April 2008

This looks interesting - a public lecture coming up at the University of Auckland by Edward James (Professor of Medieval History, University College Dublin) on Tolkien and Lewis.

When: May 14
Where: Library Theatre B15
Time: 6.30pm

Here’s the blurb:

Tolkien and Lewis, two Oxford academics, were drawn together firstly by their love of medieval literature; their friendship took a new turn when Tolkien was instrumental in converting Lewis to Christianity; but the best known fruit of their friendship — and the main reason why both are remembered today, throughout the world — are the fantasy worlds which they created, Middle Earth and Narnia, and the books in which these worlds are found: The Lord of the Rings and the sequence of books beginning with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Their fantasy worlds are both expressions of their deep Christian commitment (Tolkien called his book “a Catholic epic”), but they reveal the differences between these two scholars just as much as their similarities.

Link: J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: Friendship, religion and fantasy - The University of Auckland

In one of those “around the houses” moments I rediscovered the Facing the Challenges of Transhumanism: Religion, Science, and Technology blog attached to Arizona State University’s Templeton Research Lectures - Facing the Challenges of Transhumanism: Religion, Science, Technology project. Something to keep track of over the next few months.

Hat tip to a BetterHumans.com : “General repudiation of Transhumanism” posting - which is less than enamoured with the ASU blog.

Related links:

• Greenflame · Arizona State University - Templeton Research Lectures on Transhumanism
• Greenflame · Arizona State University gets grant to study transhumanism

These looks interesting - new prosthetic hands that allows for greater control of fine motor skills. See New Prosthetic Hand Has Grip Function Almost Like A Natural Hand: Each Finger Moves Separately

“Rapture” theology, and indeed the broader category of ‘apocalyptic’ that it sits within, lends itself to dramatic, visual imagery that can be picked up by comics books. The latest of these, Armageddon Now: Word War 3, is about to hit the shelves (if it hasn’t already). And as with many of these things it juxtaposes contemporary world-events with a particular (often loose) interpretation of apocalyptic biblical material. The way things are portrayed you get the impression that many would like to be ‘left behind’ so they can go to town with extreme armament and fight their way into the pearly gates.

You can see the main web site for comic over at: Welcome to - Armageddon Now: Word War 3

There’s an interview with one of the creators of the comic here at NEWSARAMA.COM: ROB LIEFELD GETS BIBLICAL.

Related links - Greenflame · Once Upon a Tribulation

If you have an interest in science and religion or history you will probably be interested to know that Cambridge University has digitized and published on the internet its collection Darwin material (30,000 odd items and 90,000 images, as well as audio material). From the web site:

This site contains Darwin’s complete publications, thousands of handwritten manuscripts and the largest Darwin bibliography and manuscript catalogue ever published; also hundreds of supplementary works: biographies, obituaries, reviews, reference works and more.

Almost all is online only here: such as 1st editions of Voyage of the Beagle, Zoology, Descent of Man, all editions of Origin of Species (1st, 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th & 6th); important manuscripts: Beagle Diary & field notebooks, Journal, transmutation notebooks and Autobiography.

You can access the site at: The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online (darwin-online.org.uk).

More too, over at Complete Darwin Papers Debut on Internet | Wired Science from Wired.com

Commenting on a couple of talks he did with groups of librarians, Henry Jenkins notes:

Across both conversations, it was clear that librarians are on the front lines, dealing with those who have been left behind by the participation gap, struggling to deal with those opposed to or frightened by the participatory turn in our culture, helping anxious academics understand the value and limits of wikipedia, and so forth.

It’s something I think is really important to remember. Our librarians (public, private, academic etc.) are often charged to both stay on top of and implement ‘cutting edge’ information technology, while at the same time having to make the library’s resources available to as many people as possible - and especially those for whom access to information and library resources are not technologically or informationally skilled. Raising the technological bar in the library makes new resources available, but also excludes those who don’t know how to or can’t access these new resources for a variety of reasons.

More on Jenkin’s comments at Confessions of an Aca/Fan: Librarians, YouTube, and the New Media Literacies.

While collecting up various links and articles relating to spirituality in New Zealand I came across these from the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand. The first is a media release about some research they commissioned back in 2002-2003 about people’s perception of both church and spirituality. The second is a magazine piece that gives more details (and diagrams) of that research.

I’m jotting the links down here so I don’t lose them, while I write up a piece of a course relating to the perceived split between spirituality and religion in some people’s eyes.

• Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand // Media: Spirituality Among NZers (20 March 2003)
• Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand // Media: Outside - Looking In; Researching the perceptions of non-churchgoers - from the Feb 2003 issue of sPanz.

Anyone know if the Anglicans, Catholics or Baptists have something similar publicly available?

