Heuretics

In science, the most exciting expression isn’t “Eureka!” It’s “Huh?” Michael Hawley.

Self-Portrait

This bulletin board was in my office from 1980 until just the other day, when I moved to a new space.  This blog is a kind of inhabitable assemblage, whose point of departure is whatever that collection amounted to.  The dynamic here is an unfolding of an inquiry that  cyrstallizes regularly into seminars.  Comments welcome.

“Heuretics” refers to the use of theory for the invention of new texts (poetics of any sort). It is listed in the O.E.D. as obsolete or rare, and paired with “hermeneutics,” the use of theory for the interpretation of existing texts. The purpose of this blog is to develop and apply heuretics. The primary target of this experiment is “electracy,” the apparatus of digital technology.

Coming in 2010

There is at least one new thread to be added to this project:  to explore the potential categorial role of alchemical and related hermetic semiotic systems.  Is it possible to classify disaster by means of Earth Air Fire Water (EAFW) relationships, retrieving for contemporary thought the emblematic coherence, if not the mythology, of this history?  Gaston Bachelard is one resource for this inquiry, as is Jung, not to mention the arts applications by such figures  as Duchamp and Ernst.  A framing question concerns the oracle strategy of EmerAgency consulting.  The KaChing cloud syncretizes Asian and Western oracles with poststructural and vanguard arts innovations as a delivery practice for flash reason.

What is the significance of the header scene?

(Gregory Ulmer is Professor of English and Media Studies at the University of Florida).

[*One who practices heuREtics.]