Literature
Jim Holt?s compelling article on string theory (Oct. 2, 2006) turns on a complicated question: ?Is physics, then, going postmodern?? Holt follows up this query by invoking John Keats?s 1819 poem ?Ode on a Grecian Urn? which ends with the tautological puzzle, ??Beauty is truth, truth beauty,? ? that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.? Importantly, though, Keats was not a ?postmodern? poet; he was a Romantic. Strictly speaking, postmodernism has very little serious interest in considerations of objective beauty or unification. One wonders if Holt is in fact trying to suggest that physics, via string theory, is going Romantic in its expansively enumerated attempts to articulate a final, unifying theory. If so, Holt might have illuminated the current state of string theory with the words of another Romantic poet, Byron: ?What is the end of fame? ?t is but to fill / A certain portion of uncertain paper? (Don Juan: Canto the First, lines 1736-1737).
- Questions Concerning Technology
What is the point of teaching students how to read books in the epoch of the Internet? I am currently trying to make a case for a ?new? collection of theoretical readings?a book that will teach well and provide undergraduate students with a sense of...
- From Bourdin And Nietzsche To The Genre Of Aphorisms
My letter to The New Yorker was published in the September 15, 2008 issue. It is in reference to a fascinating article by David Grann on Frédéric Bourdin, the French con-man who pretends to be various children. In this letter I juxtapose...
- On First Looking Into Chapman?s Homer By John Keats 1795?1821
On First Looking into Chapman?s Homer John Keats 1795?1821 MUCH have I travell?d in the realms of gold And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had...
- Periods Of English Literature
PERIODS OF BRITISH LITERATURE 450-1066 : Old English (or Anglo-Saxon) Period 1066-1500 : Middle English Period 1500-1660 : The Renaissance ?1558-1603 : Elizabethan Age ?1603-1625 : Jacobean...
- April In Review (or How I Od'ed On Romantic Lit And Went On Hiatus)
Bender rules.For how much longer is anyone's guess. In retrospect, trying to read The Prelude by William Wordsworth in a single sitting may not have been the wisest decision on my part. I clearly got overzealous in my determination to do a crash-course...
Literature
String Theory: Postmodern, or Romantic?
Jim Holt?s compelling article on string theory (Oct. 2, 2006) turns on a complicated question: ?Is physics, then, going postmodern?? Holt follows up this query by invoking John Keats?s 1819 poem ?Ode on a Grecian Urn? which ends with the tautological puzzle, ??Beauty is truth, truth beauty,? ? that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.? Importantly, though, Keats was not a ?postmodern? poet; he was a Romantic. Strictly speaking, postmodernism has very little serious interest in considerations of objective beauty or unification. One wonders if Holt is in fact trying to suggest that physics, via string theory, is going Romantic in its expansively enumerated attempts to articulate a final, unifying theory. If so, Holt might have illuminated the current state of string theory with the words of another Romantic poet, Byron: ?What is the end of fame? ?t is but to fill / A certain portion of uncertain paper? (Don Juan: Canto the First, lines 1736-1737).
- Questions Concerning Technology
What is the point of teaching students how to read books in the epoch of the Internet? I am currently trying to make a case for a ?new? collection of theoretical readings?a book that will teach well and provide undergraduate students with a sense of...
- From Bourdin And Nietzsche To The Genre Of Aphorisms
My letter to The New Yorker was published in the September 15, 2008 issue. It is in reference to a fascinating article by David Grann on Frédéric Bourdin, the French con-man who pretends to be various children. In this letter I juxtapose...
- On First Looking Into Chapman?s Homer By John Keats 1795?1821
On First Looking into Chapman?s Homer John Keats 1795?1821 MUCH have I travell?d in the realms of gold And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had...
- Periods Of English Literature
PERIODS OF BRITISH LITERATURE 450-1066 : Old English (or Anglo-Saxon) Period 1066-1500 : Middle English Period 1500-1660 : The Renaissance ?1558-1603 : Elizabethan Age ?1603-1625 : Jacobean...
- April In Review (or How I Od'ed On Romantic Lit And Went On Hiatus)
Bender rules.For how much longer is anyone's guess. In retrospect, trying to read The Prelude by William Wordsworth in a single sitting may not have been the wisest decision on my part. I clearly got overzealous in my determination to do a crash-course...