New York Society for General Semantics News

Available for viewing: Book Launch: General Semantics and Politics (edited by Corey Anton and Thom Gencarelli)

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 21:37:05 GMT

On Wednesday, February 4, 2026, NYSGS celebrated the publication of General Semantics and Politics, edited by Corey Anton, Vice President of the Institute of General Semantics, and Thom Gencarelli, IGS and NYSGS Treasurer and editor of ETC.: A Review of General Semantics, with a discussion and book signing.

General Semantics and Politics is designed for those discovering general semantics for the first time, as well as for scholars who are well versed in it. This collection brings together essays that span a wide range of concerns, including the underpinnings of democracy, the challenges of media bias and the two-party system, the difficulties in thinking about money and inequality, the struggle against polarization, how to deal with conspiracy theories, and, along the way, provides ample resources for engaging in fair and rational dialogue. In today's world, where so many people are confused and disgruntled, and perhaps on the verge of giving up on the possibility of constructive political discourse, this collection is a breath of fresh air. It reminds us that hope is not lost so long as we are willing to openly and honestly think about what is going on. Essential reading for anyone interested in general semantics, the contemporary world of politics, and/or the connection between them, it is a collection not to be missed. Could a non-Aristotelian understanding of politics help us avert the seemingly inevitable civic conflict before us? Once again, General Semantics comes to the rescue of a society that needs to retrieve the feedback mechanisms that keep it stable, or even alive. Anyone who has questioned the red/blue TV image that defines democracy today will relish this opportunity to come to terms with the terms themselves.

Panelists

Corey Anton, Ph.D., is Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Grand Valley State University, Vice President of the Institute of General Semantics, Past President of the Media Ecology Association, and a Fellow of the International Communicology Institute. He is the author of A.EYE CANDY: A Museum of Imaginary Robots and Other Digital Delights and How Non-being Haunts Being: On Possibilities, Morality, and Death Acceptance. He is co-editor of Korzybski and... with Lance Strate, Taking Up McLuhan's Cause: Perspectives on Media and Formal Causality with Robert Logan and Lance Strate, and General Semantics and Politics with Thom Gencarelli.

Thom Gencarelli, Ph.D., (NYU, 1993) is Professor and the founding Chair of the former Communication Department at Manhattan University in Riverdale, New York. Thom is the Treasurer of the Institute of General Semantics and Editor of the IGS’s official journal ETC: A Review of General Semantics. He is also the Treasurer of the New York Society for General Semantics and a Past President of the Media Ecology Association, the New York State Communication Association, and the New Jersey Communication Association (twice). He is co-editor (with Corey Anton) of General Semantics and Politics, co-editor (with Brian Cogan) of Baby Boomers and Popular Culture: An Inquiry into America’s Most Powerful Generation, and author of the forthcoming Searching for the Right Notes: Essays on Media, Meaning, and Music. Thom is also a songwriter, musician, and music producer, and has released four album-length works with his ensemble bluerace, World is Ready (2009), Beautiful Sky (2013), Mistral (2019), and INDYeGO (2024). The group is presently at work on their fifth album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ep8tjUHNC0g

Available for viewing: 40th Anniversary Conversation about No Sense of Place with Joshua Meyrowitz and Paul Levinson

Mon, 02 Feb 2026 16:06:27 GMT

This event, which took place at the Players Club on Wednesday, November 12, 2025, featured a conversation with author Joshua Meyrowitz about his groundbreaking 1985 book, No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior. Dr. Meyrowitz discussed the origin and substance of the book with longtime colleague and friend Paul Levinson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIiqx86GCLA

Panelists

Joshua Meyrowitz, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus of Communication at the University of New Hampshire, Durham, USA, where he has won numerous honors, including the Lindberg Award for Outstanding Scholar-Teacher in the College of Liberal Arts. Dr. Meyrowitz’s teaching and research interests include mass media, media history, corporate vs. non-corporate media, critical analysis of news, war news and war propaganda, medium theory, media production variables, qualitative research methods, and pan-disciplinary communication theory. In addition to authoring No Sense of Place and a book on a half-century struggle to protect the core property in Durham, NH, from overdevelopment, he has published over 100 articles on media and society that have appeared in scholarly journals and anthologies, as well as in general-interest magazines and newspapers.

Paul Levinson, Ph.D., is Professor at Fordham University. His science fiction novels include The Silk Code (winner of the Locus Award for Best First Science Fiction Novel of 1999), The Consciousness Plague, The Pixel Eye, Borrowed Tides, The Plot to Save Socrates, Unburning Alexandria, Chronica, and It's Real Life: An Alternate History of the Beatles. His novelette “The Chronology Protection Case” was made into a short film and is on Amazon Prime Video. His novelette, “Robinson Calculator,” was published in the Robots Through the Ages anthology in July 2023. He was President of the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) 1998-2001. His nonfiction books, including The Soft Edge, Digital McLuhan, and New New Media, have been translated into 15 languages.

Available for viewing: Back to School: Getting Our Bearings for a New Year

Mon, 02 Feb 2026 16:02:32 GMT

It is a particularly challenging time for those who work or study at institutions of American higher education. It seems like there is a new crisis around every corner that is challenging all of us to think about what higher education is for, what we stand to lose that we should fight to preserve, how we might innovate or adapt to changing times, and how to effectively articulate why all of this matters to those who might not be so sure. The turmoil currently roiling American colleges and universities is revealing competing definitions of “college education”--what exactly is it? Who is it for? What’s supposed to happen there? Who gets to decide?

There is no shortage of crazy talk or stupid talk around these questions, and a lot of “unsane” thinking and acting. At this event, which took place at the historic Players Club on September 10, 2025, an impressive panel of speakers helped us sort out what is going on so we could start the new school year with equanimity, composure, and clarity of purpose.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDZ1xCPyOpk

Panelists

Missy Alexander is the Provost Emeritus of Western Connecticut State University, where she oversaw all academic programs from Early College to Graduate degrees. Prior to being appointed to the position of Provost, she served as Dean of the Macricostas School of Arts and Sciences at WCSU, championing interdisciplinary programs and general education reform. At Marist College, she taught Communication focusing on theory, research, and ethics. For several years she served in leadership roles in the New York State Communication Association, as Pedagogy Editor of EME, and Associate Editor of ETC. Dr. Alexander earned her doctorate in Media Ecology from New York University, and her MA and BA from Hunter College. Since her retirement, she has focused on the arts, serving as president on two boards - the Merryall Center and the Sherman Players. When not organizing programming, seeking donations, or painting the stairs, she performs with the trio The Red Dirt Girls and with her husband in Yours Truly.

Susan Drucker (Juris Doctor, St. John's University) is a distinguished professor of journalism in the Department of Journalism/Media Studies, School of Communication at Hofstra University. She is an attorney and a treasurer of the Urban Communication Foundation. She is the author and editor/co-editor of thirteen books and over 200 articles and book chapters, including the Urban Communication Reader (Volumes 1 and 2, Hampton Press, 2010; vol. 3, Peter Lang, 2012), Voices in the Street: Gender, Media and Public Space (Hamptom Press, 1997) and Urban Communication Regulations: Communication Freedoms and Limits (Peter Lang, 2018). Her work examines the relationship between media technology and human factors, particularly as viewed from a legal perspective.

Nadine Strossen, New York Law School Professor Emerita and Senior Fellow at FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), was President of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1991 to 2008. An internationally acclaimed free speech scholar and advocate, who regularly addresses diverse audiences and provides media commentary around the world, Strossen serves on the advisory boards of the ACLU and several academic freedom/free speech organizations. She is the Host and Project Consultant for Free To Speak, a 3-hour documentary film series distributed on public television in 2023. Her most recent book is: The War On Words: 10 Arguments Against Free Speech—And Why They Fail (coauthored with FIRE President Greg Lukianoff) (2025).

Available for viewing: Book Launch: Not A, Not B, &c by Lance Strate

Sun, 20 Jul 2025 22:21:17 GMT

Not A, Not Be, &c is not just another collection of essays on general semantics. Not that it is not exactly that, a collection of essays on general semantics specifically, and on what Neil Postman described as general semantics writ large, aka media ecology. This colorful collection of essays, complete with illustrations and indexes, covers topics related to human communication and the human condition, the contrast between alphabetic and electronic cultures, a new tree of life model, understanding different types of symbolic form (i.e., words, images, and numbers), problems and possibilities regarding the copula and conjunctions, the nature of imagination, and coping with and changing the world we live in. At this event, which took place on February 19, 2025 at the historic Players Club in Gramercy Park, Lance discussed his book with Professors Paul Levinson and Thom Gencarelli.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mz_Kyu2YGmo

Available for viewing: Semantic Environments of Psychotherapy: From AI to Zoom

Wed, 11 Dec 2024 19:18:37 GMT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd1Zld2xke0&t=147s

The relevance of general semantics to the practice of psychotherapy is clear to anyone who is familiar with its central principles. From Korzybski’s Science and Sanity to the later writings and professional practice of such scholars as Wendell Johnson (People in Quandaries) and Albert Ellis (A Guide to Rational Living), the potential for general semantics to provide a roadmap to improved mental health has been well established. This is a particularly interesting time to revisit the connections between general semantics and psychotherapy. The semantic environment of psychotherapy was transformed by the covid-era transition to virtual modalities in place of the traditional in-person model; many patients and practitioners have chosen not to return fully, or at all, to in-person sessions. Self-help apps for mental health, mindfulness, and other aspects of wellness (such as Calm, Headspace, and Noom) have proliferated in recent years, as have online therapy services like TalkSpace. Nearly 60 years ago, Joseph Weizenbaum created ELIZA, a computer program that he designed to mimic a Rogerian therapist. To his surprise, users became deeply emotionally involved with the program, and many psychiatrists believed it could be developed into a complete replacement for psychotherapy. In Computer Power and Human Reason (1976), Weizenbaum argued that “there are certain tasks which computers ought not be made to do, independent of whether computers can be made to do them.” He maintained that “there are some things people come to know only as a consequence of having been treated as human beings by other human beings.” Given the extensive recent developments in AI for psychotherapy, how do Weizenbaum’s critiques hold up? What role should digital technologies play in the therapeutic experience? In this session, panelists Peter Costello and Lori Ramos discussed their work as psychotherapists and the way their work is informed by their academic training in media ecology and general semantics.

Available for viewing: General Semantics Olympics

Wed, 11 Dec 2024 19:16:56 GMT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-lo5HCGr7g

The work of Neil Postman–who was both an accomplished scholar and athlete–is well known to general semanticists. In this session, we focused on Postman’s 1976 book Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk: How We Defeat Ourselves by the Way We Talk – and What to Do About It (1976). Postman defined “crazy talk” as “talk that may be entirely effective but which has unreasonable or evil or, sometimes, overwhelmingly trivial purposes. It is talk that creates an irrational context for itself or sustains an irrational conception of human interaction." “Stupid talk” is “talk that has…a confused direction or an inappropriate tone or a vocabulary not well-suited to its context. It is talk…that does not and cannot achieve its purposes.” In this session, a panel of participants presented the best examples of crazy and stupid talk that they had recently encountered. The audience awarded gold, silver, and bronze medals to the craziest and stupidest talk presented by the panelists.

Available for Viewing: General Semantics and All That Jazz

Sun, 13 Dec 2020 21:36:26 GMT

The recent release of an album entitled General Semantics by the jazz trio Geof Bradfield, Ben Goldberg, and Dana Hall, was cause for celebration, and for our December 2nd, 2020 New York Society for General Semantics program. The recordings were made available for digital download this past September, and on CD and vinyl this past October, produced by Delmark Records. Here is their description of the album:

The collaborative trio of Ben Goldberg (clarinet, contra alto clarinet), Geof Bradfield (soprano and tenor saxophones, bass clarinet), and Dana Hall (percussion) explores new directions on General Semantics. Their Delmark Records debut features original music by the trio as well as unique interpretations of Duke Ellington, Cecil Taylor, and Hermeto Pascoal. The unusual instrumentation⎯especially the lack of a bassist⎯enables the musicians to transcend traditional instrument roles of accompaniment, improvisation, and interaction and create music that embraces form and harmony alongside freedom and spontaneous improvisation.

Bradfield, Goldberg, and Hall joined us for a discussion about their album, and about general semantics and all that jazz. Here is some more information about the trio:

Clarinetist and composer Ben Goldberg currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area. He studied under, and was heavily influenced by, the eminent soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy. Ben’s career has been one of constant curiosity and experimentation across many genres and styles, and the New York Times has noted that Ben’s music “conveys a feeling of joyous research into the basics of polyphony and collective improvising, the constant usefulness of musicians intuitively coming together and pulling apart.” Downbeat Magazine has twice named him Rising Star Clarinetist. Ben has released over 30 records of his own compositions, and his many groups include Invisible Guy, Tin Hat, Orphic Machine, and Unfold Ordinary Mind. He is a member of the music faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, and he is widely known in the Bay Area for his groundbreaking work with his New Klezmer Trio, which has garnered a large following for their radical experiments with Ashkenazi roots music. The New York Times has noted that Ben’s music “conveys a feeling of joyous research into the basics of polyphony and collective improvising, the constant usefulness of musicians intuitively coming together and pulling apart.”

Chicago-based saxophonist and composer Geof Bradfield has shared stages throughout North America, Europe, Russia, Asia, Africa and the Middle East with a variety of jazz luminaries. His work is featured on 50+ CDs, including seven albums as a leader that have garnered critical accolades from the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Downbeat, the Chicago Tribune and NPR. Bradfield has been recognized in Downbeat Critics Polls as a Rising Star Tenor Saxophonist and Arranger. Birdhoused, recorded live at Chicago’s legendary Green Mill jazz club and released on Vancouver label Cellar Live in 2017, garnered 4 ½ stars from Downbeat. His most recent large scale work Yes, and… Music for Nine Improvisers (Delmark Records 2018) was commissioned by Chamber Music America’s New Jazz Works program with the generous support of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and features a nonet of top-flight Chicago and New York artists. Bradfield has garnered two Grammy nominations in his career, and has won the prestigious award once. A committed educator, Bradfield is Professor of Jazz Studies at Northern Illinois University and has given master classes and lectures at the Brubeck Institute, the Manhattan School of Music, the Jazz Education Network conference, and numerous other national and international venues.

