Friday, December 9, 2011

ONLY MAYBE On GENERAL semANTICS? Nothing But!

Nice blogpost with lots of links from a student(s) of Robert Anton Wilson on RAW, Korzybski, GS, and my biography of Korzybski. Thanks, guy(s).

GENERAL semANTICS

3 comments:

Greg A. T. said...

Hello again Bruce,
Just looking through your blog once again and came across the Naked Lunch link. It was interesting that the post commented on the presence of folks like Johnson and Hayakawa (both at the same session?), but didn't notice some other very important names. Margaret Gary Mead (I could not confirm that this was the same Margaret Mead - maybe different?) and Willard V. Quine. Can you confirm that these are who I think they are? And are there other similar roll lists? Wonderful find... and kudos to you and Lance and Steve Stockdale for helping with that...

Greg A. T. said...

[Just posted this, but lost post. Apologies if duplicate.]
Thanks for the link to the Naked Lunch blog on WSB and AK. Fascinating. I was surprised that no mention was made of two of the most interesting names on the rolls for Burroughs' 1939 GS seminar - Margaret Gary Mead and Willard V. Quine. Are these the people that I think they are? (I couldn't find a middle name for The "Margaret Mead" and rather than assuming identity...). And are there other similar roll lists? One would expect that they would have some interesting names as well. (and I can't imagine what it would have been like to have attended that 1939 seminar. Must have been a blast!).
Kudos to you and Steve Stockdale for helping to put this together. Wonderful page.

Bruce Kodish said...

Hi Greg,
I appreciate your questions and comments.
I have seminar attendance rolls and some of the names indeed are quite interesting and impressive.

Margaret Gary Mead is not the anthropologist. She worked for a time as a secretary at the Institute of General Semantics office in Chicago.

Willard V. Quine, yup, the famous logician-philosopher attended the 1939 seminar in August. He's standing next to Korzybski in the attendees picture. I wrote about him and his relationship with Korzybski in Korzybski: A Biography.