AKML Dinner/Weekend Symposium 2016 Princeton Club 15 West 43rd Street New York City

Friday, October 21

6:00-6:30 PM Registration, Happy Hour, Cash Bar

6:30-8:00 PM AKML Dinner and Awards Presentations

8:00 PM The Sixty-Fourth Annual Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture: The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World Iain McGilchrist

Saturday, October 22

8:00-9:00 AM Registration and Breakfast

9:00-10:15 AM Communication Outlooks Moderator: Corey Anton Metamusical Themas (part 2): Music as a Semantic Abstraction Ed Tywoniak—Saint Mary’s College of California Language Levels Literacy Across the Curriculum Mary P. Lahman—Manchester University Bullshitting, Brownnosing, and Sucking Down: An Exploratory Study of Modes of Ingratiation Janelle L. Wilson—University of Minnesota at Duluth Daniel D. Martin—University of Minnesota at Duluth

10:15-10:45 AM Satire as a Semantics Problem Dan Geddes—Editor, The Satirist

10:45-11:00 AM Refreshment Break

11:00-12:15 PM Maps and Territories Moderator: Lance Strate A Natural Order for Writing Instruction and General Semantics Colin Campbell— The Character of Ritual Meaning Corey Anton—Grand Valley State University Parrying the Parasitic BE Daniel Zimmerman—Middlesex County College Orality, Literacy and Cultural Identity: Spanish and Guaraní in Paraguay Eva Berger—College of Management Academic Studies, Tel Aviv

12:15-1:45 PM Lunch

1:45-2:15 PM Radical General Semantics Gad Horowitz—University of

2:15-3:30 PM Time-Binding Perspectives Moderator: Ed Tywoniak Donald Trump: Live from New Yawk Marleen Barr—City University of New York General Semantics Applications 101: Language, Reality, Strange Notions, and Student Prose Tim Lyons—University of Colorado at Boulder Compose Thyself! Mike Plugh— Language in Action Robin Levenson—LaGuardia Community College, City University of New York

3:30-4:00 PM “Medium” Writ Large: Concepts and Contexts of a Key Term Lance Strate—

4:00-4:15 PM Refreshment Break

4:15-5:30 PM Theory and Practice Moderator: Martin H. Levinson The Height of Identification: Metaphorizing Corporeality and Illness Bini Sajal—Balvant Parekh Centre, India Freedom’s Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lost: Alienation as Cultural Prerequisite for Modern Liberty Paul Lippert—East Stroudsburg University A Semantic Analysis of Nathanael West’s ‘A Cool Million’: From Despondency to Despair Gary H. Mayer—Stephen F. Austin State University Language and Reality: Structural Similarity for Effective Communication Deepa Mishra—University of Mumbai, India

Sunday, October 23

8:00-9:00 AM Breakfast

9:00-10:30 AM A GS Potpourri I Moderator: Jacqueline Rudig Contributions from Measurement Theory to General Semantics Claudio Violato—Wake Forest University School of Medicine Language in Thought and Action: General Semantics as a “Judgy” Orientation Richard Fiordo—University of North Dakota My Brushes with Fame; Assessing the Experience from a Practicing General Semanticist's Point of View Michael Fandal—Renaissance Man Canadian Composer John Weinzweig and Performing “Silence” Rea Beaumont—Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto Unity Consciousness Lloyd Gilden—Lifwynn Foundation

10:30-10:45 AM Refreshment Break

10:45-11:00 AM Where Is Fancy Bred? Rethinking Imagination Through The “Unthought” And How That Affects Communication Adeena Karasick—

11:00-12:30 PM A GS Potpourri II Moderator: Martin H. Levinson Play and Uncertainty in Language, Thought and Action Wolfgang Lukas—University of Innsbruck, Austria Glenn Hibbard— Clare Ellis—Kwan Um School of Zen Copying Animals in Our Nervous Processes”; Possible Implications for the Evolution of Psychiatric Disorders Mark Bernstein—University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine An Aristotelian Approach to the Time-Binding Notion of Alfred Korzybski Laura Trujillo—Universidad Panamericana, Mexico In Pursuit of The Ideal of Personal Excellence Through Conscious Times-binding Milton Dawes—Ambassador at Large, Institute of General Semantics

