Materiality and human cognition

In this paper, we examine the role of materiality in human cognition. We address issues such as the ways in which brain functions may change in response to interactions with material forms, the attributes of material forms that may cause change in brain functions, and the spans of time required for brain functions to reorganize when interacting with material forms. We then contrast thinking through materiality with thinking about it. We discuss these in terms of their evolutionary significance and history as attested by stone tools and writing, material forms whose interaction endowed our lineage with conceptual thought and meta-awareness of conceptual domains

A note on the authorship of Voltaire’s 'La Fête de Bélesbat’

On 15 May 1760 Voltaire wrote to the historian and parlementaire Charles-Jean-François Hénault: ‘Songez vous bien, mon illustre confrère, que de tous ceux qui assistèrent à l'extrême onction que je donnai au curé et à cette fête que vous embellîtes, il n'y a que vous et moi qui soyons en vie?’1 The nostalgic recollection of La Fête de Bélesbat, performed by and for madame de Prie's circle in the autumn of 1725, establishes a solidarity between the two survivors, and the term ‘confrères’, often used between fellow académiciens,2 (disingenuously) insists upon their similar literary status. The recent appearance of La Fête de Bélesbat in the ongoing edition of Voltaire's Complete Works prompts a re-examination of the play's authorship.3 Voltaire's precise role in the composition of the work is contested, notably by the editors of the Kehl edition (1785): ‘Tous les vers, à beaucoup près, ne sont pas de M. de Voltaire, et ceux qui lui appartiennent sont faciles à distinguer.’4 Among twentieth-century scholars, the author of an essay on madame de Prie's cultural patronage challenges the unsubstantiated ease of this evaluation;5 René Pomeau argues that it is indeed a collaborative work; Louis Moland states that Voltaire wrote the piece in its entirety;6 and admitting the impossibility of ascertaining whether or not the Fête is a collaborative work, Russell Goulbourne assumes in his recent study of Voltaire's comic theatre that it is ‘solely Voltaire's work’.7 A return to the archives clarifies the authorship of some of the play's 507 lines

Betsy Erkkila. The Whitman Revolution: Sex, Poetry, and Politics.

Review of Betsy Erkkila. The Whitman Revolution: Sex, Poetry, and Politics

Whitman\u27s Achievements in the Personal Style in Calamus

Responds to previous critics who have repeatedly emphasized the deeply personal nature of Whitman\u27s Calamus poems by arguing that Whitman achieved this personal quality by working with a considerable degree of artistic detachment and that it is . . . this very same detachment, operating perhaps at a more instinctive level, that enabled Whitman to produce a poetry that is most profoundly and convincingly confessional by virtue of its implicit admissions and explicit investigations of \u27the difficulties of the confessional poet.\u2

Weathering the Storm: Whitman and the Civil War

Uses a variety of sources including Memoranda During the War, Specimen Days, and Drum-Taps to examine Whitman\u27s responses to the weather during the Civil War, investigating how weather worked as a trope for Whitman and how weather carried meaning differently during the time of the Civil War than it does presently

“A Singing Walt from the Mower”: Dylan Thomas and the “Whitmanian [Re]turn” in the Post-War Poetic Culture of the States

This essay explores the remarkable impact of Dylan Thomas\u27s readings on the poetic culture of the post-war USA. It argues that this contributed to the "Whitmanian turn" taken by that culture from that point onwards