Semantic Reactions

Our July 2024 episode departs from our usual format, and instead features a series of short take interviews conducted in conjunction with the IGS's summer seminar entitled, Navigating the Now: A Guide to Recognizing What is Going On, which was held at the October Gallery in London, England, on July 25th to 27th, 2024. Over the course of the three days, Lance Strate recorded the ruminations and evaluations from the other faculty who were leading the seminar, Mary Lahman, Dom Heffer, Nora Bateson, and Peggy Cassidy. The episode also includes responses from some of the students and participants in the seminar, reflecting on what they learned and experienced.

Our June 2024 episode was recorded at a local radio station in the city of Gold Coast in Australia, and features Australian media personality and researcher, Renée Peterson. Renée has spent over two decades as a media industry professional in Australia and the US, as a radio and television producer, writer, and on-air broadcaster,and is currently completing her doctoral degree at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. She joins IGS trustees Lance Strate, Thom Gencarelli, and Laura Trujillo-Liñán, who came to Australia for the annual meeting of the International Communication Association. Their conversation centers on the role of radio, along with sound recording and newer forms of digital media, in Australia, the United States, and Mexico, as well as on celebrities, influencers, and more recent developments in digital media. They also talk about language, dialects, and not surprisingly, general semantics.

Our May 2024 episode features an interview with Dr. Margaret Cassidy, the newly elected president of the New York Society for General Semantics, and the author of Bookends: The Changing Media Environment of American Classrooms; and of Children, Media, and American History: Printed Poison, Pernicious Stuff, and Other Terrible Temptations. Peggy Cassidy is Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication at Adelphi University, and a past president of the New York State Communication Association, and the Media Ecology Association. In conversation with IGS Trustees Lance Strate and Thom Gencarelli, the discussion deals with dance and choreography, language and the arts, symbolic form and musical notation, orality and literacy, education and communication, technology and psychotherapy, leadership and administration, and of course general semantics.

Our April 2024 episode features an interview with lawyer, media activist, and artist-designer Paul Guzzardo. The conversation ranges across topics such as digital arts and deep fakes, the music of Ustad Imrat Khan, Henry Ford and the United Steel Workers labor union, Marshall McLuhan and Walter Ong, Patrick Geddes and Aldous Huxley, Josephine Baker, Walter Winchell, Giovanni Piranesi, and of course general semantics, and takes us on a trip from Guzzardo's hometown of St. Louis to his current residence in Buenos Aries, Argentina, with stops along the way in places such as New York City, Edinburgh and Dundee in Scotland, and Calcutta, India.

Our March 2024 episode features a discussion held in the media lab at Panamericana University in Mexico City with Panamericana's Media Lab Director Gustavo Navarro, IGS Trustee and Panamericana Philosophy Professor Laura Trujillo-Liñán, and visiting IGS Trustees Thom Gencarelli and Lance Strate. Their conversation covers media ecology, new media, education, general semantics, and more.

Our February 2024 episode features the second part of an interview with singer-songwriter and activist Michelle Shocked. In conversation with IGS trustees Lance Strate and Thom Gencarelli, they discuss Michelle's career and music, and issues regarding copyright, media and technology, artists' rights, and human dignity (and includes a bit of salty language). The episode concludes with a live performance and a prerecorded song. If you haven't heard episode 17, you may want to listen to that one first.

Our January 2024 episode features an interview with singer-songwriter and activist Michelle Shocked. In conversation with IGS trustees Lance Strate and Thom Gencarelli, they discuss Michelle's background and music, and issues regarding copyright, media and technology, artists' rights, and human dignity, and concludes with a live performance.

Our December 2023 episode features an interview with former IGS Executive Director and Trustee Steve Stockdale. In conversation with IGS President Lance Strate, Stockdale discusses his background and connection to general semantics, his experiences setting up a MOOC and teaching a course on general semantics online, and his initiative known as "calling out the symbol rulers".

Our November 2023 episode features an interview with author, public speaker, and strategy management consultant Marcy Axelrod. The interview, conducted by IGS President Lance Strate, focuses on her new book, entitled How We Choose to Show Up, her work as a business consultant, and the importance of speech, relationships, and personal presence.

Our October 2023 episode features an interview with Nora Bateson, who is an IGS Trustee and President of the International Bateson Institute. The interview, conducted by IGS President Lance Strate, focuses on her new book, entitled Combining, a volume that includes essays, poems, and artwork. Their conversation touches on topics such as systems theory, the ecology of communication, learning and interdependence, relationships and contexts, and poetry and forms of expression.