. Miércoles, 09 de Abril de 2008 16:34. Autor: José Ángel García Landa. Enlace permanente. Tema: Semiótica No hay comentarios. Comentar. 10/04/2008Contra tantos nacionalismos
Del blog de Rosa Díez:
Jueves, 10 de Abril de 2008 05:38. Autor: José Ángel García Landa. Enlace permanente. Tema: Política Hay 3 comentarios. Search Me He colgado en el Social Science Research Network un pequeño artículo rescatado del blog, "John Battelle, The Search" (reseña del libro sobre Google de 2005): http://ssrn.com/abstract=1118628
Jueves, 10 de Abril de 2008 11:39. Autor: José Ángel García Landa. Enlace permanente. Tema: Internet No hay comentarios. Comentar. Mr. Tambourine ManCanción de Bob Dylan— pour Patricia: Jueves, 10 de Abril de 2008 22:31. Autor: José Ángel García Landa. Enlace permanente. Tema: Músicas mías No hay comentarios. Comentar. 11/04/2008We(b) ThinkViernes, 11 de Abril de 2008 11:23. Autor: José Ángel García Landa. Enlace permanente. Tema: Internet No hay comentarios. Comentar. Todos somos hermanosEsta idea tan cristiana puede ser además evolucionariamente beneficiosa. O, por decirlo de otra manera, la doctrina cristiana de la hermandad universal y su defensa de la solidaridad con todo otro ser humano es una manifestación en estado bastante puro y quizá extremos de una tendencia universal en el comportamiento de los grupos humanos. Una tendencia que ha contribuido precisamente a humanizarlos mediante la cooperación más allá de los límites familiares. Ya resaltaba Kropotkin la importancia evolutiva de la cooperación y la solidaridad en los grupos humanos. En este artículo de Edmund Blair Bolles se reseñan trabajos que comparan las costumbres de colaboración en la crianza de cachorros e infantes, y de adopción de huérfanos entre otros mamíferos y los humanos. La estrategia de la adopción funciona mejor a la larga para la supervivencia del grupo: a lo largo de la historia humana, cada vez es mayor la proporción de bebés que alcanzan la edad adulta. Contra la teoría del gen egoísta, tan influyente hoy, los humanos tendemos a desarrollar relaciones de afecto y colaboración con individuos no relacionados genéticamente con nosotros, y a ignorar en ese sentido la supervivencia estricta de nuestros genes. Quizá de allí tantos solteros sin hijos, dedicados a funciones puramente sociales y no reproductivas, y de allí la equiparación legal y sexual entre hijos adoptivos y genéticos en los grupos humanos— realidades del comportamiento humano que parecen contradecir la lucha por la supervivencia del gen. Podría decirse que los humanos estamos más interesados en la pervivencia de nuestros memes o genes culturales que de nuestros genes fisiológicos. Pero en realidad tanto genes como memes han de definirse no como propiedad de un individuo, sino de una colectividad. Nuestros genes no son tan nuestros, claro, son variaciones sobre un fondo común. Es el gran tamaño de los grupos humanos cuyos intereses se defienden—en última instancia, toda la humanidad—lo que hace que a veces nos identifiquemos con los genes del vecino tanto como con los propios. Todo sigue siendo en última instancia cuestión de interacción genética, aunque sea a gran escala. Al menos así será hasta que encontremos otra especie diferente con quien intercambiar ideas—Para entonces seguro que también se crean híbridos más complicados, mentales o físicos. Y volvemos entonces a revisar la teoría del gen egoísta.
Viernes, 11 de Abril de 2008 14:08. Autor: José Ángel García Landa. Enlace permanente. Tema: Evolución No hay comentarios. Comentar. On ne change pasViernes, 11 de Abril de 2008 18:09. Autor: José Ángel García Landa. Enlace permanente. Tema: Música francesa No hay comentarios. Comentar. 12/04/2008Exactamente en el centro del mundoDos cosas divertidas sobre egocentrismo que cuenta Gérard Genette en Bardadrac. La primera, un chiste: Sábado, 12 de Abril de 2008 15:36. Autor: José Ángel García Landa. Enlace permanente. Tema: Humor No hay comentarios. Comentar. 13/04/2008TV a la cartaEn tiempos pensábamos que lo de la televisión a la carta sería cosa del futuro, pero claro, ya es el futuro, así que ahora, lejos de ir a ver la Primera o la Segunda o la Tercera, nos dedicamos a ver lo que nos da la gana a la hora que queremos. Y sin TiVo, que aquí ni va a tener que llegar el invento por desfasado de antemano. Domingo, 13 de Abril de 2008 20:49. Autor: José Ángel García Landa. Enlace permanente. Tema: Internet Hay 4 comentarios. 14/04/2008A innovar El nuevo gobierno de RodríguezZ conlleva algunas reformas ministeriales vistosas, más allá de poner una mujer embarazada al frente del Ejército—pues al fin y al cabo ese ministerio sigue donde estaba. En lo que nos toca en la Universidad, nos han reubicado súbitamente, ya no estamos con Cabrera aunque ésta continúe, sino que estamos en el Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación—o, como dice El País, Ciencia absorbe las Universidades. Con Cristina Garmendia (Carmen, la llaman a ratos en El País).
Lunes, 14 de Abril de 2008 21:11. Autor: José Ángel García Landa. Enlace permanente. Tema: Universidad No hay comentarios. Comentar. 15/04/2008Ministerio de IgualdadComentario dejado en el blog de la nueva ministra de Igualdad, Bibiana Aído
Martes, 15 de Abril de 2008 16:49. Autor: José Ángel García Landa. Enlace permanente. Tema: Política No hay comentarios. Comentar. Sueños de soñadores
Continúa en Mi Literaturas la discusión sobre si "publicar es necesario" para un escritor—todo bicho escribiente sueña con publicar, se dice:
Martes, 15 de Abril de 2008 20:12. Autor: José Ángel García Landa. Enlace permanente. Tema: Cómo somos No hay comentarios. Comentar. 16/04/2008Torbellinos de éxito y dineroMás sobre escritores y ganancias y fama sacra fames. Hay un excelente artículo, de PP Cervera en Retiario, "¿A quién pertenece Harry Potter?"—contra el uso abusivo de los derechos de autor en el caso de obras que devienen mitos populares.
Miércoles, 16 de Abril de 2008 12:20. Autor: José Ángel García Landa. Enlace permanente. Tema: Literatura y crítica No hay comentarios. Comentar. | |