Related link: Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand // The spirituality buzz by Kevin Ward. (A summary of sorts of: Ward, Kevin. “Is New Zealand’s future churchless?”, Stimulus 12/2 (2004), 2-11. Available as a PDF here)

For those of you who are suffering from needing a Serenity or Firefly fix, then Dark Horse’s Firefly/Serenity mini-series “Better Days” is now out. I picked up issue 1 the other day, and it’s a good read if you’re a fan-boy or girl. Actually, it’s a good read for a comic in general - I’ve read some not so good comics recently from the library’s trade paperback/graphic novel selection. If you can do the character’s voices in your head while reading then it really rocks.

More details over at Dark Horse Comics > Profile > Serenity: Better Days #1 (of 3).

Oh, and I see the “Star Gate: The Ark of Truth” is already out on DVD in NZ. Seeing as I’m still finishing off Season 9 of Stargate SG-1 it’ll be a while before I get there, but it’s nice to know it’s waiting for me. Just like I’ll get to “Battlestar Galactica: Razor” when I’ve knocked the last few episodes of Season 3 off. I must admit I’m struggling to be enthralled with the end of BSG season 3 maybe it’s better watched one episode per week rather than three episodes at a time. Currently, I’m trying to avoid Season 4 spoilers - which seems to be harder than it should be - people keep putting them in their blog posts without spoiler warnings!

The end of another hectic weekend is upon us - having just returned from an afternoon down in Hamilton for a most excellent wedding. With all the kids now into the football (soccer) season, Saturday mornings are a logistical exercise in getting the four of them to four different venues on a Saturday morning (think, traveling salesman problem), and then all the other things that are on at the moment. Last weekend it was football (x4), a birthday party to attend, and an out of town visitor for the night on Saturday, followed by a most of the day inter-school Krypton Factor that two of the kids were in on the Sunday. This weekend it was football (x4), first-born’s birthday, an engagement party, family staying over night and then the wedding in Hamilton today.

And anyone who thinks watching your kids playing football is relaxing needs their head checked. I’m still recovering from the highs and lows of yesterday’s performances.

I’m thinking it’s time to look at the next few weekends and see what can be culled from the events calendar. These things are all good (like all the people we saw today at the wedding who we haven’t seen for ages) but every Monday we’re a little more tired going to work.

Picked up the first issue of Transhuman from Image Comics yesterday. It’s a four-part mini-series in a documentary format set in the not to distant future and deals with the initial commercial forays into commercialising technologies to produce ‘off-the-shelf’ human self-modification of a transhumanist nature. I thought the first issue was quite good, and offered some insight into the commercial agendas of biotechnology often glossed over in the transhumanist literature. I’ll be interested in where the series goes.

The comic made it onto the transhumanist-related Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies blog. See IEET - Transhuman, the comic, which includes a link to some sample pages from the issue here.

Various reviews of the issue can be found at:

• Transhuman #1 Review - Line of Fire Reviews - Comics Bulletin
• Comicbook Bin - Transhuman #1
• Occasional Superheroine: Comics Are Expensive: TRANSHUMAN #1 and PROOF #6

Over at InsideCatholic.com - Science Fiction and the Areopagus, Mark Shea contends that science fiction (and fantasy) are one of the last places left in the media to explore questions relating to philosophy and religion. And the intriguing proposition that fandom is similar to the Pauline Areopagus.

Such work is, it seems to me, vital. St. Paul did not wait around for the Athenians to come to him. He walked into a city where, as Luke marveled, “all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new” (Acts 17:21), and opened his mouth on the Areopagus. It’s a perfect description of the world of fandom.

Hat tip to The Sci Fi Catholic: Mark Shea Discusses Catholicism in Sci-Fi.

Related links:

• Greenflame · Science fiction as safe(?) space to explore unpleasant questions
• Pop Culture at Brisbane Supanova » Duncan Macleod on the Gold Coast
• Greenflame · Post-Armageddon

Who owns the intellectual content of lecture notes you take in class? And can you sell them? Lawsuit Claim: Students’ Lecture Notes Infringe on Professor’s Copyright

A brief but useful article on care of comics. See Store Your Comics Properly - Wired How-To Wiki

More details are now available for the A Rocha conference, “Eden to Aotearoa: From Biblical Hope to Ecological Action”, being held at Raglan over 30 May to 2 June.

• Conference Registration Forms (150kb)
• Brochure - Cover (150kb)
• Brochure - Inside (930kb)

Received The Mediated Spirit multimedia CD-ROM by Peter Horsfield in the mail the other day and I’m looking forward to having a moment in the next week or so to have a good look at it. Initial surveys look promising.

Here’s the blurb about “The Mediated Spirit” off the web site:

One of the first major studies to provide in digital format a systematic exploration of the important role played by media in the historical development and present ferment of Christianity. It places the changes brought by digital media in historical context, illustrating how Christianity has always been a mediated spirit, its different forms inextricably linked to the nature of its cultural mediation.

With more than 1,000 links and 300 pages providing the chance to follow a topic or follow your own interests, the CDRom is an essential resource for researchers, educators, planners or those just interested in understanding how media have influenced the past and are shaping the present.