Imperturbable Circles

Mathematics and politics, ripples in the pond of people; society the surface of human nature, music its denizens, and reading its depth.

Do not disturb my circles.

Archimedes, in Plutarch’s Lives (in Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments [in our Reading on the Ground])

With Miyazaki’s Boy and the Heron, Dante on his pilgrimage, and Don Quixote on his knight-errantry, Alex and I have been circling around ideas for another project on myth in video games of late. More on that to come, I hope! For now, there are a number of other pieces I’d like to curate, to constellate around this resonant sigil of the circle.

Plenty of times we’ve heard about the Inklings, particularly the core duo of Tolkien and Lewis, and maybe the erudite Barfield and the weird Williams. Tolkien of course has his Lord of the Rings, Lewis his lecture on the theme of “The Inner Ring.” But there are many other great literary circles out there, too.

A little while ago I read the lively Magnificent Rebels by Andrea Wulf about Schiller, Goethe, and the rest of their Jena Set. Much further back in college it was the English Romantics, including the ghost story-telling contest that led to Frankenstein. Just now I’d add the excellent Journey to the Edge of Reason, by Stephen Budiansky, on Godel and the Vienna Circle (and subsequently the Institute for Advanced Study). No doubt before long I’ll want to cf. these with the New England Transcendentalists and Bloomsbury Set.

For myself, I’ve been connected with a group we might call the Arizona Seminar, though lately I’m more north by northwest. Our intellectual lineage traces through Santa Fe and Annapolis to Chicago and beyond, roughly along the lines of St John’s College and its formative lights. For another sampling of writing and music in this milieu, see the itinerant Brian Brock. Or just ask for the link to join the online Sunday seminar.

What have some other friends been up to?

With Professor Kozlowski’s series on the Pentateuch in the books, he turns to Dostoevsky and Russian Nihilism. No shortage of interest in Dostoevsky and his Underground Man here.

From Moses Norton, a delightful foray into–and sendup of–video game lore videos: Gamelogica.

Between all this and the subject of the latest episode in my own podcasting endeavors, Dylan Holmes’ A Mind Forever Voyaging: A History of Storytelling in Video Games, with all that book contains and all we touch on in our conversation, I’m feeling like a sentence crammed too full of ideas, more replete than complete. A fitting way to end this blog post that’s all outgoing links like those snakes in a can, for completionists still reading: you might also want to look up Chris Perry at Hampshire College, Barry Atkins, Tim Rogers, and the Digital Antiquarian, among others we mention.