John McCreery's Blog – October 2010 Archive (4)

Playing with Identities

As we pause for a moment between recent debates about prayer and performative acts, stimulated by Phillip Swift's delightful paper on Cosmetic Cosmologies in Japan, and look forward to Daniel Miller's An extreme reading of Facebook, I find myself rummaging through Evernote and stumble across something written last December.… Continue

Added by John McCreery on October 30, 2010 at 5:30am — 1 Comment

Citizen Science

As we think about goals and projects for OAC, I'm reminded that scholars in all sorts of fields are trying out new approaches. The reminder is from an email newsletter I receive because, several months ago in a fit of enthusiasm I signed up to participate in GalaxyZoo. Never actually did much. Got too busy with OAC and other things. But, as food for thought, here is that newsletter.

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Added by John McCreery on October 29, 2010 at 7:26am — No Comments

On the Light Side

Last night Ruth and I and a couple of friends went to see Wakiyaku Monogatari (Cast Me If You Can, literally "The Bit Player's Tale").

Wakiyaku Monogatari is a romantic comedy whose protagonists are an actor, who always plays second fiddle to the lead and lives in the shadow of his famous playwright father, and a young, aspiring actress. They meet accidentally on a train platform where the actress is being accused of being a pickpocket and the actor saves the…

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Added by John McCreery on October 29, 2010 at 6:30am — No Comments