Seed Media Group

The World's Fair

All manner of human creativity on display

Search this blog

Profile

profile.gif David Ng is Director of the Advanced Molecular Biology Laboratory at the University of British Columbia - this is a just a fancier way of calling himself a science teacher.

profile.gifBenjamin Cohen is an Asst. Professor of Science, Tech., and Society at the University of Virginia. He studies the place of S & T in environmental history, policy, and ethics. He also writes other stuff.

mappsmall.gifTrying to find your way around this place? Like most expositions, we offer a map: Map of The World's Fair


Need a car? Of course you do. Try this one:

Car%20for%20Sale%20sm.jpg




"The world is full of light and life, and the true crime is not to be interested in it." A.S. Byatt

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Archives

Links

Blogroll

And so forth...

« What's New In Environmental Destruction: Feb Edition | Main | Academic eco-footprints are too large (and even folks who study biodiversity are guilty of this) »

Richard Powers on Biography and Memory

Category: The Art/Science (Non?)Divide BuildingThe Book Building
Posted on: February 11, 2008 11:20 AM, by Benjamin Cohen

I continually write my own biography by my actions, mixing involvement with knowledge, accountable to those moments when both drop away to reveal the act of mixing--something a priori recognizable. This process doe not differ measurably from the way I come to understand others, my time, or past times. Memory, then, is not only a backward retrieval of a vanished event, but also a posting forward, at the remembered instant, to all future moments of corresponding circumstance.
We remember forward; we telegraph ourselves to our future selves and to others: "Rescue this; recognize this, or not this, but the recognizing." If we constantly re-form the continuity of our past with each new experience, then each message posed out of an obscure or as yet unexperienced past represents a challenge to re-form the future. No action unchanged by observation. No observation without incriminating action. Every moment of unsponsored recognition calls me to return to the uninspired world, to continue the daily routine of invention and observation, to dirty my hands in whatever work my hands can do.

Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance, p. 209


(and as in tune with this series of posts)

Post a Comment

(Email is required for authentication purposes only. Comments are moderated for spam, your comment may not appear immediately. Thanks for waiting.)





Having problems commenting? (UPDATED)

Blogs in the Network

Advertisement

Top Five: Readers' Picks

Search All Blogs