Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id NAA08756 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 27 Mar 2002 13:35:54 GMT Message-ID: <570E2BEE7BC5A34684EE5914FCFC368C10FBDF@fillan.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: Plotkin's new book Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 13:28:48 -0000 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Filter-Info: UoS MailScan 0.1 [D 1] Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Hi Everyone,
As usual, whilst looking for something entirely unrelated, I ended up in my
uni bookshop yesterday buying a copy of Plotkin's new book 'The Imagined
World Made Real', which is about natural sciences and culture (there's a
section on memes not surprisingly).
It looks pretty good, although it is making the case for encorporating the
social sciences into the natural sciences (particularly biology). I don't
have ideological problems with this, like many other social scientists do,
but do worry that if such a goal is ever achieved what the hell am I going
to do for a living? Being humanities/social science trained I don't think
reading a few books by Dawkins and Gould count as an education in
evolutionary biology.
Anyway, the early pages seem to be covering familiar ground to the list
(e.g. animals' protocultural behaviours), so I think it'll be a good read,
despite being a pricey £25 for the hardback edition.
Also, anyone in the UK been catching the documentary series 'The Century of
the Self'? Very interesting stuff about PR, psychoanalysis (connected by
Freud and his nephew Edward Bernays, who coined the term public relations),
the rise of the consumer society, and the engineering of consent. As you
might expect, I think its claims are flawed in places, but it's still a very
interesting and little told story of the last century.
And to think I used to have a pretty big crush on Emma Freud when I was
teenager...
Vincent
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