the difference between academia and journalism?

I have friends who are journalists. I like them a lot. I hope that none of them would ever, ever deliberately misquote someone they've interviewed.

I was asked to discuss Neil Gaiman's American Gods by a journalist writing for the Cleveland Plain-Dealer. The  journalist asked several questions by e-mail and asked that I respond very swiftly to them. I did because I like to be helpful.

The journalist--who has no excuse because my words were right there in his e-mail--misquoted me. He writes:

Not everyone loved "American Gods" a decade ago. In his introduction to the new edition, Gaiman mentions that some critics complained the book was "not American enough"; others "that it was too American."
Robert Geraci, a religious studies professor at Manhattan College, believes he knows why.
"I think Gaiman's book may not please those who believe there is an America," he said. "However, as a Brit who's lived in America for a long time, Gaiman can see things about our culture that we can't -- or that we prefer to ignore. In showing us the real complexity of America, which includes the America of recent British immigrants as well as the America of the First Peoples, Gaiman can't help but annoy those who prefer a mythic America that is uniform and coherent." 

What I actually said--in response to whether or not Gaiman's book is "not American enough" or "too American"--is:

debates over what is "american" are muddled from the start, as "americanness," if anything, means a conglomerate of cultural practices, ideas, and institutions. while American Gods omits some of these (such as the overwhelming presence of protestant christianity), it captures the essence of the u.s. as a "melting pot." ... gaiman's book is not a perfect snapshot of american life (what would be?), but it does brilliantly explore our cultural heritage(s) by situating america in the long history of religions and peoples."

There are some reasonably significant differences between what I said and what the piece's author attributes to me and you'll note that I don't anywhere claim that this issue is the reason why some people didn't like the book (which a reader could reasonably infer from what was written). I was asked about whether particular criticisms of the book were valid and asked how I would respond to people who held them. My answer fits that question, not the one I am possibly alleged to be addressing.

More to the point, there are some very significant ethical issues in claiming that you're quoting someone when in fact you are not. In my classes ... I call this sort of thing lying and I fail students for it.

unending publicity

I have to admit, with all the publicity over the Singularity, etc. these days, I feel pretty good to have published ahead of the curve. :)

Scientific American, for example, just published the latest popular essay on the subject, this one authored by Carl Zimmer and apparently based upon an essay he wrote for Playboy, of all places. It's a pretty standard mix of "gee, a lot of this looks really cool" and "some of this is probably a outside the realm of likely." I'm probably in Zimmer's camp here, though my writings are not generally intended to evaluate the likelihood of any apocalyptic promises made by Kurzweil, Moravec, etc.

My ongoing effort to ensure that credit is found where it is due, however, seems to be a losing effort. In ten pages, Hans Moravec's name never comes up. Vernor Vinge? Yes. Ray Kurzweil? A dozen times or more. Moravec (the man whose work both Vinge and Kurzweil base their promises upon)? No. Sigh.

Maybe I should just send Mr. Zimmer a copy of my book. : )

mind uploading = #2 on the list of priorities

so just this past monday i was at Columbia U speaking for the Studies in Religion seminar. i argued that the tranhumanist dream of uploading minds is a really important phenomenon in the study of religion and that it probably necessitates some new ways of thinking about religion (what constitutes a religious group, a holy text, etc.) and would benefit from some new methods coming out of the sociology and anthropology of science.

naturally, there were some folks who wanted to understand where apocalyptic AI fits in in the transhumanist worldview. well, turns out it comes in second, at least according to the Lifeboat Foundation, which labels it the #2 transhumanist technology in its top ten list.

The Mark of the Digital Beast

So for millennia, there have been Christians awaiting the return of Jesus, who will vanquish a cosmic beast (known by everyone who's bothered to think about the matter as the Emperor Nero) and establish a New Jerusalem for the faithful. In the Book of Revelation, the Beast has his mark stamped upon the people and without it no one can buy or sell (Rev 13:16-17).

Apocalyptic Christians in the 20th century have oddly interpreted that phrase to mean such technologies as UPC symbols and RFID tags (neither of which is likely to be placed on your forehead). So it won't be long before they jump on  barcoded embryos as examples of the end of the world.

When someone makes a million dollars on a book about barcoded embryos, the Beast, and the return of Jesus, I'm going to be really irritated that I'm too honest to have written the book and gone to the bank, myself.

Time for Kurzweil

So I've been impressed for years at Ray Kurzweil's own exponentially rising public profile, the most recent accomplishment of which is to answer ten questions for Time magazine.

There's nothing new in the article: Kurzweil tells us that we'll re-engineer bodies and brains, becoming long-lived (the word "immortal" is noticeably absent, however) and much smarter. We'll have to prevent anyone from bioengineering weapons, and we'll have a happier, more spiritual culture. These are just reiterations of claims he's made before, in The Singularity Is Near and The Age of Spiritual Machines so the claims, themselves, are of little interest to me.

What is interesting is that Time has jumped on the apocalyptic bandwagon. Does the magazine endorse Kurzweil's ideas? Not yet. Does it endorse Kurzweil himself? Well, yes. By giving Kurzweil massive mainstream exposure, the magazine acknowledges Kurzweil's social status and simultaneously adds to it.

the end of computers as we know them!

So, in 2013, shortly after the world ends because of the Mayan mathematical and calendrical system, the world will end again. A mere 13 years after Y2K destroyed life as we know it, a multitude of solar storms will do so again. According to Wired magazine, we all need to stop driving (this is actually good advice) and buy Faraday cages to protect our computers. Otherwise, solar storms will destroy our data, crash our cars, and leave us bereft of any purpose in life. We should also apparently all save cash under our  mattresses rather than putting it in bank accounts because, like during Y2K, all bank accounts are on the verge of digital erasure. Nevermind that your cash will be worthless if all the computers in the solar system go defunct...surely there must be someone who will sell his last--and impossible to replace--can of food for your stacks of green paper.

Whew, it's a good thing that Jesus is coming back in 2011 to save us from this cataclysmic techno-apocalypse.

American Gods, Neverwhere, and the power of landscape

So this post has nothing to do with AI or apocalypticism, but it's what I'm up to, so I'm blogging it anyway.

This weekend, I'll be in HOTlanta, first for a visit to SEE SEVEN STATES FROM ROCK CITY! with my awesome friend Kimberly and then to participate in the annual conference for the American Academy of Religion. I'm joining the religion and pop culture crowd to present my paper: "A Landscape of the Religious Imagination: Travel and Tourism in the work of Neil Gaiman."

Sadly, I was invited to go to the Neil Gaiman event at the House on the Rock (a place featured in American Gods and my presentation) but not until after we'd bought tickets for the whole family to head to HTL. I would have loved to have joined the HoTR's Low-Key Gathering, but it just didn't work out. Maybe next time. 

Rock City is also part of American Gods and my paper presentation, so I'm excited to go see it and take lots of pictures. Imported knee-high gnomes in a blacklit cavern...what more could you want?

Gaiman's Neverwhere and American Gods are two of the best damn books I've read and I'm thrilled I get to talk about them at the conference. This paper will also be part of a book I'm co-writing with my brilliant and beautiful wife.