New English Tranlsations of Selected Serres Essays by Randolph Burks

Randolph Burks has some new English translations of Serres's work that will be of interest to readers. Below are the titles and the links to Issuu where he has posted them. I would be happy to consider posting brief reviews of the works as individual blog posts. Send me a note via comments.

Mathematical Anamneses
from Hermes I by Michel Serres
translated by Randolph Burks
Link: http://issuu.com/randisi/docs/hermes_i__mathematical_anamneses

Origin of Geometry 3
from Hermes 5 by Michel Serres
translated by Randolph Burks
Link: http://issuu.com/randisi/docs/hermes_v__geometry_3

Streams, from Hermes 4
by Michel Serres
translated by Randolph Burks
Link: http://issuu.com/randisi/docs/streams

Betrayal: The Thanatocracy
by Michel Serres
translated by Randolph Burks
Link: http://issuu.com/randisi/docs/serres__betrayal

Though not a Serres essay, there is also this very interesting essay by Paul Preuss called "The Piton Dispute" that Randolph Burks has also translated. The essay engages in a discussion of honourable ways to engage in mountain climbing.

The Piton Dispute
by Paul Preuss
translated by Randolph Burks
Link: http://issuu.com/randisi/docs/mauerhakenstreit_complete_illustrated

Is Our Enthrallment with Technocratic Life Killing Culture?

This essay by Leon Wieseltier, "Among the Disrupted" is worth reading. He winds his reflections through the themes of digital power, the role of the writer, and the nature of our move toward an alarming transhumanism. Doug Sikkema forwarded the essay to me and I'm grateful that he pointed it out. I was pleasantly surprised to see Michel Serres quoted. The fit is good.

Serres has triggered a great deal of thought and reflection for many of us around the ideas of communications, messengers, the nature of technology, and what it means to think of ourselves as humans. I've completed a draft of a review essay on Nicholas Carr's recent book, The Glass Cage: Automation and Us, and there are many fruitful points of contact. Carr explores what it means for humans to create increasingly automated systems and how it can erode our abilities and create dependencies that require scrutiny.

Reading Wieseltier, Serres, and Carr is a useful means of increasing awareness of how the machines and the values they foster are changing our culture.