About the Participants

Corey Anton, professor of communication studies at Grand Valley State University, is author of: Selfhood and Authenticity, Sources of Significance: Worldly Rejuvenation and Neo-Stoic Heroism, Communication Uncovered: General Semantics and Media Ecology; the editor of Valuation and Media Ecology: Ethics, Morals, and Laws; and co-editor (with Lance Strate), of Korzybski And…. He is past editor of the journal Explorations in Media Ecology and past-chair of the Semiotics and Communication Division of the National Communication Association. Anton is a Fellow of the International Communicology Institute and currently serves as both Vice-President of the Media Ecology Association and Vice-President of the Institute of General Semantics.

Marleen S. Barr is known for her pioneering work in feminist science fiction and teaches English at the City University of New York. She has won the Science Fiction Research Association Pilgrim Award for lifetime achievement in science fiction criticism. Barr is the author of Alien to Femininity: Speculative Fiction and Feminist Theory, Lost in Space: Probing Feminist Science Fiction and Beyond, Feminist Fabulation: Space/Postmodern Fiction, and Genre Fission: A New Discourse Practice for Cultural Studies. Barr has edited many anthologies and co-edited the science fiction issue of PMLA. She is the author of the novels Oy Pioneer! and Oy Feminist Planets: A Fake Memoir.

Dr. Réa Beaumont is described as “a tremendous pianist” (CBC Radio 2) with international performances and acclaimed recordings that have been broadcast in 13 countries, most recently on BBC Radio 3. In collaboration with leading composers, such as Order of Canada recipient R. Murray Schafer, she has premiered over 50 works, including those commissioned for her by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Beaumont is a specialist in the history of music in Canada and has lectured at academic institutions internationally. Following the release of her book Composer Barbara Pentland, Beaumont was named “a world authority in the field” (CBC Radio 2). Beaumont is the recipient of awards from The Canada Council for the Arts, the Canadian Federation of University Women, Ontario Arts Council, British Columbia Arts Council and The Banff Centre for the Arts. She earned a Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano and Conducting as a Fellowship recipient, Master of Music, Bachelor of Music in Music Education (Hons), Artist Diploma and an ARCT Performance Diploma. Beaumont was a Faculty member at the University of British Columbia and is now affiliated with the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. www.reabeaumont.com

Dr. Eva Berger teaches Communication at the College of Management Academic Studies in Rishon Letzion, Israel, where she has also served as Dean. She serves on numerous boards and public service organizations including the Women in the Picture Association (for the Advancement of Women in the Visual Arts), Israel Peace Initiative, Israel Press Council, and Institute of General Semantics. Her recent publications include “Combat Cuties, Photographs of Israeli Women Soldiers” and The Communication Panacea: Pediatrics and General Semantics. She has been a frequent commentator in the Israeli press on issues relating to media, language, gender and culture. Dr. Berger holds a BA in Film and Television from Tel Aviv University and an MA and PhD in Media Ecology from .

Dr. Mark (Mickey) Bernstein received his BS, MD, and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. A psychiatrist in practice for 40 years, he is also a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches third

year residents in psychiatry. In 2015 he was the recipient of the Clinical Faculty Teaching Award. He has been an active member of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy, and is a member of state and national medical and psychiatric societies. He is a member of the Institute of General Semantics. Mickey was introduced to general semantics as a high school senior through a course in Language in Thought and Action (Hayakawa). He incorporates principles of general semantics into his psychotherapeutic approach to patients.

Bini B.S. is currently an Academic Fellow at Balvant Parekh Centre for General Semantics and Other Human Sciences, Baroda. Her PhD was an analysis of the idea of alternative history and historicity of fictional narratives with special reference to the theories of Michel Foucault. Her research articles, poems and translations have appeared in national and international Journals and anthologies including Poetry Chain, Kritya, Samyukta, ETC: A Review of General Semantics, JWS: A Journal of Women’s Studies, South Asian Ensemble, Kavyabharati, Korzybski, And… and the volumes The Virtual Transformation of the Public Sphere, and Media and Utopia (both published by Taylor and Francis in Britain and Routledge in India). She is the one of editors of Anekaant: A Journal of Polysemic Thought and the managing editor of the Journal of Contemporary Thought (JCT). Her poems were part of an anthology of corporeal poems titled A Strange Place other than Earlobes: Five Poets, Seventy Voices published by Sampark, Calcutta in 2014.

