Contemporary Communication

In today's episode, we look at how Plato uses a sophistic rhetorical trope in making his arguments about the nature of love, and explore what Socrates' critique of his first speech could teach us about the anxiety we feel when we blunder by saying something horrible and borderline impious. 

We have a longer episode today as I shift to a weekly format. :-) Today we look at Socrates's first speech, his revision of Lysias's speech, and how he frames the argument that the lover is not to be preferred--but there are a few tricks of framing that Socrates will use here, which we will explore later. One main idea to ponder here, how does all of this talk of love apply to technology? 

In Lysias's speech, read by Phaedrus, we hear that one should prefer the advances of the sober-minded non-lover, and in today's episode, we will explore why Socrates initially praises the speech before rejecting its argument. I hope you enjoy! 

Taking another walk in the forest, today we will explore Socrates' reasons for declining to explain a myth to his companion.  Using the rhetorical device of "Apophasis," and introducing an explanation for a myth by denying that one should spend time explaining myths, Socrates also explains the relationship between self-knowledge and common knowledge. Join me for a too-brief exploration of this topic. 

Today's episode is a little bit different. Not only is it proof positive that I am not an audio engineer, but it is also a chance to think about Plato's dialogue on writing in the proper context--outside. Join me as we begin to ask about the relationship between writing and wisdom through Plato's Phaedrus. 

In this episode we explore how you might read an ancient text like Plato, beginning with some questions to help frame your experience with the text, we then explore how Socrates invites us to know ourselves before ending with some implications for the dynamics of faith. Don't forget to leave feedback if you enjoy the episode, or if you have more questions and suggestions for future episodes. 

This was a fun little bit that was eventually cut from the media culture course, but I wanted to revisit with you here today. It is an attempt to understand how artificial languages impose themselves on the structure of our shared reality, so we wander into some dense weeds, but feel free to send me your thoughts and questions as you listen along!

Today we dig a little bit deeper into the definition of media ecology, asking questions about "what makes a discipline" and turning to a few definitions from the Media Ecology Association. If you enjoyed today's episode, please let me know!

In this episode, we explore the grounding of this course in Media Ecology and try to define some of the major terms like "media" and "digital" that will crop up over the rest of the summer.