Dana Hall, jazz drummer, percussionist, composer, bandleader, and ethnomusicologist, grew up in Brooklyn, but relocated with his family to his mother's hometown of Philadelphia. There, Hall was exposed to jazz and soul music at an early age thanks to his family's interest in creative music, and their “open door” policy toward Philadelphia jazz musicians of the era sparked Hall's curiosity, passion and ultimately a career in music. After completing his education in aerospace engineering at Iowa State University, Hall received his Bachelor of Music degree from William Paterson College and his master's degree in Composition and Arranging from DePaul University. He is presently a distinguished Special Trustees Fellow pursuing his Doctorate in Ethnomusicology at the University of Chicago. As a jazz drummer, Hall is primarily influenced by the work of Art Blakey, Elvin Jones, ‘Philly’ Joe Jones, Max Roach, and Roy Haynes. As an ethnomusicologist, Hall is principally interested in issues of ethnicity, identity, and temporality; popular musics of the world; music as protest and resistance; and musics of both the African continent and the African Diaspora. His dissertation is a historical ethnography of Philly Soul during the Black Power Movement. The list of artists that Hall has performed, toured, and/or recorded with reflects the diverse, varied approaches of his music-making in the fields of jazz and popular music and include Branford Marsalis, Ray Charles, Roy Hargrove, Joshua Redman, Horace Silver, Michael Brecker, Benny Green, Betty Carter, Jimmy Heath, Benny Golson, Diana Krall, Clark Terry, the Mingus Big Band, Steve Lacy, Muhal Richard Abrams, Slide Hampton, Sonny Fortune, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Bud Shank, Phil Woods, Kenny Barron, Jackie McLean, the Woody Herman Orchestra, Joe Henderson, Curtis Fuller, and a host of other music luminaries. Additionally, Hall is both a member of the Terell Stafford Quintet and the Music Director of the Chicago Jazz Ensemble. He is also a former regular member of the prestigious Grammy-nominated Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, and has served as an extra in the percussion sections of the Des Moines and the Cedar Rapids Symphonies. In 2012, Hall joined the faculty of the DePaul University School of Music where he is the Director of Jazz Studies.

Our panel discussion was also joined by a local luminary Anne Phillips. Singer, composer, arranger, conductor, producer. Ms. Phillips’ career has covered almost every area of the music business. In addition to recording several solo albums, from the classic Born To Be Blue, to her recent release, Ballet Time on which she sings with such old friends as Dave Brubeck and Marian McPartland, she has worked as a singer and choral arranger/conductor with many of the music world's leading artists and is widely known in the industry as the writer/arranger/producer of many national commercials. Her children’s musical, The Great Grey Ghost of Old Spook Lane, is published by Samuel French; her environmental piece, What Are We Doing To Our World? was produced in the Chapel at Duke University in 2018; her art songs have had many performances; and her short operas, most recently That Certain Ageperformed by Chelsea Opera, have been produced by opera companies in many cities. Her jazz opera, Bending Towards the Light … A Jazz Nativity, has been described as, “a most extraordinary and powerful blending of opera and jazz … absolutely truthful to both genres.”

The panel was moderated by Thom Gencarelli, Professor of Communication at Manhattan College, a Trustee of the Institute of General Semantics, editor of ETC, and a member of the board of the New York Society for General Semantics, and a good friend of the NYSGS from the west coast, Ed Tywoniak, Professor of Communication Emeritus at Saint Mary's College of California,a former Trustee of the Institute of General Semantics, and former editor of ETC.

It was a program that was totally kinetic and ebullient!

Because so many of them were quite interesting, and included some worthwhile links, we would also like to share comments that were made in the chat box during the Zoom session:

00:35:11 Alex Zane: Lance your background is magnificent.

00:41:31 Cynthia Maris Dantzic: Fractals, no?

00:41:49 Dana Hall: I believe so. Really great background.

00:46:52 Lance Strate: thanks, yes it’s a Mandelbrot set

01:03:44 Lance Strate: Duke Ellington’s 1971 album, The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse, begins with an introduction by Ellington where he references Marshall McLuhan

01:11:29 Lori: Nice very inspiring and playful ... as a dancer/ choreographer many ideas were generated .

01:11:39 Geof Bradfield: thank you!

01:13:57 Lance Strate: “writing about music is like dancing about architecture” attributed to Frank Zappa, Elvis Costello, and Martin Mull

01:16:01 Lori: musicians are always yelling at dancers .. so to speak .. as we feel the rhythm within the body different from how it is actually musically counted .

01:17:16 Yana Grushina: In a rare interview with Jean Michel Basquiat, he said in response to “Do you ever comply with the request to describe your work?” —

JMB: I never know how really to describe it except maybe- I don't know, I don't know how to describe my work, 'cause it's not always the same thing. … It's like asking somebody, asking Miles [Davis), "How does your horn sound?" I don't think he could really tell you why he played-you know, why he plays this at this point in the music.

01:17:51 Geof Bradfield: that’s why I’ve stopped filling in that upper left hand corner!

01:18:29 Lance Strate: "If I could say it, I would not have to dance it." Isadora Duncan

01:18:45 Lori: yes!! love that response

01:20:32 Mike Plugh: “We did the thing” is a great album or song title

01:20:54 Dana Hall: I’ll use it! Thanks, Mike.

01:21:23 Mike Plugh: PLEASE. I’ll be looking out for “the thing” that you do

01:21:26 Lance Strate: https://annephillips.com/

01:21:37 Lance Strate: this thing of ours…

01:21:45 Lance Strate: sopranos

01:23:12 Lance Strate: here’s the link to the NPR interview I mentioned in the introduction: https://www.npr.org/2020/10/08/921587828/temporary-trio-creates-a-quirky-groove-on-general-semantics

01:27:34 Geof Bradfield: jacktrip and some others eliminate audio lag- not video- but require hi speed ethernet and 100 mile radius plus other tech skills.

01:33:47 Dana Hall: Very cool

01:34:34 Geof Bradfield: http://www.tzadik.com/index.php?catalog=8146

01:34:43 Geof Bradfield: link above to Ben’s record

01:34:53 Dana Hall: Tioga...?

01:35:35 Lance Strate: Language Behavior

A Book of Readings in Communication. For Elwood Murray on the Occasion of His Retirement

01:35:57 Dana Hall: Thanks, Lance.

01:36:48 Lance Strate: contributions from Lee Thayer, Dean Barlund, Gregory Bateson, Harry Weinberg

01:36:55 Lance Strate: https://www.degruyter.com/view/title/2832

01:37:46 Lance Strate: also Ray Birdwhistell, Wendell Johnson

01:40:00 Thom Gencarelli: Wow.

01:44:03 Thom Gencarelli: Gary Gumpert "The Ambiguity of Perception"

01:47:51 Lori: YES!! healing

01:48:13 Lori: Art does that for the world

01:48:13 Mike Plugh: Wow. That was gold. Thank you.

01:50:13 Dana Hall: Found it. Thanks, Thom.

01:50:22 Lance Strate: harmony

01:52:39 Vernon Sanders: I think your “music as protest” description actually applies to all the arts.

01:53:27 Dana Hall: Indeed, to all of the arts.

01:53:38 Jacqueline Rudig: this is such a great program. fantastic panelists. timely focus. lance thanks so much for putting this together

01:54:10 Lori: yes.. all arts bring light to the world and rest the space to heal.

01:54:21 Lori: créate

01:54:22 Lance Strate: tikkun olam

01:55:48 Geof Bradfield: time binding- going to use that as a tune title!

01:55:58 Lance Strate: yes!

01:56:20 Ed Tywoniak: Perfect song title!

01:56:31 Dana Hall: Great song title.

01:58:55 Dom Heffer: ‘Consciousness of abstraction’ perhaps would also be a nice title for a Jazz composition….

01:59:19 Lori: yes to love, Family , music ...

02:01:22 Mike Plugh: etc…

02:09:24 Lori: Have you done any collaborations with dancers???

02:09:54 Dana Hall: Yes, I have. I believe that we all have done so

02:10:45 Ben Goldberg: here is a record my students made entirely through zoom.  https://morissonbedroomexperiment.bandcamp.com/album/cool-it

02:12:24 Dana Hall: Ok. Wow. That’s really cool/

02:16:10 Lance Strate: Miles Davis: “It's not the notes you play, it's the notes you don't play.”

02:16:30 Lance Strate: John Cage's 4'33

02:16:51 Ed Tywoniak: One of my favorite Miles quotes!

02:17:29 Yana Grushina: Yes that piece by John Cage where musicians are instructed not to play for the duration of the piece is all about the silences :)

02:17:38 Dana Hall: And with the Cage, it’s really an opportunity for US to all serve as performers and collaborators. We are an integral part of the work.

02:17:54 Dana Hall: It’s also about the “sound in the space that we all make together”

02:18:22 Lance Strate: Cage was also informed by McLuhan, the idea of a cool medium as one that requires participation

02:18:24 Dana Hall: Breathing, heartbeats, coughs, shuffling feet…

02:18:42 Dana Hall: All of this is “Music” to Cage

02:18:52 Dana Hall: Indeed.

02:21:30 Geof Bradfield: speaking of silence and space…Ben Goldberg!

02:21:45 Dana Hall: Right?!? Incredible.

02:22:29 Lance Strate: another possible title for you, from McLuhan, acoustic space

02:22:43 Ed Tywoniak: YES — incredible!

02:22:53 Alex Zane: Gorgeous

02:23:03 Thom Gencarelli: Titles, titles, titles! We're giving 'em away tonight!

02:23:20 Dana Hall: Love it!

02:23:22 Lance Strate: Thom is giving away the titles to his car and house

02:23:41 Yaowen Liu: The perfect fifth hhh

02:23:57 Lori: great

02:24:20 Lori: soothing to the soul

02:25:05 Thom Gencarelli: Wittgenstein: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

02:25:55 Ben Goldberg: Arranged by Geof Bradfield!

02:26:12 Elizabeth Brown-Jordan: Nice!

02:26:51 Vernon Sanders: Thank you to everyone, this has been an incredible experience for me.

02:27:04 Yana Grushina: “You’re a master of your silence and a slave to your words” — French proverb :)

02:27:25 Yana Grushina: This has been beautiful! Thank you!

02:27:26 Dana Hall: That’s great, Yana…and true.

02:27:32 Lori: Thank you so much

02:27:49 Lydia Liebman: Aw thank you!!

02:27:59 Mike Plugh: Thanks to all of you. Amazing!

02:28:07 Lydia Liebman: A pleasure. This was a wonderful way to spend an evening.

02:28:14 Gloria Sampson Knight: great evening. thank you!

02:28:23 Amy Mooney: Many thanks—brilliant music and thoughtful conversation.

02:28:24 Lydia Liebman: https://geofbradfield.bandcamp.com/album/general-semantics

02:29:01 Elissa Goldberg: Thank you. This was wonderful.

02:29:02 Geof Bradfield: Black or Green Vinyl! And possibly coffee soon..in the works.

02:29:02 Molly: Thanks everyone, great panel!

02:29:07 Dana Hall: A pleasure. Thank you!

02:29:13 Mike Plugh: Every day would be great

02:29:14 Lori: have a great night everyone .

02:29:20 Geof Bradfield: Thank you for having us! So much fun.

02:29:31 Cynthia Maris Dantzic: I have taken more notes tonight than at any other Zoom event!

02:29:54 Dom Heffer: Great event - Thanks to all!

02:30:25 Barry's iPhone: fantastic. thanks

Available for Viewing: The Election and the Semantic Environment

Fri, 30 Oct 2020 22:00:16 GMT

Alfred Korzybski's initial impulse, in formulating his non-Aristotelian system of general semantics, was to address political concerns related to peace and justice. He hoped to find a way for us to make the same kind of progress in human relations that we have been able to make in science and technology. His concerns were shared by many others who embraced general semantics, including the economist and social theorist Stuart Chase, peace and conflict studies pioneer Anatol Rapoport, and cultural critic Neil Postman.

The 2020 US presidential election has often been referred to as the most consequential of our time, if not of the entirety of American history. Without a doubt, it seems that American society and polity is in the midst of a major crisis, one that may well determine the future of democracy in the United States. And that this election will be pivotal in deciding the direction we will take, as we face the challenges of a global pandemic, economic collapse, disastrous climate change, international conflict and geopolitical realignment, etc.

In the midst of all this, we find ourselves in a semantic environment characterized by extreme polarization, and a dangerous degree of semantic pollution of the sort that Postman referred to as crazy talk and stupid talk.

With election day drawing near, rather than spend one more nail-biting evening watching cable news pundits saying the same things over and over, on October 29th, 2020, we hosted a panel discussion informed by non-Aristotelian perspectives, held online via Zoom featuring the following participants:

Susan Drucker is a Professor in the Department of Journalism/Media Studies, School of Communication at Hofstra University. She is an attorney, and treasurer of the Urban Communication Foundation. She is the author and editor of 10 books including two volumes of the Urban Communication Reader, Regulating Convergence, Voices in the Street: Gender, Media and Public Space, two editions of Real Law @ Virtual Space: The Regulation of Cyberspace, and Regulating Social Media: Legal and Ethical Consideration with Gary Gumpert. Her work examines the relationship between media technology and human factors, particularly as viewed from a legal perspective.

Salvatore J. Fallica was born in Brooklyn, New York, and earned his doctorate at New York University, where he studied under Neil Postman and Terry Moran, and where he currently teaches courses in propaganda and spectacle culture in the Department of Media, Culture and Communication. He is currently working on a project entitled Norman Mailer and Celebrity Culture. He was awarded the “Excellence in Teaching” award from the Steinhardt School of Education at NYU.

Thom Gencarelli is a Professor of Communication at Manhattan College, a member of the Board of Directors of the New York Society for General Semantics, and a Trustee of the Institute of General Semantics. He is the editor of ETC: A Review of General Semantics, the official journal of the IGS.

Katherine Liepe-Levinson is a member of the NYSGS Board of Directors. She worked as a choreographer and performed on Broadway before earning her PhD in Theatre from New York City's CUNY Graduate Center and subsequently joining the faculty of Colgate University’s Theater Program. Upon returning to New York City, she founded Muse Educational Resources, Inc, and was awarded a competitive NYCBOE vendor contract for her arts education program to train teachers in anti-bullying techniques and HIV/AIDS prevention, and to promote a celebration of cultural diversity. Her interest in celebrating cultural diversity led her to photography, she trained with the International Center for Photography in NYC and was invited to participate in ICP’s first worldwide Online Study Program in Social Landscapes, and created her own website: Social Landscapes, 2010-to present. Her work has been featured on journal, magazine, and book covers, and is regularly exhibited in New York and Long Island venues. Her awards include First Place in the National show, “Water,” at the Alex Ferrone Gallery, twice Best in Show and other awards for the East End Arts Council, and twice chosen for the annual show, “Endangered,” in Miami during Art Miami/Art Basel Week.

Michael Plugh is a Professor of Communication at Manhattan College, Vice-President Elect of the Media Ecology Association, and a member of the Board of Directors of the New York Society for General Semantics.

And the panel will be moderated by NYSGS President Lance Strate, Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, Trustee of the Institute of General Semantics, and author of 8 books including Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition (2017) and Amazing Ourselves to Death: Neil Postman's Brave New World Revisited (2014), and most recently of the poetry collection, Diatribal Writes of Passage in a World of Wintertextuality (2020).

It was an engaging and electrifying discussion!

Available for Viewing: What Would Korzybski Say? A Panel Discussion

Mon, 26 Oct 2020 21:46:20 GMT

Alfred Korzybski, the founder of general semantics, was born on July 3rd, 1879, in Warsaw, Poland, and died on March 1st, 1950, while at work in what was then the headquarters of the Institute of General Semantics, in Lakeville, Connecticut. He introduced his general theory of time-binding in his first book, Manhood of Humanity, in 1921, and the discipline of general semantics in his magnum opus, Science and Sanity, published in 1933.

Korzybski famously was motivated by his experiences serving as a soldier during the First World War, and the need to promote peace and prevent military conflict. He was further moved to develop and promote general semantics by the horror of the Second World War, and the threat of the atomic bomb in its aftermath.

