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Saturday 18 February 2017

DR. CLAIRE BIRCHALL: SUBJECTIVITY AND CONSPIRACY THEORY




                                                                       



                            DR. CLAIRE BIRCHALL  KING'S COLLEGE LONDON

                                                CONSPIRACY THEORY (Wiki)




Clare Birchall at King's College London describes conspiracy theory as a "form of popular knowledge or interpretation".[b] By acquiring the title 'knowledge', conspiracy theory is considered alongside more 'legitimate' modes of knowing.[c] The relationship between legitimate and illegitimate knowledge, Birchall claims, is far closer than common dismissals of conspiracy theory would have us believe.[25] Other popular knowledge might include alien abduction narratives, gossip, some new age philosophies, religious beliefs, and astrology.

MY  QUESTION: Might it be possible to place subjective probabilities on the possible truth of particular conspiracy theories? These can be regarded as imaginative hypotheses.

                                                     Selected Publications

                                                         
  •  ‘Between Transparency and Secrecy’, Theory, Culture & Society, Volume 28, Nos. 7-8, December 2011.
  • ‘The Secret Issue’, Cultural Studies, Volume 21, No.1 January 2007.
  • ‘Data.gov-in-a-box: Delimiting Transparency’, European Journal of Social Theory 18(2) March 2015.
  •  ‘Aesthetics of the Secret’, New Formations 83, January 2015: 25-46.
  •  ‘Radical Transparency?’, Cultural Studies <=> Critical Methodologies 14(1), February 2014: 77-88.


                                                   RESEARCH PORTAL


                                                   DATA GOES POP (Video)
                                                             

Saturday 11 February 2017

LAPSUS SCRIPTORUM, A POEM BY JAMES L.S. CARTER



                                                     LAPTUS SCRIPTORUM 


                          The clock ticks once a minute, slowly


                           My muse has gone.

                           She disappeared one afternoon.

                           Along with my specs

                           But I found my specs again:

                           My muse has gone.

  
                            I found my specs again

                            After steps retrace

                            I remembered where I had left them

                            When I came back to the place

                            I had originally forgotten.


                            I had suffered sudden lapsus memoriae (a)

                            It happens more and more nowadye

                            Along with lapsus  scriptoris (b)

                             Lapsus calami (c)

                             Lapsus pabuli (d)

                             Lapsus crumenae (e)

                             And lapsus mentis (f)


                             Five ticks go by in five seconds


                             Pabulum calami (g)
       
                             Crumena mentis (h)


                              It is not only my money-bag which is all the time lapsing;

                              So are my scrotum and adjacent thingie.

                              A male menopause,

                              More or less.

                               I feel as if I am losing my place

                               At the universe table.

                               My hold on things is unsure,

                               My grasp uncertain.

                               Footsteps  falter, waver, haver.

                               Mind verges on the brink,

                               The threshold; horizons near and far-

                               Spirit hovers over the void, the abysm---

                                            hovers

                                                            over----




                     KEY TO LATIN WORDS AND PHRASES

                               (a) memory lapse

                               (b) writer's block

                               (c) typing dyspraxia

                               (d) hiatus in the diet

                               (e) shortage of cash, 'fall of the money-bag'

                               (f) mental breakdown

                               (g) food for the pen, food for thought 

                               (h) money for the brain, ibid food for thought 



                            Copyright   James L.S. Carter February 2017

                                              Edinburgh, Scotland