Semantic Reactions

Our February 2025 podcast features IGS President Lance Strate interviewing writer, musician, artist, and author of the recently published book, Chapel Perilous: The Life and Thought of Robert Anton Wilson, Gabriel Kennedy, aka Prop Anon. Their discussion deals with the life and work of Robert Anton Wilson and how he was greatly influenced by Alfred Korzybski and general semantics, as well as Gabriel Kennedy's background and career.

Our January 2025 podcast features IGS President Lance Strate interviewing computer programmer and activist Brianna Wu. Their conversation covers Gamergate, feminism, transexual issues, and politics and activism.

Our December 2024 podcast features IGS President Lance Strate interviewing computer scientist and IGS Past President Jeff Mordkowitz. Their conversation covers the history of general semantics and the Institute, approaches to teaching general semantics, the importance of the non-verbal or silent level, and Mordkowitz's Seven Simple Steps to Sanity.

Our November 2024 episode departs from our usual format as IGS President Lance Strate shares the Balvant Parekh Memorial Lecture that he recently delivered in India for the Balvant Parekh Centre for General Semantics and other Human Sciences. The lecture, entitled "The Message, the Meaning, and the Medium," ties together general semantics, behaviorism, information theory and cybernetics, and media ecology.

Our October 2024 podcast features IGS Trustees Eva Berger, Corey Anton, and Lance Strate taking part a controversial discussion on some of the most recent developments in artificial intelligence and language models and their implications for the future, as well as their connections to general semantics.

Our September 2024 episode features an interview with author, New York Law School professor, and former president of the American Civil Liberties Union, Nadine Strossen, conducted by IGS trustees Lance Strate and Susan Drucker. Their conversation centers on legal issues such as free speech in the context of contemporary American politics and culture.

Our August 2024 episode features Corey Anton and Thom Gencarelli discussing general semantics and politics, based on the recent special issues of the IGS's quarterly journal, ETC: A Review of General Semantics. In conversation with Lance Strate, they talk about Corey Anton's role as guest editor working together with Thom Gencarelli as ETC editor in chief, and their plans for publishing an anthology based on the two issues. Naturally enough, they also cover Alfred Korzybski's historical development of time-binding and how general semantics has been and could be applied to politics. They also had much to say about contemporary American politics, media and technology, and the current presidential election campaign.

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.