Colin J. Campbell lectures in a sessional capacity at York University and OCAD University in Toronto, Canada. He is enjoying incorporating general semantics and cybernetics into classes on communication, technology, and popular culture. He is currently working on a book comparing and contrasting Marxism-Situationism (Guy Debord's theory of “the spectacle”) with the cybernetic thought of Alfred Korzybski and Gregory Bateson.

Milton Dawes (Ambassador at Large, Institute of General Semantics) has over the past 45 years, facilitated seminar-workshops to organizations, colleges, students, professionals, and others, in America, Canada, and Australia. He has presented papers at five International Conferences on general semantics. Dawes was presented the J. Talbot Winchell Award for Outstanding Contributions to General Semantics and also The Irving J. Lee Award for Excellence in Teaching General Semantics. Many of his articles on general semantics principles-and-practice (See miltondawes.com) have been published in ETC, the IGS interdisciplinary quarterly. Dawes draws on a wide range of skills and experiences from his diverse interests to enliven his teaching. These include being a former member of: The National Dance Theater of Jamaica, a 60’s rock and roll band, The Jamaica Folk Singers, and the "Jamaica Pistol Team" to the Pan American Games, Winnipeg, Canada (1967). He also teaches African rhythms and is one of the seven who started the "Tam Tam" (African drumming) on Mount Royal in Canada. He was a Mr. Jamaica Body Building contestant.

Clare Ellis is a dharma teacher—and student—at the Kwan Um School of Zen. She is certified in Embodied Anatomy and Yoga, a program of the School for Body-Mind Centering (Body-Mind Centering is a somatic approach to movement and consciousness). She is also a research editor at Good Housekeeping magazine.

Michael Fandal (BA Hunter College, 1971) discovered general semantics at Hunter College. As a young police officer, he attended a GS workshop led by Allen Flagg and used GS formulations as a crime fighter, public school teacher, and Ernest Desire the Clown, a character he cooked up to promote

an earnest desire to curb crime. He has run ten marathons and a few short triathlons. He has run for political office, hosted a public access TV show, and clowned in the Macy's Thanksgiving, Coney Island Mermaid, and Village Halloween Parades. He was featured by Ripley's Believe It or Not as the “Cop Who's a Clown” and gave a talk at the National Shomrim Society on “Laughter and Law- enforcement/Partners in Crime-Fighting and Stress Reduction.” He is nearly done writing a book about a clown who strolls the ‘hood to make all feel good and this year has performed standup comedy at open mike 4 times landing enough laughs to give it another whirl. Professional affiliations include SAG- AFTRA, Mystery Writers of America, and the NYPD Shomrim Society.

Richard Fiordo is a Professor of Communication at the University of North Dakota. He holds a BA in English, an MA in Speech, and a PhD in Speech Communication. He studied general semantics in his MA program at San Francisco State College under S.I. Hayakawa and Richard Dettering. In 2011, he published Arguing in a Loud Whisper: A Civil Approach to Dispute Resolution—a text with a general semantics inclination. He is currently finishing a text from Linus Books titled Organizational Communication: An Exploratory Voyage and is writing another text for Linus Books on Narration as Communication. He has taught communication and related subjects at universities in the US and Canada. His email is: [email protected].

Dan Geddes is the author of The Satirist: America's Most Critical Book and the editor of The Satirist (www.thesatirist.com). The Satirist, one of the Internet’s longest running literary satire sites, has been widely cited in books, academic journals, periodicals, dissertations, as well as university and high school curricula in several countries for its satire and criticism. Geddes is a graduate of Ohio University’s Honors Tutorial College, where he received B.A.s in Philosophy and History, and was named the Outstanding Graduate in History. He later studied in Ph.D. programs at Indiana University (Philosophy) and Case Western Reserve University (History). Geddes now lives in Amsterdam, where he works as the Information Architect for an International Tax Law foundation and frequently performs standup comedy.

