Author Archives: zephyrin_xirdal

african seed control

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Seed and the control of seed lies at the heart of agriculture.     In Africa around 80% of seed comes from local and community saved seed resources. This seed is adapted to local conditions. It forms an integral part of community food security and agricultural integrity. This entire traditional system is now under threat.     A broad front of commercial interests, aided and abetted by the World Bank, the American Seed Association and government agencies, along with front groups, academics and so-called philanthropists, are endeavouring to alienate this crucial resource. [...]     What is at play here … Continue reading →

beauty of science

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We must not forget that when radium was discovered no one knew that it would prove useful in hospitals. The work was one of pure science. And this is a proof that scientific work must not be considered from the point of view of the direct usefulness of it. It must be done for itself, for the beauty of science, and then there is always the chance that a scientific discovery may become like the radium a benefit for humanity. (↑Marie Curie, Lecture at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York, 14 May 1921) via ↑wikiquote … Continue reading →

transformation of reality

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I well remember going to conferences in 2006 and 2007 where trendy social theorists presented papers arguing that these new forms of securitization, linked to new information technologies, heralded a looming transformation in the very nature of time, possibility—reality itself. I remember thinking: “Suckers!” And so they were. (Graeber 2011: 15) Ich erinnere mich an Vorträge aus den Jahren 2006 und 2007, in denen Gesellschaftstheoretiker auf der Höhe ihrer Zeit darlegten, dass diese neuen Formen der Verbriefung in Verbindung mit den neuen Informationstechnologien eine bevorstehende Transformation der Natur von Zeit und Möglichkeit—ja der Realität ankündigten. Ich weiß noch, dass ich … Continue reading →

cyberpunk and postcyberpunk

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Something seems to be in the air. Just recently we had Jiré Emine Gözen’s doctoral thesis ‘↵Cyberpunk Science Fiction‘ (2012), now Krzysztof K. Kietzman has published his M.A. thesis ‘↓Constructs of innocence in selected works of cyberpunk and postcyberpunk fiction‘ under a creative commons licence (and the thesis is ‘In tribute to and memory of ↑Aaron Swartz—a cyberpunk (1986-2013)’). Krzysztof ↑told boingboing: I studied American literature in Poland and published my Masters Thesis on cyberpunk and postcyberpunk for free under a Creative Commons BY SA license. It is available online and covers the writers William Gibson (‘Neuromancer’) and Neal Stephenson … Continue reading →

omni collection online

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This is a detail of page 72 of the July 1982 issue of the magazine ↑Omni. Depicted is the beginning of ↑William Gibson‘s short story ‘↑Burning Chrome.’ It is a bit of linguistic history, because here the word ‘cyberspace’ saw print for the very first time.     Fittingly enough in the same issue, right after the first part of Gibson’s short story, there is an article (Manna 1982) on ‘↑Tron‘ (Lisberger 1982) featuring double-paged stills, illustrating the subheading ‘A science-fiction film leaps inside a bizarre computer world’:  This picture spreads over pages 82 and 83 of Omni July 1982, … Continue reading →

digital ethnography

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Digital ethnography can be understood as a method for representing real-life cultures through storytelling in digital media. Enabling audiences to go beyond absorbing facts, computer-based storytelling allows for immersion in the experience of another culture. A guide for anyone in the social sciences who seeks to enrich ethnographic techniques, ↑Digital Ethnography offers a groundbreaking approach that utilizes interactive components to simulate cultural narratives.     Integrating insights from cultural anthropology, folklore, digital humanities, and digital heritage studies, this work brims with case studies that provide in-depth discussions of applied projects. Web links to multimedia examples are included as well, including … Continue reading →

graeber in exile

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The Chronicle of Higher Education yesterday published an excellent article on ↑David Graeber: ‘↑A Radical Anthropologist Finds Himself in Academic “Exile”‘ His academic “exile,” as he calls it [Graeber meanwhile is a professor at the ↑LSE], has not gone unnoticed. “It is possible to view the fact that Graeber has not secured a permanent academic position in the United States after his controversial departure from Yale University as evidence of U.S. anthropology’s intolerance of political outspokenness,” writes Jeff Maskovsky, an associate professor of anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, in the March issue of … Continue reading →