Someone had some brief but nice thoughts about my chapter in this review of Alice in Wonderland and Philosophy. Thanks!

Review: Alice in Wonderland and Philosophy

Ever since Lewis Carroll first dreamt up the Alice stories at Oxford in 1865, the fantastical, nonsensical inversions of Wonderland have presented an ideal setting for philosophical reflection. While over time we’ve seen a Wittgenstein essay here, a Carl Jung quote there, this is the first book devoted solely to exploring philosophy through Alice in Wonderland. When we stop to consider it, the need to know and the search for meaning are fundamental characteristics to both children’s literature and philosophical writings alike. Perhaps why there has been such a profound and enduring love for Alice in Wonderland for so many readers over time is that its deeply imaginative sense of wonder has an ability, like all great works of fiction, to take on different shades of meaning and to grow along with its readers.

Here’s a brief excerpt from my chapter, “Memory and Muchness: Alice and the Philosophy of Memory” –

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“Who are you?” said the Caterpillar.

This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly,“I—I hardly know, sir, just at present—at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then” (p. 47).

Alice’s conversation with the Caterpillar shows us how sometimes even the most complicated and important philosophical questions can lie just beneath a seemingly straightforward exchange. The ordinary question “Who are you?” leads Alice to confront one of the fundamental philosophical questions:  “Who am I?” As the Caterpillar’s cryptic responses begin to bewilder her more and more, Alice wonders at the Caterpillar’s question, “So you think you’re changed, do you?”—

“I’m afraid I am, sir,” said Alice. “I can’t remember things as I used”. . .

“Can’t remember what things?” said the Caterpillar (p. 48).

Alice cannot answer the question of who she is, because she can’t seem to remember who she was. From this, we can begin to understand how memory is inextricably tied to questions of what we know (or perhaps think we know). Indeed, memory is crucially important for understanding ourselves as conscious, thinking individuals. But what is memory?

Memory is both familiar and mysterious. Sometimes it seems as if the things closest to us can be the hardest to understand—metaphors can be particularly helpful in such cases. Plato (427–347 BCE) likened memory to a wax tablet whose etchings were imprinted upon our souls. John Locke (1632–1704) envisioned memory as a type of storehouse for our ideas.

Perhaps a more helpful question to ask is: what does memory mean to us?

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You might also enjoy a sneak preview of Alice in Wonderland and Philosophy available on Google Books.

(Brief excerpt of my latest book review)

Googled: The End of the World as We Know It

Ken Auletta

Penguin Press, 2009

400 pages

“I fear theirs is an old story about how good people deceive themselves.”

The sentence sounds more befitting of a Thomas Hardy novel – instead, it’s a vaguely foreboding sentiment about one the world’s most trusted and ubiquitous companies: Google. Despite the title of Ken Auletta’s book, Googled: The End of the World as We Know It, the narrative that Auletta traces is not just the story of a single company, but rather a story of how the advent of Internet and new media innovation have altered society in long-reaching ways (Think of “The End of the World as We Know It” more in the R.E.M., and less in the post-apocalyptic sense, and you follow Auletta’s logic). The author sees Google as an ideal focal point through which to examine this brave new digital world, primarily because it has for many people Google has become seemingly synonymous with the Internet. “The world has been Googled,” writes Auletta. “Googled” in the usage which Auletta employs throughout the book denotes anything which is swept up and fundamentally altered by the wave of technological change that has characterized the past decade. Sometimes this technological know-how outpaces our capacity to fully grasp its significance or to fully adapt around it – “Googled” in this context carries both a positive and negative connotation. Such is the nature of the Internet as a medium – or perhaps any medium – that can be characterized by rapid change: “because the Internet inevitably destroys old ways of doing things,” Auletta writes that it entails “creative destruction.”

It’s clear that Auletta—a longtime writer for The New Yorker on the Internet’s cultural impact—wants the reader to recognize Google as a profoundly influential media company with far-reaching ambitions: “If you can solve search, that means you can answer any question. Which means you can do basically anything.”

[Full review will be up soon on The Oxonian Review website]

I can’t wait for this! Perhaps I should spend less time posting things on blogs and more time actually finishing my chapter …

For die-hard fans, here is an excellent 30 Rock website — especially useful for remembering scenes from episodes, favorite jokes, etc. Hey, it still counts as research for me.

More details coming soon.

Just in time for the release of the much anticipated new movie (March 5, 2010), Alice in Wonderland and Philosophy is now available!

Ever since Lewis Carroll first dreamt up the Alice stories at Oxford in 1865, the fantastical, nonsensical inversions of Wonderland have presented an ideal setting for philosophical reflection. While over time we’ve seen a Wittgenstein essay here, a Carl Jung quote there, this is the first book devoted solely to exploring philosophy through Alice in Wonderland. When we stop to consider it, the need to know and the search for meaning are fundamental characteristics to both children’s literature and philosophical writings alike. Perhaps why there has been such a profound and enduring love for Alice in Wonderland for so many readers over time is that its deeply imaginative sense of wonder has an ability, like all great works of fiction, to take on different shades of meaning and to grow along with its readers.