Lloyd Gilden, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor, Emeritus, Department of Psychology, Queens College of the City University of New York. He has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in introductory psychology, human motivation, self-awareness, social psychology, and experimental psychology and has done research in neuropsychology: brain processes associated with voluntary movement, drug effects, breathing, and biofeedback. He is a licensed psychologist in New York since 1972 and provides psychotherapy for adolescents and adults, individuals, couples, and groups.

Glenn Hibbard is a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Toronto. His research group is developing new types of lightweight material structures that are as light as and strong as possible and that have the minimum environmental footprint. He is interested in the general question of understanding materials systems and materials design.

Gad Horowitz is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Toronto. He has published on Canadian politics, political theory, philosophy, and psychoanalysis and is a Master- practitioner of neurolinguistic programming. For sixteen years he taught a seminar on general semantics entitled “The Spirit of Democratic Citizenship” at the University of Toronto. In 2013, with Shannon Bell of York University, Toronto, he presented at the Seventh National General Semantics Workshop of the

Balvant Parekh Centre for General Semantics and other Human Sciences at Rajkot, India. He is a co- author of The Book of Radical General Semantics (2016).

Adeena Karasick is a New York based poet, performer, cultural theorist and media artist and the author of seven books of poetry and poetics. Writing at the intersection of post-Language Conceptualism and neo-Fluxus performatics, her urban, Jewish feminist mashups have been described as “electricity in language” (Nicole Brossard), “proto-ecstatic jet-propulsive word torsion” (George Quasha), noted for their “cross-fertilization of punning and knowing, theatre and theory” (Charles Bernstein) "a twined virtuosity of mind and ear which leaves the reader deliciously lost in Karasick's signature ‘syllabic labyrinth’” (Craig Dworkin). Most recently is This Poem (Talonbooks, 2012) and The Medium is the Muse: Channeling Marshall McLuhan (NeoPoiesis Press, 2014). She teaches Literature and Critical Theory for the Humanities and Media Studies Dept. at Pratt Institute, co-founding Director (with Jake Marmer) of the KlezKanada Poetry Festival and Retreat and a 2016 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Award recipient. The “Adeena Karasick Archive” has just been established at Special Collections, Simon Fraser University.

Mary Lahman, Professor of Communication Studies at Manchester University, incorporates appreciative inquiry and diversity-affirming ethics into her teaching of intercultural communication, listening, and general semantics. Her publications include articles in ETC: A Review of General Semantics, Listening Education, and Communication Teacher, in addition to two textbooks: Action & Awareness: A General Semantics Approach to Effective Language Behavior (a free download on the Institute of General Semantics website) and Communication Across Contexts: A Listening-centered Approach (Kendall Hunt, 2014). She won The Sanford I. Berman Award for Excellence in Teaching General Semantics in 2014.

Dr. Robin Levenson is Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at LaGuardia Community College. She taught at NYU’s Programs in “Media Ecology” and Ed. Theatre where she earned her PhD. Robin trained performers in Oklahoma City University’s BFA Acting Program, worked as an actor and voice-over artist in California, and has written the book Acting in Translation.

Martin H. Levinson is the president of the Institute of General Semantics, treasurer of the New York Society for General Semantics, and book editor of ETC: A Review of General Semantics. He is the author of four books and numerous articles on general semantics. He has also authored a general semantics curriculum for middle school students and a general semantics continuing education study guide. Levinson holds a PhD from NYU in Organizational and Administrative Studies and lives in Forest Hills, New York.

Paul Lippert is a graduate of the media ecology program at New York University and was the Managing Editor of ETC: A Review of General Semantics in the 1980s. He is currently Professor of Communication at East Stroudsburg University, where he teaches film. His main research interest is about the historical origins, intellectual and cultural nature, and possible future of modernity.