Following World War One, concern over mass communication, propaganda, and the manipulation of public opinion was widespread. The use and misuse of language and symbols to influence thought and action led to a number of efforts to educate the public and provide ways of resisting the assault on attitudes and behavior, including general semantics.

The Russian Revolution of 1917 was a shock to the international system, especially as it led to the establishment of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922. Communism, as an international movement, represented a direct challenge to western capitalism, one that also represented a challenge to western democracy, and expanded into eastern Europe and the far east at the end of World War Two.

The stock market crash of 1929 led to the period known as the Great Depression, an unprecedented financial crisis that called into question the economic basis of liberal democracy. While recovery began in 1933, the same year as the publication of Science and Sanity, the depression persisted into the 1940s in the United States, and even longer in Europe.

The rise of fascism in Europe represented yet another challenge to Enlightenment rationalism and political systems based on republican government and rule of law. Benito Mussolini's rise to power in Italy during the 1920s was followed by Nazism and Adolf Hitler's ascension in Germany during the 1930s. Similar developments occurred in Hungary and Romania, and in milder form in Yugoslavia, Greece, Lithuania, and Korzybski's native land, Poland. Fascist movements attempted takeovers in many other nations, and the Spanish Civil War that began in 1936 ended in 1939 with the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, which persisted well into the postwar period.

Nazism in particular brought the problem of stereotyping and scapegoating into sharp relief, with their racial theories that resulted in the Holocaust. Discrimination and persecution may have been more extreme under fascist and communist systems, but was hardly absent in the west. Racism and religious persecution was very much a part of American history and reality, including the legacy of slavery in the form of Jim Crow and separate-but-equal, the establishment of Japanese internment camps on the west coast from 1942 to 1945, and more subtle forms of exclusion on account of ethnicity, faith, or creed. Political repression and fear mongering in the wake of the Second World War took the form of McCarthyism, with accusations of treason and subversion, and the practice of blacklisting in Hollywood, academia, and government.

All this and more serves as a reminder that the development of general semantics took place during tumultuous times, and was a response to a time of great conflict and tragedy. And we look back on the founder of general semantics as an exceptional individual, not perfect by any means, but a thoughtful, caring, and inspired human being.

As we presently find ourselves in troubled times on multiple fronts, it is worth trying to put ourselves in the shoes of significant thinkers such as Alfred Korzybski, and speculate and extrapolate on what he might say about current events, were he still alive today. To that end, on February 19, 2020, a panel of general semanticists was brough together to address the question, "What would Korzybski say?" The panelists were

Martin H. Levinson, President of the Institute of General Semantics, Treasurer of the New York Society for General Semantics

Jacqueline Rudig, Treasurer of the Institute of General Semantics, and Secretary of the Board of Directors of the New York Society for General Semantics

Teresa Manzella, member of the Board of Directors of the New York Society for General Semantics

Michael Plugh, member of the Board of Directors of the New York Society for General Semantics and Assistant Professor of Communication at Manhattan College

Thom Gencarelli, member of the Board of Directors of the New York Society for General Semantics, Trustee of the Institute of General Semantics, and Professor of Communication at Manhattan College

and the panel was moderated by Lance Strate, President of the New York Society for General Semantics, Trustee of the Institute of General Semantics, and Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University.

It was a probing and provocative discussion!

Available for Viewing: The State of the Semantic Environment 2020: A Panel Discussion

Sun, 25 Oct 2020 23:15:32 GMT

Alfred Korzybski introduced the terms neuro-semantic and neuro-linguistic, and in conjunction with his emphasis on the organism-as-a-whole-in-an-environment, made reference to the neuro-linguistic and neuro-semantic environment that we inhabit. Following Korzybski's lead, Wendell Johnson introduced the concept of the semantic environment in his classic work on general semantics, People in Quandaries (recently reissued by the Institute of General Semantics).

Neil Postman devoted a chapter of his 1976 study, Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk, to the topic of the semantic environment, explaining that, "a semantic environment includes, first of all, people; second, their purposes; third, the general rules of discourse by which such purposes are usually achieved; and fourth, the particular talk actually being used in the situation." Noting that there are many different types of semantic environments, he described them as situations and social structures "in which people want to do something to, for, with, or against other people, as well as to, for, with, or against themselves."

Postman specified that he was particularly concerned with "those semantic environments which give form to our most important human transactions." And in an earlier essay entitled "Demeaning of Meaning," he maintained that, "in considering the ecology of the semantic environment, we must take into account what is called the communications revolution," going on to observe that, "the invention of new and various media of communication has given a voice and an audience to many people whose opinions would otherwise not have be solicited, and who, in fact, have little if anything to contribute to public issues."

For the previous two years, we had the rare opportunity of presenting programs featuring out-of-towners who have converged on New York City to attend the annual Media Ecology Association board meeting, and we continued that practice on January 24th, 2020, as we asked them to comment on the state of the semantic environment in 2020, locally and globally. The participants on this program were:

Cathy Adams is a Professor in the Faculty of Education and Vargo Teaching Chair at the University of Alberta. Drawing on links between phenomenology, philosophy of technology and media scholarship, her research addresses digital technology integration across K-12 and post-secondary educational environments. She is particularly interested in the ethical and pedagogical implications of the widespread use of digital media, and increasingly smart technologies, as cognitive extenders in teaching and learning. She is co-author of Researching a Posthuman World: Interviews with Digital Objects (2016).

Paolo Granata teaches in the Book and Media Studies program at the University of Toronto, St. Michael’s College. He joined the University of Toronto after spending 15 years at the University of Bologna, Italy, where he almost entirely established his own academic career in research, teaching, and public engagement. He is the Coordinator of the Book & Media Studies program, and Director of the Media Ethics Lab at the University of Toronto. He is also the president of the Media Ecology Association. Since October 2018, Professor Granata is a member of the Executive Committee of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO as Chair of the Culture, Communication and Information Sectoral commission.

Jaqueline McLeod Rogers is Professor and Chair of the Department Rhetoric, Writing, and Communication at the University of Winnipeg. She has presented numerous papers and been invited to speak about Marshall McLuhan at a number of international scholarly conferences. Her publications include Finding McLuhan: the Mind, the Man, the Message (2015 ) and McLuhan and the Arts (a special issue of the journal Imaginations, 2018). She is currently awaiting the publication of a six-chapter study of McLuhan and the City, McLuhan’s Techno-Sensorium City (Lexington, forthcoming). She is also currently co-editing a volume on technology and family practices, Mothering/ Internet /Kids (for Demeter Press) and has begun a more expansive examination of creative tourism and locality. She has recently been elected to the Media Ecology Association board as member-at-large.

The discussion was moderated by NYSGS President Lance Strate, Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, Trustee of the Institute of General Semantics, and author of Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition (2017), and Amazing Ourselves to Death: Neil Postman's Brave New World Revisited (2014).

It was a wide-ranging and stately discussion!

Available for Viewing: Mediating the Sexes: Women, Technology & Work in American Narrative

Wed, 19 Aug 2020 21:01:12 GMT

General semantics is concerned with how people communicate, and how language and symbolic communication bestow upon us our capacity for progress via time-binding. Narrative, as a symbolic form, provides a structure for making sense out of the world, and enhances our capacity for time-binding. Literature, as Alfred Korzybski, S.I. Hayakawa, and other general semanticists made clear, provides maps to a variety of human territories, from the interior landscape of the mind, to our social interactions and cultural arrangements, both present and past. And as Marshall McLuhan and other media ecology scholars have observed, literature often provides us with a means of understanding technological and social change. Media ecologists often point to the 19th century as the beginning of a revolution in communications that continues to this day, and whose effects we still need to fully understand.

In her recently completed doctoral dissertation, Dr. Callie J. Gallo examines how a boom in new media technologies between 1840 and 1900 spurred influential waves of writing about emerging professionals and workplaces in the United States. She argues that canonical and popular authors from Edgar Allan Poe to Fanny Fern envisioned modern professionalism along gendered lines in response to three key innovations: the penny press, the daguerreotype, and the telegraph. Each successive media environment incited debate about how middle-class women’s identities should (or should not) change, including their domestic roles and their racial and class status. This interdisciplinary project, combining media ecology, material culture studies, gender studies, and new historicist approaches, analyzes how new professional and social identities for women are cultivated or curtailed through stories about new technologies.

Callie J. Gallo recently completed a Ph.D. program in English at Fordham University, and she is an Upper School English Teacher at the Marymount School of New York. Her work has appeared in James Joyce Quarterly, and she served as the managing editor for Explorations in Media Ecology (EME) for three years. Her dissertation,Mediating the Sexes: Women, Technology, and Work in American Narrative 1840-1900, combines media ecology, cultural studies, and feminist literary studies perspectives and analyses networks of discourse about women and professionalism that form around the introduction of new media of communication in nineteenth-century America.

This program, held on December 18, 2019, began with Dr. Gallo discussing her research, followed by commentary, discussion, and conversation featuring two highly regarded scholars, one local and one from out of town:

Elena Lamberti is a Professor of North American Literatures at the University of Bologna, Italy. She is a specialist in Modernist Literature, Cultural Memory, Literature and Media Ecology, and War Literature. She is the author of eight volumes and of numerous essays and book-chapters on Anglo-American Modernism and American/Canadian literature and culture. She pursues an interdisciplinary methodology of research where literature stands at the core of innovative investigations of complex ecosystems. Her book, Marshall McLuhan’s Mosaic. Probing the Literary Origins of Media Studies (2012) received the Media Ecology Association's 2016 Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology. She is also affiliated with the Mobile Media Lab, Concordia University di Montreal.

The panel was moderated by NYSGS President Lance Strate, Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, Trustee of the Institute of General Semantics, and author of 7 books including Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition (2017) and Amazing Ourselves to Death: Neil Postman's Brave New World Revisited (2014).

It was, without a doubt, an illuminating and enlightening program!

Available for Viewing: The Language of Poetry 3

Mon, 17 Aug 2020 23:04:39 GMT

Alfred Korzybski, founder of general semantics, wrote that, "poetry often conveys in a few sentences more of lasting value than a whole volume of scientific analysis" (Science and Sanity, p. 437). He understood that poetic language provides us with a set of tools for understanding, evaluating, and relating to our environment in ways that are different from and complementary to scientific language. Not surprisingly, then, since the start of its publication 75 years ago, the general semantics journal ETC has often featured poetry along with articles on language, perception, communication, and consciousness of abstracting.

Twice before we have offered programs featuring readings and performance of original work by local poets. For this, our third in an irregular series, held on November 20, 2019, we were pleased to include three poets from the "upper north side"—aka, Ontario, Canada—including the legendary bill bissett, celebrating his 80th birthday and the launch of his new book, breth: th treez uv lunaria: selektid rare n nu pomes n drawings, 1957–2019. As a poet, artist, and performer, bissett’s innovations have shaped poetry, music, painting, and publishing and have stimulated, provoked, influenced, shocked, and delighted audiences for half a century. In the words of bill bisset, this new collection “shows sew manee threds thru poetree n langwage btween n thru lyrik sound song vizual narrativ non narrativ his her storikal naytur humour sexual romantik politikul metaphysikal spiritual fuseyun th pickshur image in th lettr th shape uv th lettr in th drawing line orchestrating … th manee ways [thru] art langwage n poetree… we join with ourselvs n each other.”

The full line-up for this evening of poetic performance was:

Adeena Karasick is a New York based Canadian poet, performer, cultural theorist and media artist and the author of ten books of poetry and poetics. Her Kabbalistically inflected, urban, Jewish feminist mashups have been described as “electricity in language” (Nicole Brossard), “proto-ecstatic jet-propulsive word torsion” (George Quasha), noted for their “cross-fertilization of punning and knowing, theatre and theory” (Charles Bernstein) "a twined virtuosity of mind and ear which leaves the reader deliciously lost in Karasick's signature ‘syllabic labyrinth’” (Craig Dworkin); “one long dithyramb of desire, a seven-veiled dance of seduction that celebrates the tangles, convolutions, and ecstacies of unbridled sexuality… demonstrating how desire flows through language, an unstoppable flood of allusion (both literary and pop-cultural), word-play, and extravagant and outrageous sound-work.” (Mark Scroggins). Most recently is Checking In (Talonbooks, 2018) and Salomé: Woman of Valor (University of Padova Press, Italy, 2017), the libretto for her Spoken Word opera co-created with Grammy award winning composer, Sir Frank London. She teaches Literature and Critical Theory for the Humanities and Media Studies Dept. at Pratt Institute, is Poetry Editor for Explorations in Media Ecology, is a 2018 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Award recipient and winner of the 2016 Voce Donna Italia award for her contributions to feminist thinking. The “Adeena Karasick Archive” has been established at Special Collections, Simon Fraser University.

Martin H. Levinson is a member of the Authors Guild, National Book Critics Circle, PEN, the book review editor for ETC: A Review of General Semantics. president of the Institute of General Semantics and Treasurer of the New York Society for General Semantics. He has published nine books and numerous articles and poems.

Lance Strate is President of the New York Society for General Semantics, a Trustee of the Institute of General Semantics, a founder and past president of the Media Ecology Association, and Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University. His book of poetry, Thunder at Darwin Station, was published by NeoPoiesis Press, as was the anthology of poetry and creative work he co-edited with Adeena Karasick, The Medium is the Muse: Channeling Marshall McLuhan. He is the co-editor of several scholarly anthologies, including Korzybski And..., and Taking Up McLuhan's Cause: Perspectives on Media and Formal Causality, and the author of Echoes and Reflections: On Media Ecology as a Field of Study; On the Binding Biases of Time and Other Essay on General Semantics and Media Ecology; Amazing Ourselves to Death: Neil Postman's Brave New World Revisited; and Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition.

Kathleen Reichelt is a performer, visual artist and word arranger. Her work has been published by Arteidolia, Bone Bouquet, great weather for MEDIA, and Three Rooms Press, NYC, and is part of the permanent collection of the Asia Culture Center in Gwangju, South Korea. Reichelt performs solo and with Wes Rickert as Burning Iceberg. She is co-founder of the 1000 Islands Film & Stage Artist Residency and co-creator of 253469.

Wes Rickert is an absurdist sound poet, film maker, visual artist and philosopher. His films have received official selection for film festivals in Chicago, Copenhagen and Moscow with an honorable mention for contribution to cinema from the LA Underground Film Forum. His absurdist writing & photographs are published in Maintenant #9, #10, #11, #12, #13, "A Journal of Contemporary Dada", Three Rooms Press, NYC. He is one half of the noise band Burning Iceberg, co-founder of the 1000 Islands Film & Stage Artist Residency and co-founder of the 253469 Institute.

bill bissett is a legendary sound, visual and performance artist, and author of over 80 books of poetry. He garnered international attention in the 1960s as a pre-eminent figure of the counterculture movement in Canada and the U.K. As a a pioneer of sound, visual and performance poetry—eschewing the artificial hierarchies of meaning and the privileging of things (“proper” nouns) over actions imposed on language by capital letters; the metric limitations imposed on the possibilities of expression by punctuation; and the illusion of formal transparency imposed on the written word by standard (rather than phonetic) spelling—bissett extends the boundaries of language, whose charged readings, which never fail to amaze his audiences, incorporate sound poetry, chanting and singing. Whether paying tribute to his hometown lunaria or exercising his native tongue dissent, bissett continues to dance upon upon the cutting edge of poetics and performance works. Among bissett’s many awards are: The George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award (2007); BC Book Prizes Dorothy Livesay Prize (2003) peter among th towring boxes /text bites; BC Book Prizes Dorothy Livesay Prize (1993) inkorrect thots. Most recently is his new Collected Works: breth: th treez uv lunaria: selektid rare n nu pomes n drawings, 1957-2019, Talonbooks, 2019.

