The year of 1984 saw the publication of William Gibsons Neuromancer, which coincided with the beginning of my Cornell years (1984-87). During the period I was ambitious enough to take a variety of graduate classes taught by distinguished professors: Jonathan Culler, Cynthia Chase, Debra Fried, Michael J. Colacurcio, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Gayatri Spivak, Samuel Delany, and Mark Seltzer, who just published his first book Henry James and the Art of Power (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1984) based upon his Ph.D. Dissertation at University of California, Berkeley. Therefore, I am very pleased that this week he revisited Japan and joined an oral exam of my doctoral student who completed a dissertation on Henry James (September 16th). What is more, Professor Seltzer very generously gave a fascinating lecture The Suspended World, focusing on the structure of what he calls “the official world” and a type of society that comes to itself by staging its own conditions (September 17th). After the talk and at a reception held in honor of Professor Seltzer we truly enjoyed a heated discussion on the logic of self-referentiality pervading and controlling our reality studio. As he was leaving Japan yesterday, he gave me a message for all the students and scholars who attended his lecture: It was a real pleasure to meet with your students--and they were great guides to Kamakura yesterday. Many many thanks for making all this possible. ... I am not looking forward to going back to Ucla--the first weeks of the new term will be a nightmare of new courses, graduate exams, and lots of administration. It would be lovely to return to tokyo, perhaps keio, in the spring.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 00:27:57 +0000
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