 For your final research paper,
select one of the following topics:
 | Each of the "world brain motifs" studied in the course implies, either
explicitly or implicitly, forms of social organization, kinds of human subjects, and
cultural values.
 | Using these three categories, compare and contrast two of the
following:
 | Otlet's "universal book", |
| Wells's "world brain", |
| de
Kerckhove's "connected intelligence", |
| Edwards's "closed world", |
| Lévy's "collective intelligence". |
|
| Your paper must include an
analysis of the society, persons, and culture projected by these two world brain
motifs. Some of the questions that may guide your analysis are:
| Is it a social order you
would want to inhabit? |
| Would you want to be among the kind of persons imagined by these
conceptions of the world brain? |
| Do you value their cultures? |
|
| In other words, give a reasoned,
comparative assessment, in terms of society, subjectivity, and culture.
|
|
| Use the ideas of at least two of Otlet, Wells, de Kerckhove, Edwards, or Lévy as resources to expound and analyse the "world
brain motifs" you have discovered in one of the following areas (contact
the instructor about your choices):
| film; |
| literature; |
| popular culture; |
| some combination of the above; |
| through the World Brain links.
|
|
| A topic of your choice, with the permission of the instructor.
|
 
Page last updated: 20 Nov 2000
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