Our evening of poetry was moderated by Michael Plugh, Assistant Professor of Communication at Manhattan College and a member of the Board of Directors of the New York Society for General Semantics.

It was a series of readings and performances that was explosive and ecstatic!

Available for Viewing: Politics and Public Discourse 2019: A Panel Discussion

Wed, 04 Mar 2020 22:47:04 GMT

General semantics was founded in response to a call for sanity in political affairs, domestically and globally. Alfred Korzybski argued that our leaders and government officials need to have the same respect for reality as our scientists and engineers. This requires careful evaluation and constant re-evaluation of our perceptions of the world, and the ways in which we think and talk about what is going on around us.

To that end, the New York Society for General Semantics has held periodic panel discussions devoted to the political landscape, to present-day language and symbolic action, to the talk and drama of our current democratic culture. At this perilous moment in the United States and worldwide, we return again to considering the uses and abuses of language in public discourse, and the ways in which candidates for office, public officials, and journalists create competing maps of our political terrain.

The participants on this program held on October 16, 2019, were:

Jessica Baldwin-Philippi, Associate Professor in Fordham University’s Communication and Media Studies department, and an expert in the study of digital campaigning. Her first book, Using Technology, Building Democracy: Digital Campaigning and the Construction of Citizenship (Oxford UP, 2015), investigates the digital strategies and tactics that electoral campaigns adopted in a post-Obama, social media era. She is currently working on a book about data-driven campaigning leading up to the 2020 election.

Salvatore J. Fallica, who was born in Brooklyn, New York, and earned his doctorate at New York University, where he studied under Neil Postman and Terry Moran. It is also where he teaches courses in propaganda and spectacle culture in the Department of Media, Culture and Communication. He presented “The Media Ecology of Paparazzi,” recently at the Media Ecology Association Conference in Toronto; he also presented “Early Dylan: The Contemporary Anachronism,” at the Dylan Archives this past June. He’s working on a project entitled “Norman Mailer and Celebrity Culture.” He was awarded the “Excellence in Teaching” award from the Steinhardt School of Education at NYU.

Isabel Vincent, an award-winning investigative reporter for The New York Post, and the author of several books. A former foreign correspondent in Latin America, Africa and the Balkans, her work has appeared in numerous publications around the world, including The Guardian, The New Yorker, and The New York Times Magazine. She has won the Yad Vashem Award for Holocaust History, the Jewish Book Award (Canada) and most recently, an Associated Press Award for investigative reporting. Her most recent book, Dinner With Edward, is being made into a feature film, starring English actor David Suchet in the title role. She is currently working on a book about opera and the Second World War.

And the panel was moderated by NYSGS President Lance Strate, Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, Trustee of the Institute of General Semantics, and author of 7 books including Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition (Peter Lang, 2017) and Amazing Ourselves to Death: Neil Postman's Brave New World Revisited (Peter Lang, 2014).

It was a penetrating and perspicacious discussion!

Available for Viewing: General Semantics & GIFs: A Panel Discussion on Symbols & Social Media

Wed, 04 Mar 2020 22:40:50 GMT

Our first program of the Fall of 2019 is now available!

According to Wendell Johnson, general semantics is concerned with the problems we have in trying to live with ourselves and with each other. He argues that we understand very little about what it means to be a symbol-using class of life, and that we fail to consider the connection between our use of language and the way we live. Understanding language as technique allows us the possibility of taking a critical position with regard to this powerful human dimension and the way in which our modes of communication give shape to our broader lifeworld.

Over the last several years, the GIF, or graphic interchange format, has become an integral component of online communication. These short moving images are typically emotive “moments” clipped from popular media that capture a sentiment or complex emotional state. Today, GIFs have been integrated to most social media services in enormous searchable databases. Users of social media can employ GIFs on their own, or in combination with text-based communication, creating a hybrid form with both discursive (word-based) and presentational (image-based) characteristics. The exploration of this theme expands the reach of general semantics further into the area of online and digital communication, in pursuit of Wendell Johnson’s critical position.

In what ways does this visual form enhance text-based communication, adding depth and complexity to our communication? How does this symbolic form relate to the process of abstracting and what pitfalls does it present to clear and effective communication? How does the popularity of this symbolic form relate to Korzybski’s notion of ‘infantilism’ and what defense can be made for the form’s utility in thought and action?

The participants on this program held on September 18, 2019, were:

Michael Plugh, Assistant Professor of Communication at Manhattan College, Past-President of the New York State Communication Association, and a member of the Board of Directors of the New York Society for General Semantics. Dr. Plugh is Pedagogy Editor for the journal Explorations in Media Ecology, and is currently program planner for the Media Ecology Association’s presence at the annual National Communication Association convention. His research interests include general semantics and media ecology, particularly with respect to issues of education.

Arshia Anwer, Assistant Professor of Communication at Manhattan College. Dr. Anwer has worked in the communication and education fields in a variety of marketing communication, editing and teaching roles, and currently serves as the Community Manager for the New York State Communication Association. Her research interests include integrated marketing communication, philosophy of communication, and religious communication, and she has published in the areas of communication ethics and religious communication.

Brian Cogan, Associate Professor of Communications at Molloy College. Dr. Cogan is the author of numerous articles. book chapters and books, with emphasis on popular culture and media ecology, including works on punk rock, South Park and Monty Python. He was the Awards coordinator and a Board member for the Media Ecology Association for many years, is a past president of the New York State Communication Association and a Wilson Scholar., and co-edits the zine Submerging which highlights both emerging and established authors and photographers.

It was a presentation that was both arresting and amusing!

Available for Viewing: The Medium of the Sidewalk: Holocaust Commemoration and Stolpersteine: A Presentation by Susan Drucker & Gary Gumpert

Mon, 13 Jan 2020 22:29:25 GMT

We are pleased to make available to you this program featuring Gary Gumpert and Susan Drucker, held on June 5, 2019.

General semantics is based on the understanding that human beings are a time-binding species, able to pass on experience from one generation to the next. Through the process of time-binding, we are able to accumulate knowledge and make progress, in science and technology, and also socially, politically, and morally.

Time-binding is made possible by capacity for language and symbolic communication, which also provides us with the potential to engage in critical evaluation and thereby eliminate errors and misconceptions, and overcome prejudice and stereotypes.

While Holocaust memorials have been the subject of many studies, some of the most moving and least studied type of memorials are those unexpectedly encountered in everyday life. Two of the memorials physically built into the urban landscape are: the 70,0000 Stolpesteine, small brass Holocaust memorial plaques placed in the sidewalks of residential neighborhoods. The second are found in Berlin’s Bavarian Quarter where 100 street signs display the Nazi Nurenberg laws. Such memorials are self-imposed triggers of the past. This presentation will examine several Holocaust commemorations looking at the physical installations, communicative functions of sidewalks, language choices and the meaning of the street.

Susan Drucker is a Professor in the Department of Journalism/Media Studies, School of Communication at Hofstra University. She is an attorney, and treasurer of the Urban Communication Foundation. She has served as editor of the Free Speech Yearbook, Qualitative Research Reports in Communication, and served as Series editor of the Communication and Law series for Hampton Press and Peter Lang Publishing. She is the author and editor of 10 books and over 100 articles and book chapters including two volumes of the Urban Communication Reader, Regulating Convergence, Voices in the Street: Gender, Media and Public Space, two editions of Real Law @ Virtual Space: The Regulation of Cyberspace, and Regulating Social Media: Legal and Ethical Consideration with Gary Gumpert. Her work examines the relationship between media technology and human factors, particularly as viewed from a legal perspective.

Gary Gumpert is Emeritus Professor of Communication at Queens College of the City University of New York and President of the Urban Communication Foundation. His creative career as a television director and academic career as a scholar spans over 60 years. In 1960 he directed The Gutenberg Galaxy in which Marshall McLuhan first articulated the premise of his book by the same title. He is series editor of Urban Communication Series for Peter Lang Publishing. He has authored and edited books include Talking Tombstones and Other Tales of the Media Age, The Urban Communication Reader, Regulating Convergence, and Regulating Social Media: Legal and Ethical Considerations. He is a recipient of the Franklyn S. Haiman Award for distinguished scholarship in freedom of expression, the Louis Forsdale Award for Outstanding Educator in the Field of Media Ecology, the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity, and the Environmental Design Research Association Career Award. His primary research and theory agenda focuses on the impact of communication technology upon social and urban space.

It was a presentation that was eye-opening and thought-provoking!

Available for Viewing: Shine the Light: A Presentation by Seamus Kelleher in Story and Song

Mon, 09 Dec 2019 22:24:31 GMT

We are pleased to make available to you a special program held on May 1, 2019.

For almost five decades, Seamus Kelleher, a native of Galway on the west coast of Ireland now residing in Doylestown PA, has performed as a musician across the U.S. and Europe in venues such as Carnegie Hall in New York and the Excelsior in Rome. This year, he turns 65 and will perform over 160 shows across the US.

Throughout his career, Seamus has battled and managed depression, anxiety, and an addiction to alcohol. In his Shine the Light presentation, he uses his gift of music and an uncanny ability to engage his audience to tell a compelling and sometimes hilarious story raising awareness of the staggering number of Americans suffering mental illness and addiction.

Recent engagements include: Scott & White Medical Center in Temple, Texas; Baylor University Medical Center in Houston; and the School of Rock annual franchise meeting in Philadelphia.

Seamus is also the author of over 100 newspaper and magazine articles on topics ranging from politics, music, and immigration to mental health issues. He holds a Masters Degree from New York University where he studied Media Ecology under the guidance of Neil Postman. He considers his time with Postman, the other faculty members and his peers in the Media Ecology program as the most enlightening period of his life.

It was an evening of music and talk that was delightful and inspirational!

Available for Viewing: The Inaugural Allen Flagg Memorial Lecture: General Semantics as a Conversing Activity

Wed, 30 Oct 2019 22:08:30 GMT

Allen Flagg became interested in General Semantics in 1952, eventually serving for many years as President of the New York Society for General Semantics. He taught general semantics classes at IBM, The New School, Queens College and Fairfield University. In 2008 he was a recipient of the Institute of General Semantics J. Talbot Winchell Award.

To honor Allen, a lecture series was established in his name and Martin H. Levinson agreed to deliver the first of those lectures on April 12, 2019, entitled “General Semantics as a Conversing Activity.” After his talk, Levinson read from his recently published book Practical Fairy Tales for Everyday Living (Institute of General Semantics, 2018), the introduction of which appears below.

INTRODUCTION

The American Heritage Dictionary defines the term “fairy tale” as a fictitious, highly fanciful story or explanation. Can such a narrative furnish useful advice on important topics like sound thinking, smart decision-making, stress reduction, emotional self-management, and getting along better with others? This book answers in the affirmative. Practical Fairy Tales for Everyday Living provides twenty-four whimsical stories featuring characters who successfully battle a variety of personal problems and mishaps through the formulations of general semantics (GS), a science-based “self-help” system designed to assist individuals to better evaluate and solve everyday difficulties and gain a more accurate picture of themselves and the world in which they live. While the stories are not true in the literal sense of that word, the British writer G.K. Chesterton observed, “Fairy tales are more than true—not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten.”

Martin H. Levinson is the president of the Institute of General Semantics, the treasurer of New York Society for General Semantics, and the book review editor for ETC: A Review of General Semantics. He has published ten books and numerous articles and poems on a variety of subjects. Levinson holds a PhD from New York University and lives in Forest Hills, NY.

It was a lecture and reading that was the talk of the town!

Available for Viewing: Between Two Worlds: A Reading and Conversation with Vasu Varadhan

Wed, 02 Oct 2019 23:05:59 GMT

On March 20, 2019, the New York Society for General Semantics hosting an event featuring author Vasu Varadhan in conversation regarding her recently published book.

The word family represents a set of relationships we all take for granted but, as with all our terms, as general semantics teaches us, the map is not the territory. Anthropologists have long studied the differences in the ways that different cultures define and experience the concepts of marriage and kinship. Understanding these differences, differences that make a difference, can help us to understand a fundamental aspect of our time-binding species.

Memoirs are attempts to map the territory of our own lives, a means of exploring memory and history, self and identity. Dr. Vasu Vardhan's memoir, On My Own Terms: A Journey Between Two Worlds (Mediacs, 2018), represents an auto-ethnographic study that illuminates much about gender, culture, family, and individuality.

From the publisher's blurb:

In moments of quiet despair following the death of her eldest son in the September 11 attack on The World Trade Center, Vasu Varadhan thought of her mother and father, a United Nations diplomat and champion of nuclear disarmament during the Cold War who died at the early age of 50; her childhood in New York City and young adulthood in India, and her arranged marriage at the age of 16. Circling back into personal family history led to her decision to write this memoir, a search for better understanding of life’s joys and sorrows.

At its core, On My Own Terms is a classic story of an immigrant’s struggle to forge an identity of one’s own amidst the upheavals of geographical and cultural displacement. On another level, it is an homage to a remarkable woman’s struggle to maintain individuality, integrity and freedom as an accomplished scholar inside the orthodox Hindu culture in which she was born and raised.

Vasu Varadhan holds a PhD in Media Ecology from New York University, where she is currently a member of the faculty at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study. She has taught a wide range of interdisciplinary seminars on media theory, identity in a multi-cultural world, ancient Indian literature and South Asian literature with a special focus on emerging Indian writers in the diaspora. She is the featured subject of the documentary, Knowing Her Place, by Indu Krishnan which chronicles her struggle with “cultural schizophrenia” as an Indian American woman searching to forge her own identity. Her writing has been published in two of India’s leading newspapers, The Hindu and The Indian Express, in the South Asian Review and in the online publication, The Pythians. She has also published scholarly articles in ETC: A Review of General Semantics.

Teresa Manzella, a member of the Board of Directors of the New York Society for General Semantics, moderated the event. She studied media ecology and generals semantics with Neil Postman at New York University and sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and holds masters degrees in communication and education. She worked in business as a career counselor and on training and development and team-building for several companies including Citibank, Chemical, and J.P. Morgan Chase, as well as the MTA. She ran the Career and Life Design Group at The Unitarian Universalist Church of All Souls, NYC, for 20 years, and maintains a private Career Counseling practice.

It was a conversation that was memorable and revealing!

Available for Viewing: Theatre and Translation: A Reading and Conversation With Robin Levenson

Wed, 11 Sep 2019 00:37:21 GMT

On February 20, 2019, the New York Society for General Semantics was pleased to host a book launch for Acting Chekhov in Translation: 4 Plays, 100 Ways (New York: Peter Lang, 2019) by Robin Beth Levenson.

