Thomas of Ercildoune and the tower at Bemersyde. Project Borderlands – [Link]. In the wake – Walter Scott, Wizard of the North – 1831 – [Link]. Durat Opus Vatum – Thomas Percy 1765.
figure and ground
insignificants
A marvelous talk today at Stanford from Tim Flohr Sørensen (Copenhagen) about his project – Insignificants – [Link]. So much in a short report on such a beautifully simple experiment. Archaeologists often pride themselves on taking up what is overlooked, insignificant, discarded as irrelevant, detritus, mere traces, garbage. But what does this involve? What happens…
Kronos and the stone
Prehistoric creatures and the limits of reason. Todten-Kopff – [Link]
ataraxia 1
Ataraxia (Epicurus) – a state of being in balance and one with lifeworld, between what is conventionally distinguished as nature and culture. Ataraxia is fraught with the same tension that pervades the self-gathered serenity of gardens, namely the tension between order and entropy … … anxiety is not so much overcome as transfigured by the…
William Blake – post-classicist
Recently I have been posting thoughts about the current state of Classical Studies, asking: What might be done regarding the complicity of Classical Studies in ideological standpoints, including cultural chauvinism, nationalism, imperialism, colonialism? I am much taken with dramatic techniques involving focus on characters and personae, avatars and ghosts, figuration and voices: How might we…
Ruins – Josef Koudelka
Thoughts on the universality and valency of ruination. With a comment about the toppling of statues of erstwhile heroes. A couple of months ago Alain Schnapp was talking with me about his new book, a universal history of ruins, an exploration of an archaeological sensibility that takes us back to antiquity [Link]. I have just…