Presumably, it has never been a good time for the humanities. Perhaps because it is simply in the nature of these disciplines to find themselves perpetually in crisis, lagging behind the times, dragging their leaden feet made out of indelible words, asking for more and more time in a civilization perpetually in a rush. They are constantly on the edge of a precipice, but we cannot deny that, while they awkwardly balance on the edge, they do enjoy magnificent views. After all, our fields do not thrive on security, on solid facts, on controlled experiments with measurable outcomes.

To prevent social and ecological disaster, an alternative Prometheanism requires a turn away from power, production and profit towards a new relationship to necessity and the natural world. 

Heard of National Novel Generating Month? Algorithms are being used to create texts not written by humans that are hauntingly beautiful.

The myth of Prometheus has multiple incarnations proposing distinct ideologies of progress. 

Like many of you, I saw James Cameron’s Avatar over the winter break. The film offers a theory of representation based on a genetic (but technologically sealed) connection between a human interloper’s body and an “Avatar,” a modified, organic, native Na’vi body that can be moved by thought via a semi-organic, “plugged in” technological matrix.

Dictation implies a separation between “me” and the writing itself. I had to re-imagine what the writing life would look like. Suddenly I was speaking my text to someone. I was externalizing a step of the process that had been so far silently kept within. We were now two in the room, and at the beginning there was no obvious agreement on what should be typed on the screen.