5.0523 Rs: Movie ID; Eco; Computers in Lit; Maja (6/81)

Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Thu, 12 Dec 1991 18:59:43 EST

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 5, No. 0523. Thursday, 12 Dec 1991.


(1) Date: Wed, 11 Dec 91 18:53 EST (7 lines)
From: <MSWENSON@IUBACS>
Subject: RE: 5.0516 Qs: Academic Movies

(2) Date: Wed, 11 Dec 91 22:08:26 -0500 (14 lines)
From: green3@husc.harvard.edu
Subject: movie ID

(3) Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1991 22:47:12 -0500 (13 lines)
From: harryfox@epas.utoronto.ca (Harry Fox)
Subject: Re: 5.0520 Rs: ... Eco

(4) Date: Thu, 12 Dec 91 16:37:12 EST (9 lines)
From: Joseph Raben <JQRQC@CUNYVM>
Subject: Re: 5.0520 Rs: ... Computers in Lit

(5) Date: Thu, 12 Dec 91 15:32:10 MEZ (19 lines)
From: "Roald A. Zellweger" <RZELLWE@DGOGWDG1>
Subject: More on Abulafia

(6) Date: Thu, 12 Dec 91 18:05 EST (19 lines)
From: "Gilbert Smith" <N567126@NCSUADM.BITNET>
Subject: Naked Maja

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 91 18:53 EST
From: <MSWENSON@IUBACS>
Subject: RE: 5.0516 Qs: Knut Kleve; Academic Movies (2/51)

Could Lorne Hammond's British film be Educating Rita, with Peter O'Toole?
Definitely one of my all-time favorites.
Melinda Swenson, Indiana University
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------23----
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 91 22:08:26 -0500
From: green3@husc.harvard.edu
Subject: movie ID

I once saw half of a movie called Educating Rita (I think it's that one) where
Michael Caine plays a boozing English professor who is more or less saved for
a fruitful academic life by his working-class-accented student -- sort of a
Pgmalian in reverse. Could that be the one you're looking for?

The only thing I remember about the computer in Foucault's Pendulum was that
when the narrator turns it on the screen demands "do you know the password?",
and the only to get into the files is to type "no".

Maria Green
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------28----
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1991 22:47:12 -0500
From: harryfox@epas.utoronto.ca (Harry Fox)
Subject: Re: 5.0520 Rs: AI; Maja; Abulafia; Eco; Computers in Lit (8/137)

Re the backswing of the Pendulum:
But have we mentioned the Ecos of David Niven in 4 star theater (playhouse) who
invented zweinstein, a kind of mammoth thinking machine which was
twice as smart as einstein and after running for years was about to
produce the thought which was beyond human ability to think--
the 10 commandments.
H. Basser
Harryfox@epas.utoronto.ca

(4) --------------------------------------------------------------15----
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 91 16:37:12 EST
From: Joseph Raben <JQRQC@CUNYVM>
Subject: Re: 5.0520 Rs: ... Computers in Lit

People interested in the topic of computers in literature should look
at Patricia S. Warrick, _The Cybernetic Imagination in Science Fiction_
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1980). In 282 pp. (= 9 chaps, biblio, index) she
pretty well covers the field up to the date of publication. Certainly
anyone doing a serious study must consult her before going on.
(5) --------------------------------------------------------------26----
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 91 15:32:10 MEZ
From: "Roald A. Zellweger" <RZELLWE@DGOGWDG1>
Subject: More on Abulafia

Wed, 11 Dec 91 John Gordon said, that Abraham b. Samuel Abulafia
proclaimed himself the Messiah. It is not known whether he he really did
but he was accused of proclaiming to be by Abraham Adret of Barcelona.

In a lot of mystical tracts Abulafia tried to combine the intellectualism
and rationalism of Maimonides with mysticism of Kabbalah. He was a
protagonist of a prophetic Kabbalah believing that man was enabled to
receive higher enlightenment by contemplating the holy names and letters,
but firmly opposed to the abuse many Kabbalists made of the divine names.
(see G.Scholem: A. Abulafia and the Doctrine of Prophetic Kabbalism)

When Eco called a computer running a program for the Kabbalistic
permutation of the Tetragrammaton Abulafia this is, of course, a pun.

Roald Zellweger, Goettingen
(6) --------------------------------------------------------------22----
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 91 18:05 EST
From: "Gilbert Smith" <N567126@NCSUADM.BITNET>
Subject: Naked Maja

In response to Marc Eisenger's note about the exposed breast,
I have a related story. At North Carolina State University, a
colleague in French recently created an exhibit in a showcase
outside the office of the dean of Humanities, in which was
included a blow-up of the 100 francs note bearing the "Liberte
conduisant le peuple." A female student began to wage a campaign
to have it taken down, claiming (in response to the Clarence Thomas
hearings) that the exhibit consituted sexual harrassment of her
person because she had to walk by it every day to get to class.
The young woman was neither Saudi nor Iranian, but a down-home
southern "female person." I am not sure what the outcome of this
was, but I think that French culture won out and the exhibit is
still there.
.
Gilbert Smith <N567126@NCSUADM>