I’ll include more thoughts on the book and additional Alice-related posts … once I can get my hands on a copy. (Do you think the Blackwell’s bookstore will give me a discount on a book I helped write?)

And now you can even become a fan of our Blackwell Philosophy and Popular Culture Book Series on Facebook.

In the meantime, here’s a brief excerpt from my chapter, “Memory and Muchness: Alice and the Philosophy of Memory” –

…………………………………………………………………………………………

“Who are you?” said the Caterpillar.

This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly,“I—I hardly know, sir, just at present—at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then” (p. 47).

Alice’s conversation with the Caterpillar shows us how sometimes even the most complicated and important philosophical questions can lie just beneath a seemingly straightforward exchange. The ordinary question “Who are you?” leads Alice to confront one of the fundamental philosophical questions:  “Who am I?” As the Caterpillar’s cryptic responses begin to bewilder her more and more, Alice wonders at the Caterpillar’s question, “So you think you’re changed, do you?”—

“I’m afraid I am, sir,” said Alice. “I can’t remember things as I used”. . .

“Can’t remember what things?” said the Caterpillar (p. 48).

Alice cannot answer the question of who she is, because she can’t seem to remember who she was. From this, we can begin to understand how memory is inextricably tied to questions of what we know (or perhaps think we know). Indeed, memory is crucially important for understanding ourselves as conscious, thinking individuals. But what is memory?

Exciting news -  my six-word memoir will be included in the newest Six-Word Memoir book. What an honor!

Legend has it that Earnest Hemingway was once challenged to write a story using six words. His response: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” Eh. But, from this a fascinating book concept was born, inviting readers to share their own unique, poignant, and bizarre six-word memoirs.

The first six-word collection featured neat contributions from writers famous and obscure, including the likes of Stephen Colbert, Dave Eggers, and Amy Sedaris.

I love the six-word concept. As a writing exercise, it was actually quite challenging and I found myself spending days with questions swirling around in my head like, “who am I?”; “what do I have to say about myself?”; “what’s most important to me?” — not to mention the six words form seems to lend a certain air of of poetic brevity and mystery to a story. (For the sake of comparison, Winston Churchill’s Official Biography checks in at a whopping thirty-one volumes).

If you’re interested, I’d encourage you to submit your own story. Thinking in terms of how to tell your own six-word story can be an unexpectedly enlightening exercise. How do you capture who you think you are in six words?

Check out Smith Magazine’s great website for inspiration:

http://www.smithmag.net/sixwords/

Six-Word Memoirs at SMITH Magazine

Six Words to a Digital Life was one of my favorites — there are some gems (“Needed to find myself. Used Google”). Think of it as an interesting sociological look, for better or for worse, into the collective consciousness on life in the Internet Age.

http://www.smithmag.net/sixwords-digital-life/

Six Words to a Digital Life

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The book’s set to be released next month, in time for the exciting new Alice in Wonderland movie coming out on March 5, 2010. Mark your calendars!

Who isn’t at least a little curious to see what a Tim Burton-version of Alice in Wonderland is going to look like? Here’s the trailer for a sneak preview:

Alice in Wonderland The Movie Trailer

Written in 1865 by Lewis Carroll (aka Charles Lutwidge Dodgson),  the origins of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland can be traced back to the halls of Christ Church at Oxford.

[Random Fun Fact]: Many Alice in Wonderland fans will remember when Alice finds that mysterious bottle labelled DRINK ME, which causes her to grow to enormous proportion, and then shrink to a tiny size. But did you know that there’s even a known medical condition (“Alice in Wonderland syndrome“) describing such hallucinatory and distorted changes of  size perception?

(Hope to add a new entry on Alice in Wonderland trivia, folklore, and real-life pictures next time!)

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I hear there’s mention of a certain UC Berkeley-based Simpsons class in here. I’ll have to check it out.  (I hope I had something interesting to say in there!).

[Fun Trivia Update] While we’re on that subject, here’s the “12 college courses we wish our schools had offered” list from the always-interesting mental_floss magazine. I really think “The Simpsons and Philosophy” is a much cooler class than “The Horror Film in Context,” but I can’t possibly imagine a more biased person on this topic than me anyways.

This talk was given at Google in Mountain View, CA on August 28.

Is that really what I look like and sound like? Well, anyways — some of the things that I discuss are: what is it specifically that makes “Heroes” philosophically interesting? What can we learn from a book about “Heroes” and philosophy? How does a show about heroes and villains give us a chance to reflect on questions of good and evil, right and wrong?

In my chapter on Nietzsche, time, and meaning I explore the ways in which specific examples from the show prompt us to examine our relation to time from both a philosophical standpoint and also what this means to us in our everyday lives as living, thinking beings.

I’m only about 708,000 views behind Ron Paul’s YouTube video, so feel free to rate it if you like it!!

For those that are interested, here’s a link to the video on YouTube. Authors@Google is one of my favorite things in the entire world – check out the rest of this wonderful video series. It’s one of the things that makes Google so cool.

Here’s a link to the actual book:  Heroes and Philosophy: Buy the Book. Save the World