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Comment by Curation Nation 策展國 on February 14, 2024 at 1:17pm

The South China Sea is a crucial link in the ‘global commons’, connecting the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf and Europe. Right now, along with the East China Sea, it is the most contested piece of sea in the world and one of the main reasons for the current anxiety over China's intentions. ― Bill Hayton, The South China Sea: The Struggle for Power in Asia

“It will be a Sea with agreed boundaries based upon universal principles and governed by shared responsibilities to use its resources most wisely, a Sea where fish stocks are managed collectively for the benefit of all, where the impacts of oil exploration and international shipping are alleviated and where search and rescue operations can take place unimpeded. It could happen – if a line is redrawn.” ― Bill Hayton, The South China Sea: The Struggle for Power in Asia

Physical geography and geology are inseparable scientific twins. — Roderick Murchison

It's time for Black people to stop playing the separating game of geography, of where the slave ship put us down. We must concentrate on where the slave ship picked us up. — John Henrik Clarke

Chris Martin looks like a geography teacher. — Liam Gallagher

An hour or two spent in writing from dictation, another hour or two in reading aloud, a little geography and a little history and a little physics made the day pass busily. — Hudson Stuck

Argentina lacks the size and population to become the primary regional power in Latin America, which looks to be Brazil’s destiny, but it has the quality of land to create a standard of living comparable to that of the European countries. If Argentina gets its economics right, its geography will enable it to become the power it has never been. — Tim Marshall

The reason for our success is no secret. It comes down to one single principle that transcends time and geography, religion and culture. It’s the Golden Rule – the simple idea that if you treat people well, the way you would like to be treated, they will do the same. — Isadore Sharp

Collateral learning in the way of formation of enduring attitudes, of likes and dislikes, may be and often is much more important than the spelling lesson or lesson in geography or history that is learned. — John Dewey

At present cats have more purchasing power and influence than the poor of this planet. Accidents of geography and colonial history should no longer determine who gets the fish. — Derek Wall

Comment by Curation Nation 策展國 on February 13, 2024 at 2:37pm

A great city may be seen as the construction of words as well as stone — Great Quotation by Yi-Fu Tuan

1. Geography is the study of earth as the home of people.

2. Place is security, space is freedom.

3. A great city may be seen as the construction of words as well as stone.

4. All creative effort – including the making of an omelet – is preceded by destruction.

5. It is by thoughtful reflection that the elusive moments of the past draw near to us in present reality and gain a measure of permanence.

6. Lucidity, I maintain, is almost always desirable.

7. In a sense, every human construction, whether mental or material, is a component in a landscape of fear because it exists in constant chaos. Thus children’s fairy tales as well as adult’s legends, cosmological myths, and indeed philosophical systems are shelters built by the mind in which human beings can rest, at least temporarily, from the siege of inchoate experience and of doubt.

8. People tend to suppress that which they cannot express.

9. Animals are like humans, only more openly carnal and sexual, more openly and therefore more disarmingly absurd.

10.Place is security, space is freedom.

Comment by Curation Nation 策展國 on February 12, 2024 at 9:40am

Geography has made us neighbors

Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners, and necessity has made us allies. Those whom God has so joined together, let no man put asunder. — John F. Kennedy

“The good historian… must be fearless, uncorrupted, free, the friend of truth and of liberty. One who calls a fig a fig, and a skiff a skiff, neither giving nor withholding from any, from favour or from enmity, not influenced by pity, by shame, or by remorse. A just judge… a stranger to all, of no country, bound only by his own laws, acknowledging no sovereign, never considering what this or that man may say of him, but relating faithfully everything as it happened.” Lucian, ancient Greek writer and satirist (c.125-185)

“Perhaps nobody has changed the course of history as much as the historians.” Franklin P. Jones, American journalist (1908-1980)

War is God's way of teaching Americans geography. — Ambrose Bierce

Without an understanding of geography, we would not appreciate the mercies of the United States of America. — Tim Marshall

I believe there is little to gain by exchanging opinions with other artists concerning either the ideology of art or technical methods. Very much alone in my work, I am almost jealous of it. Geography has no bearing on it, nor have the interests of the community in which I work. — Yves Tanguy

The DRC is neither democratic, nor a republic. It is the second-largest country in Africa, bigger than Germany, France, and Spain combined and contains the Congo Rainforest, second only to the Amazon as the largest in the world. — Tim Marshall

Comment by Curation Nation 策展國 on February 11, 2024 at 12:03pm

Historians are like deaf people who go on answering questions that no one has asked them.

