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Posts Tagged ‘imagination’

After the Anthropocene, the deluge?

Posted in Anthropocene, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 4, 2022 | Leave a Comment »

On the Ecocene, the Chthulucene, the Ecozoic, and other Holocene successor terms The term “Anthropocene” has come to be accepted among many intellectuals as the best, or perhaps least worst, name for the geological present, when human activities have come to dominate the planet. It’s still debated among geologists, with “Holocene” or “Late Holocene” preferred […]

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Ways to inhabit the world

Posted in Eco-theory, Process-relational thought, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 24, 2022 | Leave a Comment »

The following post elaborates on some comments I made this week at the Ritual Creativity conference at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. Deep thanks to conference organizers Katri Ratia and François Gauthier for inviting me to what turned out to be an immensely rewarding event, and to my co-panelists Graham Harvey, Sarah Pike, and Susannah […]

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Reimagining religious imagination

Posted in Philosophy, Spirit matter, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 14, 2021 | 5 Comments »

Wouter Hanegraaff has proposed that we rethink the study of religion as the study of “imaginative formations.” Much of my research has focused on something like that, or at least on the creative role of imagination in mediating the ways people come to live in the world, shape that world, and contest it among each […]

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Religion & the Japanese tragedy

Posted in Eco-culture, Media ecology, Spirit matter, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 16, 2011 | 7 Comments »

Just as the Haitian earthquake was followed by a welter of religious interpretations (fundamentalist Christians blaming sinful Haitians for it, Vodoun practitioners weighing in on the events, etc.), so the Japanese quake-tsunami-meltdown trilogy is offering evidence of humanity’s interpretive propensities. You may have already seen the YouTube troll video satirizing right-wing Christian responses, which scandalized […]

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Inception: the anti-Matrix?

Posted in Cinema, Process-relational thought, Visual culture, tagged , on August 6, 2010 | 8 Comments »

I’ve been studiously avoiding reviews of Inception, Christopher Nolan’s new metaphysical heist thriller, wanting to see it for myself (intrigued by its premise) before I start to see it through other people’s eyes. Today I saw it, and I’ve now scanned some of the reviews and a bit of blog commentary (see links at bottom). […]

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signatures

Posted in Philosophy, tagged , , on June 23, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

In Chapter Eight of Vibrant Matter, Jane Bennett asks: “Are there more everyday tactics for cultivating an ability to discern the vitality of matter?” and, in response, mentions allowing oneself to anthropomorphize, to relax into resemblances discerned across ontological divides: you (mis)take the wind outside at night for your father’s wheezy breathing in the next […]

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xmas in red & blue

Posted in Cinema, tagged , , on December 28, 2009 | 5 Comments »

Best gift received: Carl Jung’s Red Book. Very beautiful, with nice overviews and interpretations by Sonu Shamdasani. If this doesn’t revive an interest in Jung, I don’t know what can (though, as I’ve argued, we’re overdue for a new, more integrated theory of imagination). Stupidest film to show on an airplane that’s just spent two […]

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spinning the Earth

Posted in Eco-culture, Eco-theory, Philosophy, Spirit matter, Visual culture, tagged , , , , on August 25, 2009 | 5 Comments »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M&hl=en&fs=1& Just by linking Carl Sagan’s eloquent little Pale Blue Dot to the teachings of Gautama Buddha, James Ure’s Buddhist Blog brings out the buddhism inherent both in Sagan’s words and in the imagery of the Earth from space. That imagery (as I’ve discussed before here and here) is multivalent, but Sagan’s spin on it […]

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Chernobyl, May Day, & the (r)evolution of risk society

Posted in Eco-culture, Politics, Spirit matter, tagged , , , , , on April 26, 2009 | 34 Comments »

Today was the 23rd anniversary of the nuclear accident in Chernobyl, Ukraine. I had been invited to give a sermon at a nearby Unitarian church connected to both this anniversary and the May Day (Beltane) that’s coming up in a few days, and my thoughts, in preparation, revolved around how both of those dates, along […]

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metadata & musical geography (from album covers to cultural policy)

Posted in Media ecology, Music & soundscape, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 22, 2009 | 5 Comments »

One of the more oblique threads I’ve been pursuing on this blog has to do with what new media are doing to aural and musical information. Music is, of course, much more than information: it is embodied affect (in a Deleuzian sense) that carries, channels, activates, mobilizes (sets into motion), transforms, and disseminates cultural meanings […]

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imagination & contemporary theory

Posted in Philosophy, Spirit matter, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 11, 2009 | 1 Comment »

This is a summary I provided to a grad student who was starting to get into this area. It’s very introductory and far from complete in its coverage, but since there’s so little out there on this topic, I thought it would be useful to post it. It’s also a bit biased towards literature that’s […]

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