Heard Reading: Recent Titles

Where some centuries seem to start before their calendar date (think, for example, of the "Long Eighteenth Century"), Peter Sloterdijk, Professor of Philosophy and Media Theory at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design, proposes that the twentieth century actually began late, on April 22, 1915, with a German gas attack against the French in Ypres. But Sloterdijk's point is less historical than cultural-philosophical. Gas, nuclear, and potential ionospheric attacks, all made possible by the design capabilities and technologies of modernity, constitute what he calls "atmoterrorism," assaults on the environment which also bring that environment -- and our dependence on it -- to our consciousness ("explicate" it) in ways that were not evident before. Modern art (at least beginning with Surrealism) turns out, in the author's view, to look suspiciously like atmoterrorism, particularly in its attack on unquestioned assumptions (those of the bourgeoisie, in this case). Where does Sloterdijk leave us? Wherever it is, it's unsettling -- and there doesn't seem to be any way back to our lost innocence (such as it was).

Reading text online is incredibly common these days, and questions about what we gain and lose by turning away from print continue to be raised. Of course, we do not face an either/or decision. Naomi Baron, a linguistics professor at American University in Washington, D.C., uses interviews with university students in the U.S, Germany, and Japan, as well as data compiled from other researchers around the world, to explore attitudes and preferences about interacting with print and online materials. We learn about reading on the prowl and continuous reading; the evolution of different kinds of texts over time; social reading; multitasking; and so on. The author ends up offering a prescription for reading in a digital world; but whether you agree with her recommendations or not, her findings and reflections indicate that, as we change our reading practices, how we read can effect change in us. Or, one might say, we become as we read.

If you're excited -- or appalled -- by the prospect of Jurassic Park coming to life in a neighborhood near you, Beth Shapiro is here to ratchet down the excitement (or calm the concern) with a significant dose of the realities behind "resurrecting" extinct creatures. The author, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, walks step-by-step through what it would take to make the dead live again. Along the way, we learn about cloning; the difficulties in dealing with ancient DNA; somatic cell nuclear transfer; back-breeding; and many other things. One of the central threads that runs through the book is Shapiro's conviction that "ecological resurrection, and not species resurrection," is the point of the work she and others are engaged in: "We should think of de-extinction not in terms of which life form we will bring back, but what ecological interactions we would like to see restored." Whether you're enthusiastic about or opposed to her vision -- or whether you hold a position somewhere in between -- your grasp of the issues will be enriched by reading this book.

In this richly illustrated volume, Robin Jensen and Patout Burns (and their collaborators) introduce readers to a world likely to be unfamiliar to many. Augustine is perhaps the best-known individual they treat, but how many people think of him as an African Christian (which he was)? Tertullian and Cyprian are also major figures, and the authors discuss these three authors' views on such topics as baptism, the Eucharist, the clergy, Christian life and death, and so on. But this is more than a textually oriented study: the results of archaeological excavations are incorporated in the discussions -- and in more than 100 photographs and diagrams. Jensen and Burns remind us that there's more to early Christianity than Europe and Asia -- and they do so in a way that's unlikely to be surpassed for some time.

To learn more about this book, listen to an interview with the authors.

What is the meaning of life? Todd May thinks that might be the wrong question. Rejecting Aristotelian and religious answers but also unwilling to settle for Camus' view of ultimately fruitless attempts to find meaning in a silent universe, May proposes that the living out of what he calls narrative values (e.g., steadfastness, intensity) might be what makes life meaningful. In developing his argument, May discusses the relationship between meaning and happiness and how narrative values are similar to, but also differ from, moral and aesthetic values. While all lives are worthy, some lives, he argues, are more worth living -- and what makes life worth living is something we humans need to work out on our own.