“Historians are like deaf people who go on answering questions that no one has asked them.” Leo Tolstoy, Russian writer and philosopher (1828-1910)

“What experience and history teach is that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.” Georg Hegel, German philosopher (1770-1831)

“A historian ought to be exact, sincere and impartial, free from passion, unbiased by interest, fear, resentment or affection. And faithful to the truth, which is the mother of history, the preserver of great actions, the enemy of oblivion, the witness of the past, the director of the future.” B. R. Ambedkar, Indian politician (1891-1956)

“History is an argument without end.” Pieter Geyl, Dutch historian (1887-1966)

“History is an aggregate of half-truths, semi-truths, fables, myths, rumours, prejudices, personal narratives, gossip and official prevarications. It is a canvas upon which thousands of artists throughout the ages have splashed their conceptions and interpretations of a day and an era.” Philip D. Jordan, American historian (1903-1980)

“History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.” Winston Churchill, British writer and politician (1874-1965)

“History is a set of lies, agreed upon.” Napoleon Bonaparte, French ruler (1769-1821)

“History is instructive. What it suggests to people is that even if they do little things, if they walk on the picket line, if they join a vigil, if they write a letter to their local newspaper… Anything they do, however small, becomes part of a much larger sort of flow of energy. And when enough people do enough things, however small they are, then change takes place.” Howard Zinn, American historian (1922-2010)

Comment by Curation Nation 策展國 on February 10, 2024 at 8:47am

The only history worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today

“I don’t know much about history and I wouldn’t give a nickel for all the history in the world. It means nothing to me. History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.” Henry Ford, American industrialist (1863-1947)

“The more I study history the more I realise how little mankind has changed. There are no new scripts, just different actors.”  Richard Paul Evans, American author (1962- )

“To study history means submitting yourself to chaos, but nevertheless retaining your faith in order and meaning.” Herman Hesse, German writer and poet (1877-1962)

“Study the historian before you begin to study the facts.”  Edward Hallett Carr, British historian (1892-1982)

“[The historian is] an unsuccessful novelist. L. Mencken, American journalist and satirist (1880-1956)

“The historian must serve two masters: the past and the present.” Fritz Stern, German-American historian (1926- )

“It might be a good idea if the various countries of the world occasionally swapped history books, just to see what the other people are doing with the same set of facts.” Bill Vaughan, American writer (1915-1977)

“Historians are themselves the products of history.”  Paul Conkin and Roland Stromberg, American historians

“I don’t know much about history and I wouldn’t give a nickel for all the history in the world. It means nothing to me. History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.” Henry Ford, American industrialist (1863-1947)

Comment by Curation Nation 策展國 on February 8, 2024 at 8:39pm

It is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours

“The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours.” Alan Bennett, English playwright (1934- )

“History is a vast early warning system.” Norman Cousins, American journalist (1915-1990)

“If you don’t know history, it’s as if you were born yesterday. If you were born yesterday then any leader can tell you anything.” Howard Zinn, American historian (1924-2010)

“What is the use trying to describe the flowing of a river at any one moment, and then at the next moment, and then at the next, and the next, and the next? You wear out. You say ‘There is a great river and it flows through this land, and we have named it History’.” Ursula K. Le Guin, American writer (1929-2018)

“Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft.” Confucius, Chinese teacher and philosopher (551-479 BC) 

“The entire history of mankind is, in any case, nothing but a prolonged fight to the death for the conquest of universal prestige and absolute power.” Albert Camus, French-Algerian author (1913-1960)

Comment by Curation Nation 策展國 on February 7, 2024 at 1:22pm

All historical writing, even the most honest, is unconsciously subjective.