Wolfgang Lukas has been doing his PhD research in particle physics at CERN (Switzerland) and the University of Innsbruck (Austria). He has written and collaborated on numerous physics publications, and he regularly gives presentations about physics and the connections between science and contemplative traditions. Following his interdisciplinary nature, curiosity and passion for understanding

nature and lived experience, Wolfgang is now extending his research focus towards transdisciplinary scientific collaboration, contemplative neuroscience, general semantics, and the integration of first-, second- and the third-person perspectives.

Tim Lyons has been an instructor in Writing and Rhetoric at the University of Colorado at Boulder since 1988. He holds a B.A. in English Literature from Occidental College and an M.A. in Creative Writing from the Johns Hopkins University. He has published essays in ETC: A Review of General Semantics, Vocabula, and other publications. His Make Straight Your Arrow: Student Writing, Critical Thinking, and General Semantics, a textbook applying general semantics principles to college-level writing classes, was released by Cognella in 2016. He is also the author of Your Hidden Face: Projection in the Horoscope (American Federation of Astrologers, 2014) and The Machine Stops: the Mayan Long Count Through a Western Lens (AFA, 2012).

Daniel D. Martin is a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota Duluth. He is author of the book, The Politics of Sorrow (Ashgate), that looks at the experience of families surviving the death of a child due to police shootings, interpersonal violence or street violence. He is a co-author with Kent Sandstrom and Gary Fine of Symbols, Selves, and Social Reality: A Symbolic Interactionist Approach to Social Psychology and Sociology. His interests in inequality and symbolic interaction are currently being pursued through ethnographic research with Dr. Janelle Wilson, studying the informal talk used by bosses to manufacture worker compliance and micro-political talk among union workers in their bars and taverns.

Gary H. Mayer, professor of mass communication at Stephen F. Austin State University (SFA) in Nacogdoches, Texas, grew up in Los Angeles and Houston. He earned BA degrees in journalism and psychology and a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and a doctorate in English (modern American literature) from Baylor University. In addition to SFA, he has taught at Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City, Tennessee, Troy University in Alabama, and Texas A&M University-Commerce. At SFA he teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses, including Media Writing, Editing in the Converged Newsroom, Media Law, and Media Ethics. He has presented papers at numerous conferences and has published in journals such as the Southwestern Mass Communication Journal, ETC: A Review of General Semantics, Media Law Notes, and the Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter. He and his wife, Judy, live in Nacogdoches.

Deepa Mishra teaches at the Department of English, Smt. C.H.M. College, Ulhasnagar, University of Mumbai, India. She was a Fellow at the School of Criticism and Theory at in 2008. Her research articles are published in some national and international journals on topics in American Literature, Odia Literature, Translation Studies, and General Semantics. She is the co-editor of Anekaant: A Journal of Polysemic Thought, published annually by Balvant Parekh Centre for General Semantics and Other Human Sciences, Baroda. She is also the Assistant Editor ofWriting Today: International Journal of Studies in English, a bi-annual journal published at Aurangabad. She is the editor of the book General Semantics: A Critical Companion which is published by Pencraft International, New Delhi. She is instrumental in establishing the Nodal Centre for General Semantics at her college and started with a certificate course in “Creative and Critical Thinking: A General Semantics Approach” for the undergraduate and post graduate students.

Michael Plugh is an Assistant Professor of Communication at Manhattan College. He is currently the

Vice President of the New York State Communication Association and sits on the Board of the Media Ecology Association. His research interests include general semantics, media ecology, education, and Japanese culture and history.

Jacqueline Rudig is a long-time board member of both the Institute of General Semantics and the New York Society for General Semantics. She was a co-recipient of the 2015 J. Talbott Winchell award for outstanding service to the field of general semantics. Jackie lives, reads, writes, and teaches in Wauwatosa, WI.

