I have an essay on Nietzsche, Socrates and Jesus – with a glance at Dostoevsky – on pages 8-9 of La Lettura (no. 451) in today's Corriere della Sera (19 July 2020). Translated by a brilliant young scholar, Matteo Stettler.
Category: Essays
New TLS essay, “A world like a Russian novel”
My new essay on Nietzsche, Socrates and Jesus - with a glance at Dostoevsky - is up at the TLS.
“Data! Data! Data!” in Turkish
I am delighted that my TLS essay on Sherlock Holmes & the rise of AI has been done into Turkish at Düşünbil Portal. Read “Data! Data! Data!” here. It begins: "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’nin danışman dedektif Sherlock Holmes’ü okuyucuyla ilk kez buluşturduğu kitabı Kızıl Dosya’nın ilk sahnelerinde tekinsiz bir şeyler var. Yer, geç Viktorya dönemi Londra’sı. Conan Doyle: '…İmparatorluğun… Continue reading “Data! Data! Data!” in Turkish
“Unfortunate Galilean” in the TLS
I have an essay in this week's TLS on the Passion poems of George & Zbigniew Herbert. "In 1984, the Manhattan Review published a translation of Zbigniew Herbert’s poem, 'In the Margin of a Trial'. The trial in question was Jesus’s, and what Herbert sketched in its margin was a muted condemnation of the late-Soviet machinery of justice.… Continue reading “Unfortunate Galilean” in the TLS
“Postnatural Intelligence” in First Things
I have an essay, "Postnatural Intelligence," in the new issue of First Things (Feb. 2019) - on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), the arc of modern philosophy, & the rise of 'intelligent' technologies. "The novel’s genius is that it shows how the 'modern Prometheus' and his critics can both be right. It may be within our… Continue reading “Postnatural Intelligence” in First Things
New essay – “Data and Detection: Homage to Carlo Ginzburg”
I am looking forward to Carlo Ginzburg's reply to my new essay, “Data and Detection”, which is inspired by his 1979 essay, "Clues". Both are forthcoming in a 2019 collection, Slow Reading and the Shock of Recognition, ed. A. A. Robiglio (University of Cordoba Press).
“Trouble in Paradise” in the Los Angeles Review of Books
"Isn’t it possible – or even, tautological – that many of us feel threatened by the idea of human-like machines precisely because they will be, in certain respects, like humans? Of course, this raises the question of what humans are like ..." In a new essay for The Philosophical Salon (Los Angeles Review of Books), Dusenbury asks… Continue reading “Trouble in Paradise” in the Los Angeles Review of Books
“Data! Data! Data!” in the TLS Online
In a new essay for the TLS, Dusenbury notes the meteoric rise of the term 'data' in the 1890s, & suggests that the figure of Sherlock Holmes can be read as a precursor to IBM's Watson. Read "Data! Data! Data!" online here. Sunil Amoli, "Sherlock Holmes", Watercolour on paper saatchiart.com
“A garden labyrinth” – On Miklos Szentkuthy’s Casanova (Los Angeles Review of Books 2013)
“All That Exists Is the Only True Luxury: Miklós Szentkuthy’s Marginalia on Casanova”, Los Angeles Review of Books (1 May 2013). An excerpt from the author’s typescript is copied below: Marginalia on Casanova is the first English translation of a Hungarian novelist’s “commentary” on the German edition of a French memoir written by a Venetian… Continue reading “A garden labyrinth” – On Miklos Szentkuthy’s Casanova (Los Angeles Review of Books 2013)
“Graceful life” – On Georges Bataille and prehistoric imagery (Pli 2012)
A systematic analysis of Georges Bataille's lectures and essays on prehistoric imagery. For Bataille, it is prehistoric 'imagism' which first dis-identifies human / beast, and, in a subtler but highly suggestive way, male / female. And it is this set of original duplicities which "seems to have been … the basis of all representation”. David… Continue reading “Graceful life” – On Georges Bataille and prehistoric imagery (Pli 2012)
D. L. Dusenbury 