“The truth that all historical writing, even the most honest, is unconsciously subjective, since every age is bound, in spite of itself, to make the dead perform whatever tricks it finds necessary for its own peace of mind.” Carl Becker, American historian (1873-1945)

“History is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books-books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe.” Dan Brown, American novelist (1964- )

“History is a jangle of accidents, blunders, surprises and absurdities, and so is our knowledge of it, but if we are to report it at all we must impose some order upon it.” Henry Steele Commager, American historian (1902-1998)

“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana, American philosopher (1863-1952)

“Perhaps the cause of our contemporary pessimism is our tendency to view history as a turbulent stream of conflicts — between individuals in economic life, between groups in politics, between creeds in religion, between states in war. This is the more dramatic side of history; it captures the eye of the historian and the interest of the reader… History has been too often a picture of the bloody stream. The history of civilization is a record of what happened on the banks.” Will Durant, American writer (1885-1981)

“If you want to understand today you have to search yesterday.” Pearl S. Buck, American novelist (1892-1973)

“[History is] an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.” Ambrose Bierce, American satirist (1842-1914)

Comment by Curation Nation 策展國 on February 6, 2024 at 4:22pm

History is a map of the past for the modern traveller

“One of the deepest impulses in man is the impulse to record, to scratch a drawing on a tusk or keep a diary… The enduring value of the past is, one might say, the very basis of civilisation.”  John Jay Chapman, American author (1862-1933)

“History is not the past but a map of the past, drawn from a particular point of view, to be useful to the modern traveller.”  Henry Glassie, US historian (1941- )

“History is the story of events, with praise or blame.” Cotton Mather, American writer and politician (1663-1728)

“History is the study of all the world’s crime.” Voltaire, French writer and philosopher (1694-1778)

“History is who we are and why we are the way we are.” David McCullough, American historian (1933- )

“No other discipline has its portals so wide open to the general public as history.” Johan Huizinga, Dutch historian (1872-1945)

“History gives answers only to those who know how to ask questions.” Hajo Holborn, German-American historian (1902-1969)

“A generation which ignores history has no past and no future.” Robert Heinlein, American author (1907-1988)

Comment by Curation Nation 策展國 on August 29, 2023 at 6:40am

《Advent》經典研讀班第一場

講題: 疫情時代、後人類與死亡
主講人：楊乃女（國立臺灣高雄師範大學英語學系教授）
閱讀文本： Braidotti, Rosi. “The Inhuman: Life Beyond Death.” The Posthuman. Cambridge: Polity, 2013. 105-42. Nancy, Jean-Luc. “The Intruder.” Corpus. Trans. Richard A. Rand. New York: Fordham UP, 2008. 161-70.
開場致詞：梁孫傑（中華民國比較文學學會 理事長暨國立臺灣師範大學歐洲文化與觀光研究所教授）
主持人/與談人：周俊男（南臺科技大學應用英語系副教授）
側記人：張鎮龍（高雄師範大學英語學系兼任助理教授）
時間：2021年 7 月 29 日
地點：Google Meet 線上會議室

在七月份的場次，由於當時疫情嚴峻，因此舉辦了線上活動。楊乃女老師挑選了兩段文章，分別是 Rosi Braidotti 的《後人類》（The Posthuman）的第三章〈非人性：超越死亡的生命〉（“The Inhuman: Life Beyond Death”）與收錄在儂曦（Jean Luc Nancy ）Corpus 書中的〈入侵者〉（“The Intruder”）一文。

楊老師指出，Braidotti 在《後人類》第三章裏特別關注晚期資本主義的科技發展，她從非人性（inhumanity） 的角度探討現代性中的科技所帶來的死亡政治面向，這個探討後人類的角度非常特別。在當代社會中，我們面臨很多非人性的挑戰，例如科技、戰爭、核子武器、 病毒等各種人造物或非人造物的威脅，這些挑戰對我們的生活造成很大的衝擊。

在文章中 Braidotti 是從生機唯物論（vital materialism）的觀點出發，所以她在形構後人類主體時抱持樂觀的態度。楊老師認為她的論述過於抽象樂觀，少了實體經驗的層次，因此另選儂曦的〈入侵者〉作為補充。儂曦在書中書寫自己因心臟衰竭而接受心臟移植的過程，雖然他通篇並未使用「賽博格」（cyborg）一詞，但如果我們從海洛威（Donna Haraway）的賽博格定義來看，這個移植他人心臟的過程即是成為賽博格的實際經驗。

