Commentary on technologies of reading, writing, research, and, generally, knowledge. As these technologies change and develop, what do we lose, what do we gain, what is (fundamentally or trivially) altered? And, not least, what’s fun?
By: Alan Jacobs
January 13, 2014
I want to put together two recent posts because I think when you look at them in conjunction with each other they indicate a significant, and troubling, trend. I wrote recently about how to acquire thoughts worth expressing; and I also noted that the same article on codex-reading vs. e-reading gets written over and over and over again,...
January 10, 2014
A couple of days ago this showed up in my Twitter stream: Take a look at @tejucole‘s twitter feed. Something is happening there: https://t.co/i5nvHEktx8 — The New Inquiry (@newinquiry) January 8, 2014 I had followed Cole on Twitter for a couple of years but eventually unfollowed — I don’t remember why. In fact I thought I...
January 7, 2014
My wife Teri worked for years in relief and development, and she told me that one of the open secrets of that world was that a certain amount of fudging always had to be done to bridge the gap between what donors wanted to do and what needed to be done. For instance, people liked to give money to sponsor a particular child, and to forge...
January 6, 2014
I’m not even going to bother to link to them: a new set of articles (they come out at least weekly, and in major magazines and newspapers) about how reading on a Kindle or Nook differs from reading a paper codex. They all say the same thing: Reading on an e-reader sure is convenient, but oh how I miss the tactile pleasures of the...
December 31, 2013
So, about having ideas worth expressing. Let me start by working my way through this passage from C. S. Lewis on the value of reading old books: Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic...
December 30, 2013
Austin Kleon is one of my favorite people on the internet, and I like this little reflection of his on doing something small every day. I like Steven Johnson’s writing too, and this series on writing looks like it’ll be fun and to some people quite useful. But whenever I am asked to contribute to this genre — the...
December 29, 2013
John Armstrong writes about art: The idea that art’s value should be understood in therapeutic terms is not new. In fact, it is the most enduring way of thinking about art, having its roots in Aristotle’s philosophical reflections on poetry and drama. In the Poetics, Aristotle argued that tragic drama can elevate how we experience...
December 26, 2013
Well, this has been quite a busy year for me, especially given my move from the suburbs of Chicago, where I lived for 29 years, to the great Republic — um, State of Texas. And for those who are interested, here are some writing projects that bore fruit this year. I edited a critical edition of W. H. Auden’s long poem For the Time...
December 23, 2013
My son and I went to see The Dissolution of Smog The Desecration of Snog The Desolation of Smaug today. I am infuriated. Let me begin my talking about what I liked. The barrels-down-the-river scene was fun and funny. Laketown was delightfully shabby. Smaug looked really cool. That’s it. The rest was utter dreck. As my son commented,...
December 23, 2013
I’m going to begin by quoting only the concluding paragraph of a fairly long essay by Nathan Jurgenson, so please click through and read the whole thing to make sure I’m not misrepresenting the argument. Here’s the end: Of course, digital devices shouldn’t be excused from the moral order — nothing should or could...