Dr. Levenson is an Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at LaGuardia Community College, City University of New York. She received her PhD from New York University, an MFA from the University of California, Riverside, and has presented at conferences on translation and communication studies at the University of East Anglia, England, the American Literary Translation Association, the New York State Communication Association, the Eastern Communication Association, the City University of New York League of Speech Professors, and the international Stanislavski Symposium at the University of Malta. She has acted professionally in Los Angeles and New York on stage, film and via voiceovers. Her research explorations include how language influences thought and behavior, and the nature of performance.

Michael Plugh, Professor of Communication at Manhattan College and a member of the Board of Directors of the New York Society for General Semantics moderated the event, which included a conversation, discussion, reading, book signing, and reception with refreshments.

From the author:

My teacher Stella Adler said, “I am a student by nature. I am a scholar as well as an actress.” Ideally, actors do practical research on their roles; they are “script interpreters.” I’m a scholar and an actor as well. But this book does not presume to “interpret” Anton Chekhov’s work definitively, or to assess which translations of his plays in English are the “best.” It is, rather, an exploration of how practitioners and scholars may approach script analysis when the play is in translation. Interpretation is up to the individual production, and to the audience. Chekhov’s plays provide useful examples for this examination of the playscript.

The actor’s granular explication of theatre texts—as playwright Lee Blessing notes in his blurb for my book—means we must explore all possible avenues of meaning and behavior in creating a role, based on just the written dialogue we are given. This practice of the actor is significantly related to the ideas of General Semantics. Korzybski’s idea of “time-binding” says “Time-binding is something we do. [In order to] deliberately, consciously change [or], improve our way of being, we have first to be awake to What? How? and Reasons for doing what we are doing.” This too is what the actor does, which results in his Actions on the stage. The actor must be “Awake” to all aspects of the script in order to discover its underlying meanings.

With 145 translations I discovered, the book describes the nature of translation for the stage, the notion of Action, Chekhov’s inimitable dramaturgy and his last four masterpieces that changed the path of modern drama, illuminating how our language determines our behavior.

From the publisher's blurb:

Iconic Russian writer Anton Chekhov is recognized as the most translated and produced playwright in the world after William Shakespeare―that is, he is the most produced and most highly regarded modern playwright in English translation. Chekhov’s style models our behaviors and aspirations in alluring and intricate ways, unmatched in playwriting. His plays determined Realism in language and acting practice from the late 19th century to the present. Acting Chekhov in Translation: 4 Plays, 100 Ways explores the history of translation, contemporary and controversial approaches to stage translation, the notion of "action" from Aristotle to Adler (and beyond), and Chekhov’s inimitable dramaturgy. English translations, adaptations and versions of The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard are each considered from the actors’ points of view, from the page to the stage.

The nature of stage translation has recently undergone novel and provocative changes: how can someone who does not know the source language adapt or translate a play? It is done frequently, and the outcomes are investigated herein. For the translator as well as practitioners, understanding theatre craft is essential to producing playable and engaging productions. Differences in the language, punctuation, syntax, sound, rhythm, stage directions and what appears on the written page in various translations affect the work of the actor on the playscript.

The purpose of this inquiry is not to definitively evaluate or interpret Chekhov’s plays but to discover approaches to working on plays in translation and to determine practical tools we may use in the analysis of dramatic form, as well as human behavior. This book includes selections from 145 translations and translators of all four plays and a glossary of acting terms that helps describe concepts for practical script analysis.

It was a gathering and celebration that was dramatic and transformative!

Available for Viewing: The State of the Semantic Environment: A Panel Discussion

Wed, 31 Jul 2019 23:01:00 GMT

Alfred Korzybski introduced the terms neuro-semantic and neuro-linguistic, and in conjunction with his emphasis on the organism-as-a-whole-in-an-environment, made reference to the neuro-linguistic and neuro-semantic environment that we inhabit. Following Korzybski's lead, Wendell Johnson introduced the concept of the semantic environment in his classic work on general semantics, People in Quandaries (recently reissued by the Institute of General Semantics).

In January of 2018, we had the rare opportunity of presenting a program consisting entirely of out-of-towners who have converged on New York City to attend the annual Media Ecology Association board meeting, and we continued that practice as we asked them to comment on the state of the semantic environment in 2019, locally and globally.

The participants on this program, held on January 18, 2019, were:

Carolin Aronis, Special Faculty in Communication Studies at Colorado State University and a Discourse, Culture, and Identity lecturer at the University of Colorado, Boulder, studying and teaching about communicative practices that challenge the essence of media, and that contribute to our understanding of communication, intersectionality, and intimacy.

Julia Hildebrand, a Ph.D. candidate in Communication, Culture, and Media at Drexel University, whose research lies at the intersections of critical media studies and mobilities research with a special interest in visual communication and mobile technologies.

Matt Thomas, educated at the University of Southern California and the University of Iowa, where he got his PhD in American Studies, currently teaching and writing in Iowa City.

Edward Tywoniak, Professor of Communication, Director of the W. M. Keck Media Lab and Program Director for the Digital Studies major at Saint Mary’s College of California, Trustee of the Institute of General Semantics, and Immediate Past President of the Media Ecology Association.

And the panel was moderated by NYSGS President Lance Strate, Professor of Communication and Media Studies, Fordham University, Trustee of the Institute of General Semantics, and Editor of Explorations in Media Ecology.

It was a wide-ranging and stately discussion!

Available for Viewing: What is Sanity? And Have We Lost It? A Panel Discussion

Mon, 20 May 2019 20:41:00 GMT

Alfred Korzybski introduced general semantics in his 1933 magnum opus, Science and Sanity. As the title indicates, general semantics is dedicated to the spread and enhancement of sanity, both individually and collectively. As the title also indicates, Korzybski drew on scientific method as the basis of his system, which he characterized as non-aristotelian, because he recognized the logical and psychological problems associated with longstanding forms of thought and language use.

But what, exactly, is sanity? Or more appropriately, what does the term sanity refer to, and how has it been used and misused? The root meaning, derived from the Latin, is associated with health, the same root as sanitary, sanitize, and sanitation, and the same connotation as the saying, being of sound mind and body. It follows that sanity is associated with the concept of mental health.

Sanity is also closely associated with rationality, and mental health with adjustment to reality. In the judicial system, sanity is associated with the ability to understand the consequences of our actions. For Freud and his followers in the psychoanalytic tradition, sanity means being free from or cured of mental illness.

Others view sanity as a social construct that varies from culture to culture, rather than an objective phenomenon. Thomas Szasz famously argued that the concept of sanity is closely associated with social control in his 1961 book, The Myth of Mental Illness.

And while sanity, as a label, is most often applied to individuals, for Gregory Bateson and others who followed his cybernetic, systems-oriented approach, sanity resides in the relationship between individuals, including families and other groups. For Erich Fromm and others, entire societies may be diagnosed as sane or insane, and by extension we could do so for the human race as a whole.

In taking up the question of, what is sanity?, our panel will consider whether there is such a thing or phenomenon as sanity, whether it is possible to identify an objective form of thought and behavior that can be judged as sane, and if so, how are we to recognize it? Is it simply the absence of mental illness or emotional distress, or is there the positive presence of something more? Is sanity something we have, something we are, or something we do?

Further, what is meant by the term sanity, how has the term been used, and what are the appropriate and inappropriate contexts for its use? Also, who uses the term, who ought to use the term, what role does power, be it professional and institutional, political, or symbolic, play in the use of the term?

And, by and large, are we, as individuals in our contemporary culture, still sane, and what can we conclude about the relatively sanity of the groups that we are a part of? Is society as a whole sane by definition, or by diagnosis? Have there been societies in the past that have gone insane? And as a society, do we still have our own sanity? Or have we lost it?

The participants on this program, held on December 19, 2018, were:

Nancy Colier is a psychotherapist, interfaith minister, author, public speaker, mindfulness teacher and relationship coach. A longtime student of Eastern spirituality, mindfulness practices form the ground of her work. She is the author of The Power of Off: The Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World (Sounds True Publishing), Inviting a Monkey to Tea: Befriending Your Mind and Discovering Lasting Contentment (Hohm Press), and Getting Out of Your Own Way: Unlocking Your True Performance Potential (Luminous Press), and a regular blogger for Psychology Today and Huffington Post.

Lori Ramos earned her PhD in Media Ecology from New York University. Her early research and scholarship explored the role of media in shaping conceptions of and attitudes toward literacy. More recently, her interests in communication have evolved to include psychotherapy. She has received an MSW from Fordham University with a focus on clinical social work and also completed EMDR training for trauma therapy. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Media Studies at William Paterson University in New Jersey and a staff therapist at Blanton-Peale Institute and Counseling Center in New York City.

Frederick J. Wertz is Professor of Psychology at Fordham University and Interim Dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center, a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, winner of the 2014 Rollo May Award for independent and outstanding pursuit of new frontiers in humanistic psychology by the APA's Society for Humanistic Psychology. He is co-author of Five Ways of Doing Qualitative Analysis (Guilford Press), editor of The Humanistic Movement (Gardner Press), and co-editor of Advances in Qualitative Psychology (Swets & Zeitlenger), and Carl Jung in the Academy and Beyond: The Fordham Lectures of 1912 (The Spring Press).

The panel was moderated by NYSGS President Lance Strate, Professor of Communication and Media Studies, Fordham University.

It was a healthy and lucid discussion!

Available for Viewing: The Reformed English Curriculum Revisited 2: A Panel Discussion

Sun, 17 Mar 2019 16:20:10 GMT

On January 26th, 2018, we held the first panel discussion on this topic, and promised to follow it up with a second program held on November 28th, 2018, commemorating the 50th anniversary of Neil Postman's formal introduction of the term media ecology. The occasion was the 58th annual meeting of the National Council of Teachers of English, held in Milwaukee on November 29, 1968. Neil Postman gave an address entitled "Growing Up Relevant" as the main part of a program session entitled Media Ecology: The English of the Future. This talk was later published as a book chapter in the anthology, High School 1980: The Shape of the Future in American Secondary Education, edited by Alvin C. Eurich, where it appeared under the title of, The Reformed English Curriculum.

In his 1968 address, Postman introduced media ecology as a field of inquiry that he defined as the study of media as environments. A year later, in Teaching as a Subversive Activity, co-authored by Charles Weingartner, he introduced “the Sapir-Whorf-Korzybski-Ames-Einstein-Heisenberg-Wittgenstein-McLuhan-Et Al. Hypothesis … that language is not merely a vehicle of expression, it is also the driver; and that what we perceive, and therefore can learn, is a function of our languaging processes.” And in conjunction with the 1974 Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture sponsored by the Institute of General Semantics, Postman delivered an address entitled, Media Ecology: General Semantics in the Third Millennium, in which he described media ecology as "general semantics writ large."

This 50th anniversary offered us the opportunity to take up questions such as, what has media ecology and general semantics contributed to the field of education, to teaching and schooling, and what might be contributed in the future? What has media ecology and general semantics contributed to the study of language and the subject of English, and what might be contributed in the future? What can we learn about Neil Postman in particular, and his views on education, communication, and culture? To what extent have things changed over the past half century, and to what extent do they remain the same?

The participants on this program were:

Thom Gencarelli, Professor and Chair of the Communication Department at Manhattan College

Terence P. Moran, Professor of Media Ecology, New York University

Michael Plugh, Professor of Communication at Manhattan College

Madeline Postman, Teacher in the New York City school system for over 20 years, currently teaching at the Corona Arts and Sciences Academy in Queens

and the program was moderated by NYSGS President Lance Strate, Professor of Communication and Media Studies, Fordham University.

It was an instructive and enriching discussion!

Available for Viewing: The 66th AKML & GS Symposium

Thu, 14 Feb 2019 23:11:36 GMT

Recordings from the 66th Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture, and the Language and Meaning in the 21st Century Symposium that followed, are available for viewing on the Institute of General Semantics YouTube channel.

The AKML and symposium, co-sponsored by the New York Society for General Semantics, were held at the Princeton Club in New York City, and featured many NYSGS regulars, as well as a great many out-of-towners, not to mention participants from all around the world.

When this year's regularly scheduled Korzybski Lecturer was forced to withdraw for personal reasons, NYSGS President Lance Strate was asked to deliver the 66th AKML instead. The title of his lecture was, "Amazing Ourselves to Death: Contemplating the Technological Tempest of Our Times". That same evening, October 26th, 2018, NYSGS Board Member Ben Hauck was presented with the J. Talbot Winchell Award. NYSGS Treasurer Martin Levinson and Board Member Thom Gencarelli were among the presenters during the GS symposium that took place on October 27th-28th, 2018.

It was, without a doubt, an intellectually rich and diverse weekend!

Available for Viewing: Political Talk and Political Drama: Election 2018

Thu, 18 Oct 2018 17:51:24 GMT

American politics over the past several years has proven to be highly eventful and highly controversial, rendering the upcoming midterm elections highly consequential. The role of language and the use and misuse of symbols in politics, along with their relation to facts and political realities, have long been a concern for general semantics. Having organized several lively and engaging programs on this topic during and after the 2016 US Presidential election, we were pleased to begin our Fall 2018 programming on October 3rd with a panel discussion that explored current American political discourse with little more than a month to go before the midterm elections that will decide the composition of the US Congress in the coming year.

The participants on this program were:

Arshia Anwer is an Assistant Professor of Communication at Manhattan College, with research interests in the areas of integrated marketing communication, philosophy of communication, religious communication, and intercultural communication. She holds a Ph.D. in Rhetoric and an M.A in Integrated Marketing Communication from Duquesne University, and an M.A. in Psychology from Osmania University in Hyderabad, India. She has worked in the communication and education fields in a variety of marketing communication, editing, and teaching roles.

Thom Gencarelli, Professor and Chair of the Communication Department at Manhattan College, member of the Board of Trustees of the Institute of General Semantics, and the Board of Directors of the NYSGS, and the new editor of ETC: A Review of General Semantics.

Arthur S. Hayes, an Associate Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, is the author of Press Critics are the Fifth Estate: Media Watchdogs in America; Sympathy for the Cyberbully: How the Crusade to Censor Hostile and Offensive Online Speech Abuses Freedom of Expression; and the editor of Communication in the Age of Trump.

The program was moderated by Lance Strate, Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, Trustee of the Institute of General Semantics, and President of the New York Society for General Semantics, as well as author of several books including the award-winning Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition; and Amazing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman's Brave New World Revisited.

It was a compelling and captivating discussion!

Available for Viewing: Tom Wolfe, Man of Letters, Man of Words: A Panel Discussion

Sat, 22 Sep 2018 19:44:36 GMT

On May 14th, the world lost one of its most celebrated, talented, and accomplished authors, Thomas Kennerly Wolfe, Jr., best known simply as Tom Wolfe. Wolfe earned his PhD in American Studies from Yale University in 1957, and worked as a newspaper reporter for a decade, writing for periodicals such as the Washington Post and the New York Herald-Tribune, as well as New York magazine and Esquire.

Wolfe pioneered the use of a personal, literary style in news reporting and feature writing that became known as the New Journalism. A best selling author, his nonfiction works include The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (1965); The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968); The Pump House Gang (1968); Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers (1970); and His Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine (1976). His examination and critique of the contemporary American art scene, The Painted Word (1975), proved to be extremely controversial. His history of the early space program The Right Stuff (1979), was adapted as a feature film by Phillip Kaufman in 1983.