儂曦用「⼊侵者」一詞形容能夠延續自身生命的他人心臟，這個「⼊侵者」也可說是一種 inhumanity。這是一顆他人心臟，也是一種醫療科技的比喻，顯見成為賽博格雖然可以解決某些身體的問題而幫助人類延長壽命，然而這個過程並非總是愉快的經驗。雖然用海洛威的話來說，成為賽博格是一個不斷與異質物對話的過程，但是儂曦的經驗卻是不折不扣受苦的賽博格體驗。（下續）

Comment by Curation Nation 策展國 on August 26, 2023 at 10:13am

（續上）楊老師認為這篇短文可以對後人類理論中 inhumanity 的思考提供另一個觀點。楊老師指出，Braidotti 在《後人類》這本書中的主要目的在於建立一種後人類的主體論述，而在這個主體架構中，inhuman 是一個很重要的核心。

在本書第三章裏，Braidotti 想要藉由討論科技與工業發展底下所造就的非人性，將非人性、死亡、後人類等概念相互聯結，進而解決當下的主體論述所面臨的困境。由於 Braidotti 本人受到德勒茲的影響很大，因此在文章中她不斷地提到 Vital Materialism（生機唯物論）的概念；她從這個概念出發，將死亡這個議題做一種很正向的解讀，並將生命與死亡視為一種連續體。

具體來說，本書第三章分成幾個部分，首先她從現代主義當中的 inhumanity 開始談起，之後接著談死亡政治及其不足，最後用德勒茲式的死亡概念來重新塑造朝向生命的一種政治理論與主體論述。

在導讀的第二部分，楊老師詮釋儂曦在〈⼊侵者〉短文中的目的，也就是儂曦針對何為陌生人及何為⼊侵者進行思考。這個從陌生人的到訪思考何謂陌生人及⼊侵者的議題，會讓人聯想起德希達對 hospitality 的哲學性思考。

德希達在 《論好客》（Of Hospitality）中藉著「好客」的概念，探討了我們要如何對待異鄉人⁄陌生人（the foreigner⁄the stranger）的態度。德希達認為真正的好客應該要不問來者姓名、背景，無條件接納他，不過德希達也稱此種好客為不可能的好客，因為在一般的狀況下，主人都會對來客具有某種程度的掌控權與規範。

主人可以決定如何對待來客，因此好客（hospitality）與敵意（hostility）其實是一線之隔，而陌生人是敵是友則端賴主人的態度與規範。此處德希達是從人的角度思考這個好客的問題，而不是從科技這個 inhumanity 的角度討論這個問題，而儂曦因為病痛必須要換掉他的心臟，因而經歷了心臟移植的這種科技入侵的過程；他的身體被迫接受這個入侵者，連帶也啟發了他思索何謂「自我」的問題。

儂曦在結論指出，⼊侵者讓他體驗了自我被逐出、被剝奪的過程，同時他也體認到自己是一個聚合體 assemblage。他既是疾病也是醫療過程，他既是癌細胞也是一個移植的器官；他是癌細胞的原因是因為接受器官移植的醫療過程很有可能會觸發癌細胞，而他也確實得了癌症。

總而言之，因為這個事件，讓他把這一切都統合在一起，他因此變成了科幻⼩說中的人型機器人，也就是一種賽博格。而他的兒子也稱呼他為活死人狀態，這應該是因為他原先的心臟已經死了而必須換上別人的心臟。總而言之，我認為更確切的名稱應該是賽博格，而且是受苦的賽博格。

楊老師用這篇文章來呼應前一篇 Braidotti 的文章所提及的後人類死亡面向，這種死亡面向所帶來的衝突、不愉快的經驗是 Braidotti 比較沒有著墨的。楊老師認為如何將死亡所帶來的衝突、不愉快的面向轉化為正向的經驗是相對比較困難的工作。本場導讀從受苦及死亡的觀點探討後人類時代技術降臨的風險，非常的有意義。

（《Advent》經典研讀班；1—3頁；第一場〈疫情時代、後人類與死亡 〉；科技部⼈文社會科學研究中⼼補助學術研究群暨經典研讀班結案報告；計畫編號：MOST 110-2420-H-002-003-MY3-GB11008；執行期間： 2021 年 7 ⽉ 1 日至 2022 年 6 ⽉ 30 日；計畫召集⼈：楊乃女；執行機構及系所：國立高雄師範大學英語學系）

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