Lance Strate is Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, a Trustee of the Institute of General Semantics, and President of the New York Society for General Semantics, as well as a past president of the New York State Communication Association and the Media Ecology Association. He held the 2015 Harron Family Chair in Communication at Villanova University, and also teaches in the graduate program in Media and Professional Communication at Fairleigh Dickinson University. He is the author of Echoes and Reflections: On Media Ecology as a Field of Study (2006), On the Binding Biases of Time and Other Essays on General Semantics and Media Ecology (2011), Amazing Ourselves to Death: 's Brave New World Revisited (2014), Thunder at Darwin Station (2015), and麦 克卢汉 与媒介生态学 [McLuhan and Media Ecology, an original collection of essays published in Mandarin translation, 2016]. He is co-editor of two editions of Communication and Cyberspace: Social Interaction in an Electronic Environment (1996, 2003), Critical Studies in Media Commercialism (2000), The Legacy of McLuhan (,2005), Korzybski and… (2012), The Medium is the Muse: Channeling Marshall McLuhan (2015), La Comprensión de los Medios en la Era Digital: Un Nuevo Análisis de la Obra de Marshall McLuhan (2016), and Taking Up McLuhan's Cause: Perspectives on Formal Causality and Media Ecology (in press).

Laura Trujillo has a Philosophy major as an undergraduate at Universidad Panamericana, she earned an MA in Philosophy at UNAM in México City and a PhD in History of Thought at Universidad Panamericana with a thesis on Formal Cause on Aristotle and Marshall McLuhan. She is a specialist in the relationship on Marshall McLuhan and Aristotle, Philosophy of Technology and Metaphysics.

Ed Tywoniak is Associate Professor and past chair of the department of Communication at Saint Mary’s College of California where he has served on the faculty in the School of Liberal Arts for over 35 years. Prof. Tywoniak also holds the position of Faculty Fellow for Curriculum and Technology, and is the director of the W. M. Keck Digital Media Lab. He is a member and past chair of the Division for Communication and the Future of the National Communication Association, and is a Trustee of the Institute of General Semantics, a member of the Board of Directors of the Media Ecology Association, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the School of Applied Theology of the Berkeley Graduate Theology Union. Prof. Tywoniak has written articles and scholarly papers and lectured on a broad array of topics including the effects of mobile mediation on contemporary society, social movements of the 1960’s, the cosmology of Australia’s indigenous peoples, Pythagoras and the classical Quadrivium, 3D technology and the making of the movie Avatar, and the audio technology of the Grateful Dead. He is co-author of undergraduate Communication textbook titled Communication and Social Understanding (Kendall Hunt, 2009) and is the editor of ETC: A Review of General Semantics.

Claudio Violato is currently Professor at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Additionally, he has taught at and held leadership positions at the University of Calgary and the University of Alberta.

Dr. Violato’s publications are in psychometrics, research methods, leadership, and clinical reasoning and cognition. In addition to 10 books, Dr. Violato has published more than 300 scientific and technical articles, abstracts and reports in major journals such as the American Journal of Surgery, and the Lancet. His most recent book, Assessing Competence in Medicine and Allied Health Professions will be published by CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group in late 2016.

Janelle L. Wilson is a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota Duluth, where she teaches courses in social psychology and deviance. She is author of the book, Nostalgia: Sanctuary of Meaning (Bucknell University Press). Her research interests include the sociology of everyday life, nostalgia, and generational identity. Current research projects include collaborative work with Dr. Daniel Martin on communicative strategies employed in work settings and collaborative work with Dr. Carmen Latterell on the social construction of mathematical identity.

Daniel Zimmerman, Professor of English at Middlesex County College, served as Associate Editor of the issue of Anonym that published Ezra Pound's last canto, and as editor of The Western Gate, Brittannia, and College English Notes. His poetry has appeared in many magazines and anthologies; in 1997, he invented an anagrammatical poetic form, Isotopes. His works include Perspective, a curriculum of the soul #20 (Canton, NY: Institute of Further Studies, 1974); See All the People, illustrated by Richard Sturm (Toronto: Open Studio, 1976--now available as an iBook); the trans-temporal Blue Horitals with John Clarke (Oasii: Amman, Jordan, 1997); ISOTOPES (London: frAme, 2001) and, online: ISOTOPES2 (Chicago: Beard of Bees, 2007). His book Post-Avant (2002) won the Editor’s Choice Award from Pavement Saw Press in Ohio. In 2012-13, he enjoyed a yearlong McGraw Mid- Career Fellowship at Princeton University.