His book, In Our Time (1980), featured his own artwork, while From Bauhaus to Our House (1981), as a follow-up to The Painted Word, took on the topic of American architecture. Wolfe turned novelist with the publication of The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987), which was followed by A Man in Full (1998), I Am Charlotte Simmons (2004), and Back to Blood (2012). Hooking Up (2001) collected several works of his short fiction coupled with several of his essays.

Tom Wolfe was an early promoter of media ecology scholar Marshall McLuhan, famously posing the question, "What if he's right?" in a 1965 essay published in New York magazine, and comparing McLuhan to the likes of Newton, Darwin, Freud, Einstein, and Pavlov. Wolfe's last book, The Kingdom of Speech (2016), a critique of Noam Chomsky's approach to linguistics, was awarded the Institute of General Semantics's S. I. Hayakawa Book Prize at last year's annual Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture, which was co-sponsored by the NYSGS.

Wolfe is credited with coining a number of terms, including the right stuff, radical chic, the Me Decade, good ol' boy, and statusphere. As an author and journalist, he was truly a man of letters, to invoke an old fashioned phrase that fits well with the famous man in a white suit, as he was known. And as a student and scholar of language, art, media, and communication, as well as a writer, interviewer, and raconteur, he most certainly was also a man of words.

On June 27th, 2018, the New York Society for General Semantics honored his contributions, creative and intellectual, and celebrated his achievements with a special panel discussion on select aspects of his career and publications.

The participants on this program were:

Martin Levinson, author of several books on general semantics including a forthcoming new edition of Practical Fairy Tales for Everyday Living, President of the Institute of General Semantics and Treasurer of the New York Society for General Semantics.

Lance Strate, author of several books including the award-winning Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition, Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, Trustee of the Institute of General Semantics, and President of the New York Society for General Semantics.

The program was moderated by Jacqueline Rudig, Treasurer of the Institute of General Semantics, and member of the Board of Directors of the New York Society for General Semantics.

It was a thoughtful and belletristic discussion!

Available for Viewing: Language, Symbol, and the Theatre: A Panel Discussion

Tue, 14 Aug 2018 23:07:02 GMT

General semantics is concerned with the ways in which language and symbols function as representations of our outer environment and our innermost feelings and thoughts. These representations function as maps of our external and internal realities. They help us to understand what we perceive and experience, they guide us in evaluating and navigating our world, and they give us tools for thought and action.

Different representations or maps may be more or less accurate or more or less useful in helping us to achieve certain ends. But different representations or maps may also help us to learn about different aspects of our reality, providing us with different perspectives, and abstracting out of external events different parts of the greater whole. What scientific modes of representation tell us about the world, for example, is quite different from what literary modes reveal, but each one provides us with knowledge that the other cannot.

The theatre is one of our oldest forms of literary expression, one that has an extraordinary influence on our use of language and symbol, from the Attic playwrights of ancient Greece and the introduction of the proscenium arch, and the unparalleled creative production of William Shakespeare in Elizabethan England, to the avant-garde experimentation of Bertolt Brecht in 20th century Germany, and Lin-Manuel Miranda's combination of hip hop and history in the Broadway hit Hamilton.

It follows that it is worth considering questions such as, what is unique to theatre as a mode of representation? What are its advantages and limitations, its problems and potentials? What are the relationships between dramatic performance and language and symbol, spoken and written word, play and script? Importantly, what role can theatre play in helping us to understand our world, in education, in social and political commentary?

Given that programs for the New York Society for General Semantics are held in the historic Players Club, founded by Edwin Booth, the greatest dramatic actor of the 19th century, as a social club "for the promotion of social intercourse between the representative members of the dramatic profession and the kindred professions of literature, painting, sculpture and music, and the patrons of the arts," a panel discussion on theatre was especially appropriate.

The participants on this program were:

Robin Beth Levenson, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at LaGuardia Community College, CUNY, and author of Acting Chekhov in Translation: 4 Plays, 100 Ways (Peter Lang) Publishers, Inc., published in 2018. A graduate of the Media Ecology Doctoral Program at New York University, with an MFA from the University of California at Riverside, her articles have been published in journals such as Dialogues in Social Justice and Communications from the International Brecht Society. Her research explorations include how language influences thought and behavior, and the nature of performance.

Emily Lyon, a Brooklyn-based theatre director and dramaturg who recently created a theatrical piece, How We Hear, inspired by Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death. Her other directing work includes The Summoning (Best Direction, Best Production: sheNYC), Sword & the Stone/The Tempest tour (Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival), The Secret in the Wings (Hedgepig Ensemble), Women of Williams County (Best Ensemble: Manhattan International Theatre Festival), Interior: Panic (FringeNYC), Max Frisch’s The Arsonists (DCTV Firehouse), Some of the Side Effects (Best Premiere: UnitedSolo), and As You Like It (Geva Theatre Directing Fellow).

S. Brian Jones, Director of Operations for The Players, recently completed his masters in the Masters of Applied Theater program at CUNY School of Professional Studies. He has served as a Teacher in Residence and Arts Administrator with schools, regional theatre companies and social service agencies, conducted credential training workshops for teachers with Delaware Institute for Arts in Education, served as an advocate for Arts Education within the educational and government systems, and worked at Foundation Theatre, Freedom Theatre, Delaware Theatre Company, Christina Cultural Arts Center, New Castle County Parks and Recreation, La Jolla Playhouse, Horton Grand Theater, Ensemble Arts Theatre, Creative Management Group, Dorwell Productions, Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services, the 1199 Child Care Corporation, The Artist Playground Theater and Inside Broadway. Most recently, he worked as the Education Programs Manager for the award winning Off-Broadway Company, Epic Theatre Ensemble.

M*** S******* is a New York based actor, director and writer. As a performer, he has appeared on Broadway in the 39 Steps and off Broadway in Small World at 59east59, Checkers at the Vineyard Theatre, Tryst at the Irish Repertory Theatre, As Bees In Honey Drown at the Lucille Lortel Theatre. His directorial work has been seen at The Alley Theatre, the Fulton Opera House, Virginia Stage, the Westport Country Playhouse, Arkansas Repertory Theatre, George Street Playhouse and many others. His play, The Dingdong: or How The French Kiss, an adaptation of Feydau’s Le Dindon, premiered Off Broadway and has played around the country. His adaptation of A Christmas Carol, which he will also direct, premieres this December at Florida Repertory Theatre. Mark is a graduate of Brown University and received his MA in Communication and Media Studies from Fordham University, where he teaches film courses. *Name withheld by request.

It was a lively and dramatic discussion!

Available for Viewing: The Language of Poetry 2

Wed, 11 Jul 2018 01:21:56 GMT

Alfred Korzybski, founder of general semantics, wrote that, "poetry often conveys in a few sentences more of lasting values than a whole volume of scientific analysis" (Science and Sanity, p. 437). He understood that poetic language provides us with a set of tools for understanding, evaluating, and relating to our environment in ways that are different from and complementary to scientific language. Not surprisingly, then, since the start of its publication 75 years ago, the general semantics journal ETC has often featured poetry along with articles on language, perception, communication, and consciousness of abstracting.

On September 28, 2016, the New York Society for General Semantics held its first Language of Poetry session, and we were happy to host our second such program on April 4th, 2018. The program was moderated by Teresa Manzella, a member of the Board of Directors of the NYSGS.

The original readings were prefaced by an Introduction by NYSGS President Lance Strate:

The introduction was followed by a performance by Martin H. Levinson, a member of the Authors Guild, National Book Critics Circle, PEN, and the book review editor for ETC: A Review of General Semantics. He has published nine books and numerous articles and poems. His latest work, a book of poems titled Signal Reactions , is due to be published later this year. He is the president of the Institute of General Semantics and Treasurer of the New York Society for General Semantics.

The performances continued with a reading by Patricia Carragon, an active member of the online poetry group brevitas, the PEN Women’s Literary Workshop, Women Writers in Bloom, and the creative writing workshop Tamarind, and an executive editor for Home Planet News Online. Her latest books are The Cupcake Chronicles (Poets Wear Prada, 2017) and Innocence (Finishing Line Press, 2017). Patricia hosts the Brooklyn-based Brownstone Poets and is the editor-in-chief of its annual anthology.

Next was Lance Strate, President of the New York Society for General Semantics, a Trustee of the Institute of General Semantics, editor of Explorations in Media Ecology, a founder and past president of the Media Ecology Association, and Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University. His book of poetry, Thunder at Darwin Station, was published by NeoPoiesis Press, as was the anthology of poetry and creative work he co-edited with Adeena Karasick, The Medium is the Muse: Channeling Marshall McLuhan. He is the co-editor of several scholarly anthologies, including Korzybski And..., and Taking Up McLuhan's Cause: Perspectives on Media and Formal Causality, and the author of Echoes and Reflections: On Media Ecology as a Field of Study; On the Binding Biases of Time and Other Essay on General Semantics and Media Ecology; Amazing Ourselves to Death: Neil Postman's Brave New World Revisited; and Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition.

And the evening was capped of by performance poet Adeena Karasick, a New York based Canadian poet, performer, cultural theorist and media artist and the author of eight books of poetry and poetics. Her Kabbalistically inflected, urban, Jewish feminist mashups have been described as “electricity in language” (Nicole Brossard), “proto-ecstatic jet-propulsive word torsion” (George Quasha), noted for their “cross-fertilization of punning and knowing, theatre and theory” (Charles Bernstein) "a twined virtuosity of mind and ear which leaves the reader deliciously lost in Karasick's signature ‘syllabic labyrinth’” (Craig Dworkin); “one long dithyramb of desire, a seven-veiled dance of seduction that celebrates the tangles, convolutions, and ecstacies of unbridled sexuality… demonstrating how desire flows through language, an unstoppable flood of allusion (both literary and pop-cultural), word-play, and extravagant and outrageous sound-work.” (Mark Scroggins). Most recently is Checking In (Talonbooks, forthcoming, 2018) and Salomé: Woman of Valor (University of Padova Press, Italy, 2017), the libretto for her Spoken Word opera co-created with Grammy award winning composer, Sir Frank London. She teaches Literature and Critical Theory for the Humanities and Media Studies Dept. at Pratt Institute, is a 2017 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Award recipient and winner of the 2016 Voce Donna Italia award for her contributions to feminist thinking. The “Adeena Karasick Archive” has been established at Special Collections, Simon Fraser University.

But that's not all! As an added bonus, there was time enough for a Question and Answer session:

It was a delightful and exhilarating evening of poetic performance and discussion!

Available for Viewing: Trauma: Semantic Reactions/Reflections/Retentions

Thu, 31 May 2018 00:21:44 GMT

General semantics is concerned with how events translate to perceptions, how they are further modified by the names and labels we apply to them, and how we might gain a measure of control over our own responses, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral.

Trauma can be defined as an event that is experienced as deeply disturbing and distressing. Typically, psychological trauma is distinguished from physical trauma which involves some kind of bodily injury, wound, or harm, although psychological trauma can lead to somatic effects, and physical trauma is often accompanied by its psychological counterpart.

How can we better understand the experience of trauma? What are the roles played by perception, language, and memory in our experience of traumatic events, and their aftereffects? How is trauma recognized, and repressed? What are the therapeutic approaches to coping with trauma? Is it possible for us, as human beings, to prepare ourselves for the possibilities of traumatic encounters?

These and other questions were taken up by our panelists as we discussed a topic that deserves serious consideration. The participants on this program are as follows:

Michelle S. Kramisen has her MA in Literature with a concentration in war literature and trauma theory from State University of New York, New Paltz. Currently based out of New York City, she teaches college writing and research courses including a course this semester on zombies and trauma, at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Her chapter, “Confronting Trauma in the Zombie Apocalypse: Witnessing, Survivor Guilt, and Postmemory,” was recently published in a collection on media studies. She has presented on trauma, war literature, and media studies at conferences around the country.

Lori Ramos earned her PhD in Media Ecology from New York University. Her early research and scholarship explored the role of media in shaping conceptions of and attitudes toward literacy. More recently, her interests in communication have evolved to include psychotherapy and the impact of trauma. She has received an MSW from Fordham University with a focus on clinical social work and also completed EMDR training for trauma therapy. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Media Studies at William Paterson University in New Jersey and a staff therapist at Blanton-Peale Institute and Counseling Center in New York City.

Matthew Butler enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1994, was assigned as a Combat Correspondent and attended the Defense Information School studying basic journalism, photojournalism, and military public relations. He is a combat veteran with deployments to Fallujah, Iraq, Helmond Province, Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa and South America. Matt's decorations include two Meritorious Service Medals, Joint Commendation Medal, three Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medals and two Humanitarian Assistance Medals for response to humanitarian crisis in Djibouti and Kenya on two separate occasions. After retiring from the Marines in 2014, Matt completed his undergraduate degree in Organizational Leadership and is now the Director of Military and Veterans' Services at Fordham University where he assists service members and veterans with transitioning from the military to higher education, supports academic integration, career preparation and planning, health and wellness support, and connecting veterans with mentors, both student veteran mentors, and corporate partners. Matt has hosted panel discussions about PTS and Moral Injuries and continuous to be a strong advocate for veterans. Matt works closely with New York City's Department of Veterans' Services and is Executive Member of Veterans on Campus NYC, a public-private venture to support service members and veterans making the transition to colleges and universities in New York City.

The discussion was moderated by Lance Strate, Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, President of the New York Society for General Semantics, member of the Board of Trustees of the Institute of General Semantics, author of several books including Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition (2017), and On the Binding Biases of Time and Other Essays on General Semantics and Media Ecology (2011), and co-editor of several anthologies including Korzybski And... (2012).

It was a program that tackled a topic of profound significance and concern!

Available for Viewing: The Reformed English Curriculum Revisited: A Panel Discussion

Tue, 20 Feb 2018 18:09:59 GMT

At the 58th annual meeting of the National Council of Teachers of English, held in Milwaukee on November 29, 1968, Neil Postman gave an address entitled "Growing Up Relevant" as the main part of a program session entitled Media Ecology: The English of the Future. This talk was later published as a book chapter in the anthology, High School 1980: The Shape of the Future in American Secondary Education, edited by Alvin C. Eurich, where it appeared under the title of The Reformed English Curriculum.

In conjunction with the 1974 Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture sponsored by the Institute of General Semantics, Postman delivered an address entitled, Media Ecology: General Semantics in the Third Millennium, emphasizing the link between the two. A similar connection was made in the 1969 book he co-authored with Charles Weingartner, Teaching as a Subversive Activity, which introduced “the Sapir-Whorf-Korzybski-Ames-Einstein-Heisenberg-Wittgenstein-McLuhan-Et Al. Hypothesis … that language is not merely a vehicle of expression, it is also the driver; and that what we perceive, and therefore can learn, is a function of our languaging processes.”

