Whoops, my mind meant that my appointment at National Tsing Hua University
is from January 15-July 15 *2017. *My fingers still automatically type 2016.
John
On Sat, Jan 14, 2017 at 8:41 AM, John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Alas, no. Nor am I likely to within the next half year or so. By a curious
twist of fate, a chance meeting in Dubrovnik with an old friend from Taiwan
has led to my being appointed a visiting professor in the Institute of
Anthropology at Taiwan's National Tsing Hua University, contract effective
from January 15 to July 15 2016. I am flying to Taiwan on February 6 to
settle in before the new semester starts on February 13.
Have just returned to Japan after a trip that included my younger
brother's memorial service on January 8 and continued through the holidays
with daughter Kate and grandkids Keegan and Fiona at Kate's place in
Fairfax. Pat, Kate's husband and Keegan and Fiona's father is a Marine
Corps pilot currently deployed in the Middle East. It was, another curious
twist, his spending time in Dubrovnik, where he and his aircraft take a
break en route back to the USA, that led to our being there. He talked
about the place so much that when the International Union of
Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences held a meeting there, I couldn't
resist the temptation, which is why Ruth and I spent time in Helsinki and
Dubrovnik last spring.
All of this coincides with my reading *Embracing Complexity Strategic
Perspectives for an Age of Turbulence* by Jean G. Boulton, Peter M.
Allen, and Cliff Bowman, in which I have learned that complex systems
include both non-linear dynamic systems, e.g., the weather, for which the
physics are known and the equations deterministic, the complexity arising
from extreme sensitivity to initial conditions, and evolutionary adaptive
systems in which the actors, which range from viruses to us, learn and
change as well as interact in complex ways, making trying to think about
them in terms of well-defined categories or simple mechanisms let's call it
Ptolemaic.
Works for my life. What about yours?
John
Sent from my iPad
On Jan 13, 2017, at 6:37, david ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I found by happenstance a book about happenstance. In the condo where we
stayed on the final day of our trip I discovered a stash of books. Since I
had three to leave, I took two: a Twain and Penelope Lively,
“Consequences.” I knew her work only vaguely; I remembered that one of her
adult novels took the Booker. Since then I’ve learned that she took an
honors degree in history and married an academic. Not surprisingly history
and academics are important to “Consequences,” which is in some ways a
cultural history of twentieth century Britain beginning with an Eric
Gill-like printmaker. Having lived some of it, I enjoyed the descriptions
and analysis, forgave the plotting. I’m curious whether anyone on the list
has also read this.
Here’s what others made of it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/24/books/review/Kline-t.html
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/jun/16/featuresreviews.
guardianreview20
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
