- Sep 2015
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isites.harvard.edu isites.harvard.edufarewell6
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Régis Debray
is a French philosopher, journalist, former government official and academic. He is known for his theorization of mediology — a critical theory of the long-term transmission of cultural meaning in human society
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complement to the informational forms of print — a domain that privileges the personal, the private, and the subjective against the impersonal, the public, and the objective.
i like the point he makes here--why not see the internet as complimenting printed works, rather than competing with it?
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débordement
French: flooding, overflow
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ntertextuality"
the relationship between texts, especially literary ones.
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When theorists talk about the power of the new media to make everyone an author, for example, or to provide everyone with universal access to potential audiences of millions of readers,
This is a point that we've made several times in our class, so it's as if he is addressing us directly here
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Take the picture that appeared in Popular Mechanics magazine in 1950 in an article on "The Home of the Future."
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archive.ncsa.illinois.edu archive.ncsa.illinois.edu
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the Machine,
throughout the story, the "Machine" is capitalized, categorizing it as a character rather than an object
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When Vashti served away form the sunbeams with a cry, she behaved barbarically - she put out her hand to steady her. "How dare you!" exclaimed the passenger. "You forget yourself!" The woman was confused, and apologized for not having let her fall. People never touched one another. The custom had become obsolete, owing to the Machine.
Caring for another's well-being, even in instinctive ways such as catching someone who falls, is rude. The Machine shuns all instinctive human behavior, going to show how the Machine strips its inhabitants of their humanity
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"Those mountains to the right - let me show you them." She pushed back a metal blind. The main chain of the Himalayas was revealed. "They were once called the Roof of the World, those mountains."
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It was to the ear what artificial air was to the lungs, and agonizing pains shot across her head.
Its like how everyone currently freaks out whenever the wifi goes down
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Man, the flower of all flesh, the noblest of all creatures visible, man who had once made god in his image, and had mirrored his strength on the constellations, beautiful naked man was dying, strangled in the garments that he had woven
Just a few passages before this, the inhabitants were calling for the death of men in order to avenge the machine--we need to not take our humanity for granted.
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scraps of the untainted sky.
nature is the only pure and good thing
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Wessex
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Ælfrid
King of Wessex from 871 to 899
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hills of Wessex
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It was robbed us of the sense of space and of the sense of touch, it has blurred every human relation and narrowed down love to a carnal act, it has paralysed our bodies and our wills, and now it compels us to worship it. The Machine develops - but not on our lies. The Machine proceeds - but not to our goal. We only exist as the blood corpuscles that course through its arteries, and if it could work without us, it would let us die.
foreshadows the ending
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"Of course," said a famous lecturer - he of the French Revolution, who gilded each new decay with splendour - "of course we shall not press our complaints now
This is super ironic because the French Revolution was caused by the aristocrats becoming spoiled with luxury and not acknowledging the warning signs of their downfall--just as the people in the Machine have become spoiled and refuse to change their ways.
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The bed was not to her liking. It was too large, and she had a feeling for a small bed.
FirstWorldProblems --- the fact that her bed is "too big" shows how much the Machine spoils her
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"The four big stars are the man"s shoulders and his knees. The three stars in the middle are like the belts that men wore once, and the three stars hanging are like a sword."
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"I believe that you pray to it when you are unhappy. Men made it, do not forget that. Great men, but men. The Machine is much, but it is not everything.
Draws attention to the fact that humans should not get carried away with their awe of "the Machine", or technology in general, as it is not everything, rather, a connivence.
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And in the armchair there sits a swaddled lump of flesh-a woman, about five feet high, with a face as white as a fungus.
She's sitting underground, and described as looking like fungus--its almost as if she's being described as a vegetable rather than a human
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I see something like you in this plate, but I do not see you. I hear something like you through this telephone, but I do not hear you.
Affinities we share with our technological tools--it sounds a lot like ipads/skype and of course our usage of cellphones.
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