Postman's 1968 address marks the formal introduction of the term media ecology, which Postman used as the name for a field of inquiry that he defined as the study of media as environments. As this year marks the 50th anniversary of that talk, it seemed only fitting to revisit "The Reformed English Curriculum," and the equally seminal, "Media Ecology: General Semantics in the Third Millennium," as our first NYSGS event of 2018. What can we learn about the history of media ecology as a field, its relation to general semantics, to the study of language and the subject of English? What can we learn about Neil Postman in particular, and his views on education, communication, and culture? To what extent have things changed over the past half century, and to what extent do they remain the same?

We had the rare opportunity of presenting a program consisting entirely of out-of-towners who have converged on New York City to attend the annual Media Ecology Association board meeting. The participants on this program were:

Stephanie Bennett, Professor of Communication and Media Ecology and Fellow for Student Engagement at Palm Beach Atlantic University in South Florida, and author of the Within the Walls trilogy, which employs fiction to explore the future of digital media, relationship sustainability, and community.

Fernando Gutiérrez, head of the Division of Humanities and Education at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (State of Mexico Campus), and author and co-editor of several titles about media.

Paolo Granata, holder of the Marshall McLuhan and Print Culture professorship at St. Michael’s College in the University of Toronto, after spending 15 years at the University of Bologna, Italy, and author of Arte in Rete; Arte, Estetica e Nuovi Media; Mediabilia; and Ecologia dei Media.

and moderating the discussion, Edward Tywoniak, Professor of Communication, Director of the W. M. Keck Media Lab and Program Director for the Digital Studies major at Saint Mary’s College of California, Trustee of the Institute of General Semantics, editor of ETC: A Review of General Semantics, and President of the Media Ecology Association.

It was a program that was both intriguing and unique!

Available for Viewing: Play, Learning, and Language: A Panel Discussion

Tue, 02 Jan 2018 20:20:53 GMT

General semantics has long been concerned with the uses, misuses, and abuses of language. As the primary form of human symbolic communication, language is a tool through which we learn about our environment, make sense of our surroundings, evaluate and act upon our world. Language is the foundation of human intelligence and time-binding, our capacity for learning, both individually and collectively.

The processes of learning and education are also among our most central concerns. Over the years, leading educationists such as Neil Postman, Ashley Montagu, and Jerome Bruner have been associated with general semantics. And that should come as no surprise since general semantics represents an educational movement in its own right, one devoted to incorporating the benefits of the scientific method to human relations, improving our methods of evaluation and understanding, and maximizing human potential.

Early in the 20th century, play was recognized as an important part of our learning processes, one that is closely connected to our capacity for symbol use, language learning, and cognitive and emotional development. The role of play and creativity in education has gained increasingly greater emphasis in recent decades, along with greater interest in the interactions and interdependencies among speech and language, literacy and media, and art and play, as they all relate to learning.

On our December 6th program, our panelists discussed the relationships between play, learning, and language, and these related topics. The participants were:

Robert Albrecht, Professor of Media Arts at New Jersey City University, author of Mediating the Muse: A Communications Approach to Music, Media, and Cultural Change (2004), and a musician and songwriter, his two CDs are A Tale of Two Cities (2012), consisting of original songs about Jersey City and Hoboken, andSong of the Poet (2008), consisting of poems by Walt Whitman, Edgar Allen Poe, and others set to music. He is currently co-authoring a book tentatively entitled, The Arts as Pedagogy in the Age of Digital Technology: Teaching as a Creative Activity.

Margaret M. Cassidy, Professor and Chair of Communications at Adelphi University and Past President of the New York State Communication Association, author of BookEnds: The Changing Media Environment of American Classrooms (2004), and the recently published Children, Media, and American History: Printed Poison, Pernicious Stuff, and Other Terrible Temptations (2017).

Michael Plugh, Professor of Communication at Manhattan College, Immediate Past President of the New York State Communication Association, Internet Officer and Executive Board member of the Media Ecology Association, and member of the New York Society for General Semantics Board of Directors, currently researching innovative initiatives in schooling.

The discussion was moderated by Lance Strate, Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, Past President of the New York State Communication Association, Editor of Explorations in Media Ecology and Executive Board member of the Media Ecology Association, member of the Board of Trustees of the Institute of General Semantics, President of the New York Society for General Semantics, author of several books including Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition (2017), and On the Binding Biases of Time and Other Essays on General Semantics and Media Ecology (2011), and co-author of several anthologies including Taking Up McLuhan's Cause: Perspectives on Media and Formal Causality(2017) and Korzybski And... (2012).

It was a program that was most certainly elucidating and enlightening!

Available for Viewing: Dark Nets and Disruptive Practices: A Lecture by Thom Gencarelli

Tue, 05 Dec 2017 19:12:16 GMT

Last year, Thom Gencarelli received NYSCA's John F. Wilson Fellow Award, based on his record of scholarship and service. Other scholars previously named as John F. Wilson Fellows include Neil Postman, Gary Gumpert, Dan Hahn, Deborah Borisoff, Susan Drucker, James W. Carey, Lance Strate, Susan B. Barnes, and Brian Cogan. In conjunction with his selection, he delivered this year's John F. Wilson Fellow Lecture on October 13th, at the 75th anniversary meeting of the New York State Communication Association:

"Dark Nets and Disruptive Practices"

All too often, people outside the academic discipline of communication and media studies consider what we do to be little more than a special interest, rather than the study of something that is central to, and one of the primary defining features of, the human experience. As a case in point, the Presidential election of 2016, the most disruptive event of all disruptive events in our contemporary experience in the U.S., can be explained from a media perspective, and an historical one at that. Beginning from Gutenberg’s invention of the mechanical, movable-type printing press and through our contemporary innovations in mobility, social media, and Tor, this presentation argues that all inventions and innovations in media are a disruption, and that the evolution of media by which the citizenry in a democratic society inform themselves can explain, in full, exactly what happened to us in 2016.

On November 3rd, Professor Gencarelli reprised his Wilson Lecture as the main event of our NYSGS program, and following the lecture, as an added bonus, additional reflections, comments, and responses were delivered by MJ Robinson, Professor of New Media and Journalism and Media Studies, Bernard N. Stern Professor of Humor, and Graduate Deputy Chair for the Media Studies MS program in the Department of Television and Radio at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York; Michael Plugh, Professor of Communication at Manhattan College, Immediate Past President of the New York State Communication Association, and Internet Officer and Executive Board member of the Media Ecology Association; and Lance Strate, Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, Past President of the New York State Communication Association, Editor of Explorations in Media Ecologyand Executive Board member of the Media Ecology Association, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Institute of General Semantics, and President of the New York Society for General Semantics.

Thom Gencarelli, Ph.D. (NYU, 1993) is Professor and the founding Chair of the Communication Department at Manhattan College in Riverdale, New York. He is a Past President of the New York State Communication Association, the Media Ecology Association, and New Jersey Communication Association (twice), and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Institute of General Semantics. He researches and writes about media literacy/media education, media ecology, and popular media and culture with an emphasis on popular music. He is co-editor (with Brian Cogan) of Baby Boomers and Popular Culture: An Inquiry into America’s Most Powerful Generation (ABC-Clio/ Praeger, 2014), and is currently at work on a book about language acquisition and cognitive development. Thom is also a songwriter, musician, and music producer, and has released two album-length works with his ensemble bluerace, World is Ready and Beautiful Sky. The group’s third, as yet untitled effort is due out in 2018.

It was a program that most certainly shed light on our contemporary semantic environment!

Available for Viewing: Words, Mind, and Magic: A Talk by Mentalist Marc Salem

Mon, 30 Oct 2017 23:45:14 GMT

On October 8th we hosted a mind-blowing program featuring mentalist Marc Salem. Here's the description:

We all have wished for, at one time or another, the power to read minds and decipher the thoughts of others. And while true ESP may be out of reach, it is possible to interpret clues to what others are thinking, a power that leads to greater success at work, in relationships, and in every aspect of life. The key is to pay attention to aspects of our world that we typically overlook, find the hidden meaning in conversations, negotiations, and personal encounters, and understand the meaning of nonverbal communication.

Marc Salem, aka Professor Moshe Botwinick, holds advanced degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, and New York University, where he earned his PhD studying with Neil Postman, Christine Nystrom, and Terence Moran, and has served as book review editor of ETC: A Review of General Semantics. He has been on the faculty of several major universities, was a director of research at Sesame Street Workshop where he studied the development and nature of mental processes, and is a world-renowned entertainer.

His show, Mind Games, has completed two successful runs on Broadway, as well as the Sydney Opera House, Singapore's Esplanade, London's West End, and the Edinburgh Festival. Salem has been profiled on 60 Minutes, and been featured on Court TV, CNN, The O'Reilly Factor, Montel, and Maury. The New York Police Department, and businesses across the country have turned to Marc Salem for advice.

He is the author of Marc Salem's Mind Games: A Practical Step-By-Step Guide to Developing Your Mental Powers, and The Six Keys to Unlock and Empower Your Mind, Spot Liars and Cheats, Negotiate Any Deal to Your Advantage, Win at the Office, Influence Friends, and Much More, soon to be published in a second edition.

Available for Viewing: Media Ecology and the Human Condition: A Reading and Conversation with Lance Strate

Mon, 02 Oct 2017 23:07:31 GMT

Our first event of Fall 2017, held on September 8th, featured a book launch for Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition (New York: Peter Lang, 2017) by Lance Strate, published on July 4th. Dr. Strate is Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, a Trustee of the Institute of General Semantics, and the President of the New York Society for General Semantics.

Thom Gencarelli, Professor of Communication at Manhattan College and a Trustee of the Institute of General Semantics hosted the event, which included a conversation, discussion, reading, book signing, and reception.

From the publisher's blurb:

Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition provides a long-awaited and much anticipated introduction to media ecology, a field of inquiry defined as the study of media as environments. Lance Strate presents a clear and concise explanation of an intellectual tradition concerned with understanding the conditions that shape us as human beings, drive human history, and determine the prospects for our survival as a species.

This book represents a new synthesis that moves the field forward. Taking as its subject matter "life, the universe, and everything," Strate describes the field as interdisciplinary and communication-centered, provides a detailed explication of McLuhan's famous aphorism, "the medium is the message," and explains that the human condition can only be understood in the context of our biophysical, technological, and symbolic environments.

Strate provides an in-depth examination of media ecology's four key terms: medium, bias, effects, and environment. A chapter on tools serves as a guide to further media ecological research and scholarship

Advance Praise for Media Ecology:

“With characteristic passion and soulfulness, Lance Strate embarks on a metatask: to synthesize thinking about ‘life, the universe and everything’ through the lens of media ecology. In the process, he locates media ecology as the dynamic shift between figure and ground and as the basis for ‘understanding the human condition.’ Writing with an almost disarming ease that belies the complexity of the ideas he communicates, Strate brilliantly and reflexively mediates media ecology itself, bringing clarity to the Kekulé-like conundrums of an immense and increasingly relevant field. Anyone who thoughtfully enters and engages the environment of Strate’s book will be rewarded with moments of profound clarity, connecting ideas typically viewed as disparate or oppositional into patterns of deep understanding about media ecology―and about the process of living.”―Julianne H. Newton, Professor of Visual Communication, University of Oregon

“Lance Strate’s synthetic thinking opens up media ecology, allowing the reader to see how, as a field of inquiry, it applies to everything from language, media, and philosophy to our very understanding of what it means to be human living in a dynamic environment.”―Paul Soukup, Professor and Chair, Department of Communication, Santa Clara University

“Lance Strate asks big questions―and provides a myriad of perceptive answers. This book is at once playful, poetic, and precise. The clear writing about complex ideas is a pleasure to read and offers many gifts of understanding.”―Joshua Meyrowitz, University of New Hampshire

It was a gathering and celebration that was most certainly stimulating and thought-provoking!

Articles on Experimental Narratives Free to Access for Month of Oct.

Mon, 02 Oct 2017 17:45:12 GMT

A special issue of the Journal of Romance Studies (Volume 16, Number 1, 2016) on the topic of Experimental Narratives has been made freely accessible for the month of October. The issue, edited by Dr. Emanuela Patti, presently on the faculty of Royal Holloway, University of London.

The contents of the issue are as follows:

"Readers’ Experience in Experimental Narratives," Emanuela Patti
"Choosing is Not an Option (But a Necessity)," Sabine Zubarik
"Gameplay Literature," William Docherty Halbert
"From Page to Screen/From Screen to Page," Emanuela Patti
"LIMITE Unbound," Erika Fülöp
"Sites of Uncertainty," Kristin Veel
"Hive Minds," Giulia Iannuzzi

To access the issue, click on the link.

Available for Viewing: Between Map and Territory: The Art of the Tour Guide

Wed, 09 Aug 2017 00:25:21 GMT

On April 26th, we hosted a fascinating program featuring a conversation with New York City tour guides. The panel discussion featured the following participants:

Matthew Baker, owner of Beautiful New York Tours, past president of the Guides Association of New York City, and newsletter editor for the National Federation of Tourist Guide Associations.

Ibrahima Diallo, owner of All New York Fun, chairman of the GANYC Multilingual Guides Committee, and leader of the organization's delegation to Iran in a bid to host the 2019 convention for the World Federation of Tourist Guide Associations.

Robin Garr, owner of R. Garr Tours, specializing in Equestrian New York, and tours that focus on sports history, racing history, and natural history, in addition to other more mainstream topics, and a member of the GANYC Awards Committee and Public Relations Committee.

Lee Gelber, dubbed "the Dean of Guides" by the New York Times, a past-president of GANYC, and owner of Here Is New York Tours, and, after 23 years of guiding, recipient of the inaugural Guiding Spirit Award at the annual Apple Awards gala.

Kristin Singleton-Ferrari, the owner of Kristin's Tours and A Brooklyn Experience, giving tours in English and Italian, and a member of the GANYC Awards Committee and Public Relations Committee.

Matt Baker served as the moderator of the panel, following a brief introduction by NYSGS president Lance Strate. And here is the program description:

Between Map and Territory

The Art of the Tour Guide

Alfred Korzybski, founder of the discipline of general semantics, famously insisted that the map is not the territory. This saying serves to remind us that words are not the things they represent, symbols are not the reality they stand for, and our perceptions of objects in our environment are not the same as the events that actually occur in the world.

The map is not the territory, but any given map may be a more or less accurate representation of any given territory, and may be more or less useful and effective in helping us to understand, experience, and navigate through that territory. Maps are visual representations, mediating the territory by way of hand drawn illustration, printed document, or electronic display.

Maps are guides that take us through a territory, and it seems only fitting to feature the human maps known as tour guides in a program that allows them to discuss their art, craft and trade. More than a living map, a tour guide is a performer, a storyteller and raconteur, a fusion of navigator and narrator.

It was an all-star panel of tour guides talking about the ways in which they present and represent that unique terrain we call New York City.

Available for Viewing: Systems, Contexts, Frames and Patterns: A Reading and Conversation With Nora Bateson

Thu, 04 May 2017 22:13:35 GMT

On March 29th filmmaker, author, and educator Nora Bateson journeyed to New York City all the way from Sweden to join us for conversation, discussion, and readings from her recently published book, Small Arcs of Larger Circles: Framing Through Other Patterns, and a book signing. We were honored to be able to host this very special event, moderated by NYSGS President Lance Strate.

Here is more of the description of that evening's program:

Systems, Contexts, Frames, and Patterns

A Reading and Conversation With Nora Bateson

Nora Bateson brings an ecological and cybernetic approach to the problems we face, individually and globally, in the ways that we understand and interact with our world. Drawing on the famous map and territory metaphor that is central to general semantics, she emphasizes the need to to change our ways of thinking, and perceiving, and engaging with each other, and the environment we share.

Her award-winning documentary, An Ecology of Mind, focuses on the life and thought of her father, Gregory Bateson, a pioneer in systems theory, information theory, and complexity, as it relates to culture, psychology, and biology (his father, William Bateson, coined the term genetics). Carrying on in this tradition, Nora Bateson gives lectures and workshops worldwide, and founded the International Bateson Institute, based in Sweden, which she serves as President.

Joy E. Stocke, in Wild River Review, states that, "Bateson brings her gifts of language and storytelling to fruition in her new book of essays and poems... as she explores her father's and grandfather's work in the context of her life as a writer and researcher, as well as the world each of us navigates as part of a larger whole."

David Lorimer, in Network Review, describes Small Arcs of Larger Circles as, "a rich feast with poetry, short reflections and more extended pieces introducing the terms transcontextuality and symmathesy," and concludes that "this seminal book will give you a new relational lens on life."

It was by all accounts an evening that was thought-provoking, enlightening, and inspiring.

Available for Viewing: Science Fiction, Language, and General Semantics

Wed, 12 Apr 2017 18:17:32 GMT

Our March 1st program on the theme of Science Fiction, Language, and General Semantics was wide-ranging and fascinating, with participants that included science fiction writers and critics. The panel consisted of

Marleen S. Barr, Science Fiction Critic and Novelist

Paul Levinson, Past President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and Novelist

Lance Strate, NYSGS President and Professor of Communication and Media Studies, Fordham University

Ed Tywoniak, Editor of ETC: A Review of General Semantics and Professor of Communication, Saint Mary's College of California

We were especially pleased that Professor Tywoniak was able to join us, traveling all the way from the west coast to take part in the discussion.

And here is the description of the program:

Science Fiction, Language,

and General Semantics

Science fiction has long been associated with spaceships, alien beings, futuristic technologies, and the like. But the genre has also provided an opportunity to speculate about the future of human consciousness, about modes of perception and communication, and about language and symbols.

Not surprisingly, general semantics, as a discipline based on applying a scientific approach to thought and action, has influenced science fiction in a number of ways. Science fiction writers such as A.E. van Vogt, Robert Heinlein, and Frank Herbert were familiar with general semantics and incorporated concepts learned from Alfred Korzybski and S.I. Hayakawa into their novels and short stories. Through them, the influence of general semantics spread to the fiction of Philip K. Dick, and the films of George Lucas. Moreover, novelists William S. Burroughs and L. Ron Hubbard were students of general semantics, while a fictional (and less than flattering) version of the Institute of General Semantics appears in the Jean Luc-Godard film, Alphaville.

More generally, questions concerning language, meaning, and consciousness have been incorporated into science fiction narratives, for example the presence of Jean Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation in The Matrix, references to Julian Jaynes in HBO's remake of Westworld, and in the problematic nature of translation in stories such as Samuel R. Delaney's Babel-17, Stanslaw Lem's His Master's Voice, and the recent film, Arrival.

Clearly, this is a topic for discussion that is, in many ways, out of this world.

Available for Viewing: Post-Truth, Alternate Facts, & Fake News

Sun, 05 Mar 2017 16:44:37 GMT

On February 8th, we held a panel discussion on the theme of post-truth, alternate facts, and fake news, all subjects of great interest within the discipline of general semantics, and issues that general semantics can help to solve. These three relatively recent coinages may be viewed as symptoms of a larger concern that our culture is in crisis, making this particular topic especially vital to try to understand.

Participants on this background hailed from a variety of backgrounds, making for an especially lively and insightful discussion about science, journalism, philosophy, and language. Here is the list of panelists:

Babette Babich, Professor of Philosophy, Fordham University

Peter Brown, Science Writer and former Editor-In-Chief of The Sciences, and Natural History, and member of Scientific American's Editorial Board.

Katherine Fry, Professor of Media Studies and Chair of the Department of Television and Radio, Brooklyn College, City University of New York

Paul Thaler, Professor of Communications, Adelphi University

Moderator: Lance Strate, NYSGS President & Professor of Communication & Media Studies, Fordham University

And here is the description of the program:

Post-Truth, Alternate Facts, & Fake News:

Our Culture in Crisis

On November 8th of last year, Election Day in the United States, Oxford Dictionaries announced its word of the year: post-truth. The selection represents a response to both the American presidential election campaign and Great Britain's Brexit vote.

Over the past year, the phrase fake news has also been frequently invoked, especially in regard to online communications and social media.

On January 22nd of this year, Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway used the phrase alternate facts during a Meet the Press interview.

Modern science and journalism both are based on the ideal of objectivity, that we can gather data about our environment, examine the evidence available to us, and evaluate facts and claims regarding reality. General semantics is based on the understanding that scientific method can be applied to human communication, thought, and action, to the benefit of individuals, and humanity as a whole.

There is nothing new, however, about the idea that we have lost all sense of cultural coherence, that we are subject to all manner of Orwellian doublespeak, or that public discourse has been trivialized by an emphasis on sensation and amusement.

But, have we turned a corner over the past year, as the emergence of terminology like post-truth, alternate facts, and fake news might seem to suggest? Have we reached a crisis point in our culture regarding the role of rationality and reality-testing? Are we on the verge of the kind of dystopian society commonly depicted in so many of our recent young adult novels?

Or is there hope? And are there ways of coping and strategies for fighting for the future that can be adopted by writers, journalists, educators, and citizens?

Available for Viewing: Music-Lyrics-Language: Bob Dylan and the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature

Mon, 19 Dec 2016 21:50:02 GMT

On November 30th, we held a panel discussion and debate on the topic of Bob Dylan being awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature. The panel, organized and moderated by Thom Gencarelli, featured a wide-ranging discussion that included multiple intersections with the discipline of general semantics. Here are the details of the program:

Music-Lyrics-Poetry-Language:

A Conversation about Bob Dylan

and his 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature

On Thursday, October 13, 2016, the Swedish Academy announced that it had awarded Bob Dylan its Nobel Prize in Literature “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.” While Dylan’s lack of acknowledgment and acceptance of the award until two weeks later raised controversy, this paled in comparison to the controversy raised right away as pundits in the professional media and across social media weighed in: He deserves it. He doesn’t deserve it. Popular songs aren’t literature. Lyrics aren’t poetry. If the Academy’s prize for literature is expanded to include popular song, is Dylan the only deserving songwriter? Is he the most deserving? Et cetera.

This roundtable discussion seeks to address, make sense of, and try to come to some conclusions with respect to all of this ruckus. The participants will consider questions including: What is the relationship of lyrics to poetry? What is the symbiotic relationship between lyrics and music in popular song? Is poetry literature? Are popular songs literature? What is the meaning and significance of the Nobel Prize, or any award for that matter? What is the significance of Bob Dylan? What is the literary value of his lyrics? What is so new and distinctive about his “poetic expressions” and use of language? And is everything important about Dylan and his contribution simply a matter of language?

Finally…does he deserve it?

Panel participants:

Thom Gencarelli, Professor of Communication, Manhattan College
Callie Gallo, English Department Teaching Fellow, Fordham University
Sal Fallica, Professor of Media Ecology, New York University
Lance Strate, NYSGS President & Professor of Communication & Media Studies, Fordham University

Available for Viewing: Performances from The Language of Poetry

Thu, 15 Dec 2016 22:20:11 GMT

On September 28, 2016 a crowd of over 100 people came to listen and watch over the course of the evening, as the New York Society for General Semantics joined forces with the Poetry at the Players group for a program of poetic performance.

Following an hour of dramatic readings of poems from the past in the tradition of the Poetry at the Players group, the NYSGS hosted a series of readings of original poetry on the part of David Linton, Martin Levinson, Lance Strate, and Adeena Karasick.

The original readings were prefaced by an Introduction by NYSGS President Lance Strate:

The introduction was followed by a performance by David Linton of Marymount Manhattan College:

The performances continued with a reading by Institute of General Semantics President, Martin Levinson:

Lance Strate followed with several poems of his own:

And the evening was capped of by performance poet Adeena Karasick:

Of course, there's no substitute for being there, but we are grateful to have a record and a recording of what was, by all accounts, an extremely successful event, and an amazing night of poetry on themes closely connected to general semantics.

Available for Viewing: Political Talk and Political Drama Part 2

Thu, 03 Nov 2016 22:19:05 GMT

Our first panel discussion on Election 2016 was so well received, we decided to host another one after the televised debates were completed. This second program was held on October 26th, and featured Sal Fallica, Professor of Media Ecology, New York University; Robin Levenson, Professor of Communication Studies, LaGuardia Community College; Terence P. Moran, Professor of Media Ecology, New York University; and moderated by NYSGS President Lance Strate, Professor of Communication and Media Studies, Fordham University.

The program is now available for viewing on YouTube through the following link: Political Talk and Political Drama: Election 2016 Part 2, and below:

&amp;amp;lt;span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;font style="font-size: 18px;" color="#790000"&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;/font&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;font style="font-size: 18px;" color="#790000"&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;/font&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;font style="font-size: 18px;" color="#790000"&amp;amp;gt;Look for a post-mortem panel in the spring, and more postings in the near future!&amp;amp;lt;/font&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;font style="font-size: 18px;" color="#790000"&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;/font&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;font style="font-size: 18px;" color="#790000"&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;/font&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;gt;

And look for a post-mortem program in the spring, and more postings in the near future!

Available for Viewing: Political Talk & Political Drama Part 1

Wed, 02 Nov 2016 19:23:04 GMT

Held in celebration of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the New York Society for General Semantics, a panel discussion on the presidential election campaign entitled "Political Talk and Political Drama: Election 2016" took place on September 9th, 2016, and featured Terence P. Moran, Professor of Media Ecology, New York University; Susan J. Drucker, Professor of Journalism, Media Studies and Public Relations, Hofstra University; Paul Levinson, Professor of Communication and Media Studies, Fordham University; and Marvin Kitman, author, humorist, and critic. The panel was moderated by NYSGS President Lance Strate, Professor of Communication and Media Studies, Fordham University.

The program is now available for viewing on YouTube through the following link: Political Talk & Political Drama Part 1: Election 2016, and below:

A second panel discussion on the election was held more recently, and will be made available in the near future. Stay tuned!

New Resources Available!

Thu, 18 Aug 2016 00:07:49 GMT

Have you taken a look at our Links and Resources page yet? If not, why haven't you? And if you have, have you checked it out lately? We've added some new items to our Resources Available on This Site box that we are happy to make available to you.

This being a presidential election year in the US, we thought it appropriate to include Terence P. Moran's ETC article, "POLITICS 1984: That's Entertainment". Moran's analysis influenced Neil Postman's discussion of politics in his best known work, Amusing Ourselves to Death, and remains relevant for politics in 2016.

The topic of race remains one of the most important controversies and concerns in the US, which is why we decided to include "TWO ARTICLES ON 'RACE'" by the anthropologist Ashley Montagu, published in ETC back in 1944. This also serves as a reminder of the significant role that general semantics has played in education regarding stereotypes and prejudice.

As a follow-up to our previous post, We Mourn the Passing of Past President Allen Flagg, we are also including "An Interview with Allen Flagg" by Martin Levinson, published in ETC in 2006, and "'The World in Quandaries' Symposium," a report by Ben Hauck published in ETC in 2007.

Finally, we are pleased to make available a rare and lovely essay by Christine Nystrom that continues to generate great interest, "Literacy as Deviance," published in ETC in 1987.

Please let us know if you find these resources useful, and if you'd like to see more!

NYSGS Meet-Up Notes

Tue, 07 Jun 2016 16:17:53 GMT

Members of the NYSGS community gathered at The Player's Club on the evening of Thursday, June 2nd, 2016 to meet and celebrate the beginning of a new program for the organization.

Around 30 friends of NYSGS came together to share food and drink, and to hear remarks from the current president, Lance Strate, as he announced a regular series of events for the Fall. Dr. Strate offered warm remembrances of NYSGS past-president Allen Flagg, who had passed away a few nights earlier, and opened the floor to friends to share their memories, including Cynthia Dantzic, Michael Fandal, Bob Larick, NYSGS Secretary and IGS Trustee Jacqueline Rudig, and NYSGS Treasurer and IGS President Martin Levinson.

At the close of the evening, Dr. Strate led a number of people on a short tour of The Players Club, including a visit to founder Edwin Booth's carefully preserved quarters, and a close look at his "life mask," dated 1864. It was a wonderful introduction to NYSGS's new home in the Gramercy Park neighborhood of Manhattan, and we look forward to our next meeting.

We Mourn the Passing of Past President Allen Flagg

Mon, 30 May 2016 23:12:21 GMT

The New York Society for General Semantics mourns the passing of our Past President, Allen Flagg.

Allen was President of the NYSGS for many years, and remained a member of the NYSGS Board of Directors, as well as a Trustee of the Institute of General Semantics, and an officer of the Friends of the Institute of Noetic Sciences.

IGS President and NYSGS Treasurer Martin Levinson commented, "Allen was a true Renaissance man and a kind and thoughtful person. He will be greatly missed by those of us in the general semantics community. The world is poorer for his absence."

Allen Flagg was the recipient of the J. Talbot Winchell Award "in recognition of his lifelong service, accomplishments and time-binding efforts" at the 56th Annual Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture, November 14, 2008, at The Princeton Club, 15 W. 43rd Street, New York City.

For me and for many others, and for many, many years, Allen Flagg was the New York Society for General Semantics. He was an inspiration, I am very much saddened by his loss, and one of the main reasons I took on the presidency of the NYSGS was to carry on his legacy.

Alive and Well in New York!

Thu, 05 May 2016 23:30:04 GMT

A Message from Lance Strate, President of the New York Society for General Semantics

What an honor and a thrill it has been for me to take on the role of President of the New York Society for General Semantics at the start of this year!

A great deal of work has been going on behind the scenes to get this organization back up and running, and we are looking forward to some exciting programs as we move forward.

The NYSGS has for many years offered a variety of thought-provoking, mind-expanding, intellectually stimulating, not to mention entertaining, and yes, even spiritually uplifting events, and I intend to uphold that tradition.

We have arranged to hold our events at The Players Club in Gramercy Park, a site that is historic and hospitable, and will undoubtedly help us to unleash the creative potential of our non-aristotelian approach.

We will also continue our long association with the Institute of General Semantics, including our co-sponsorship of the annual Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture and Symposium.

Please be sure to fill out the subscription form on our home page so we can send you updates about our upcoming events, news, resources, etc. And join us for the next phase in the history of NYSGS.

I'd like to close with a word of appreciation to the other NYSGS officers, Vice-President George Barenholtz, Secretary Jackie Rudig, and Treasurer Marty Levinson, as well as to past president Barry Chase, and especially to long time past president Allen Flagg, whose many years of service and enduring dedication has been an inspiration to us all!

And with that, I will end this introductory post, asking only that you stay tuned, we've only just begun!