The fourteenth episode of Semantic Reactions, the official podcast of the Institute of General Semantics, is now available for your listening pleasure. 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.

You can access Episode 14 via our host site, and it is also available through most major podcast platforms, and on YouTube, and below:

The thirteenth episode of Semantic Reactions, the official podcast of the Institute of General Semantics, is now available for your listening pleasure. Celebrating the one year anniversary of the launch of our podcast, our September 2023 episode features a roundtable discussion with IGS trustees Eva Berger, Susan Drucker, Thom Gencarelli, Michael Plugh, and Lance Strate, as they take up the one of the most basic questions for the discipline of general semantics: What is going on? Their discussion touches on problems such as racism and retribalization, information overload and political polarization, chaos and complexity, AI and regulation, and how to make things better.

You can access Episode 13 via our host site, and it is also available through most major podcast platforms, and on YouTube, and below:

The twelfth episode of Semantic Reactions, the official podcast of the Institute of General Semantics, is now available for your listening pleasure. This installment features an interview with Paul Soukup, SJ, a professor of communication at Santa Clara University, and the author of seven books, including Communication and Theology; Christian Communication; Media, Culture and Catholicism; Mass Media and the Moral Imagination; Fidelity and Translation: Communicating the Bible in New Media; Out of Eden; and most recently, A Media Ecology of Theology. The interview is conducted by IGS president Lance Strate, and their discussion ranges across topics such as education, language, environmentalism, religion, and media.

You can access Episode 12 via our host site, and it is also available through most major podcast platforms, and on YouTube, and below:

The eleventh episode of Semantic Reactions, the official podcast of the Institute of General Semantics, is now available for your listening pleasure. This installment features an interview with novelist, literary scholar, and science fiction critic Marleen Barr. Dr. Barr is the author of two novels, Oy Pioneer! and Oy Feminist Planets, and a number of works of feminist science fiction, including Alien to Femininity: Speculative Fiction and Feminist Theory; Lost in Space: Probing Feminist Science Fiction and Beyond; Feminist Fabulation: Space/Postmodern Fiction; and Genre Fission: A New Discourse Practice for Cultural Studies. Her most recent book, just published by Dark Helix Press, is a short story collection entitled This Former President: Science Fiction as Retrospective Retrorocket Jettisons Trumpism. The  discussion covers feminism, literary theory, science fiction, and politics.

You can access Episode 11 via our host site, and it is also available through most major podcast platforms, and on YouTube, and below:

The IGS played a featured role at this year's 24th annual Media Ecology Association convention in New York City, held on June 22nd-25th, as cosponsors of the event. Here are some of the highlights:

At the opening session, IGS President Lance Strate delivered welcoming remarks along with MEA President Michael Plugh, who is also a Trustee of the IGS, and President of the New York Society for General Semantics. 

The IGS was featured at a special plenary session on general semantics. The panel included, from l. to r., IGS Trustees Lance Strate, Susan Drucker, Eva Berger, Michael Plugh, Tomkins Institute Chair Phil Rose (serving as moderator), and IGS Trustees Laura Trujillo-Liñán and Corey Anton.

A session featuring authors of recently published books featured several IGS trustees: From l. to r. Lance Strate, author of Concerning Communication (IGS, 2022), Laura Trujillo-Liñán, author of  Formal Cause in Marshall McLuhan's Thinking (IGS, 2022), Eva Berger, author of Context Blindness (Peter Lang, 2022), along with Paul Soukup, author of A Media Ecology of Theology (Baylor University Press, 2022), and chairing the session, Michael Plugh.

IGS Vice-President Corey Anton re-presented his 2022 keynote delivered at the New York State Communication Association's annual conference, "Apprehending the Elusive: Communication, Language, and Literacy":

Another plenary session featured IGS Fellow TC McLuhan in conversation with Lance Strate:

IGS Trustee Michael Plugh received the MEA's Christine L. Nystrom Award for Service for his efforts as an MEA officer, as well as for serving as President of the New York Society for General Semantics, and as Past President of the New York State Communication Association:

Adeena Karasick received the MEA's Susanne K. Langer Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Symbolic Form for her book, Massaging the Medium, published by the IGS.

IGS Trustee Eva Berger received the MEA's Erving Goffman Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Social Interaction for her book, Context Blindness.

And IGS Trustee Laura Trujillo-Liñán received the MEA's Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book for her monograph, Formal Cause in Marshall McLuhan's Thinking, published by the IGS.

It was truly a week to remember!

Held on June 19th-21st at Fordham University's Lincoln Center Campus in New York City, with instructors Mary P. Lahman, Lance Strate, Corey Anton, our Introduction to General Semantics in-person seminar was a great success, with over 20 students in attendance. 

For more details and to see a slideshow from the 3-day seminar, see our Classes & Seminars page.

The tenth episode of Semantic Reactions, the official podcast of the Institute of General Semantics, is now available for your listening pleasure. This installment features an interview with writer, educator and general semantics expert Mary P. Lahman, conducted by Lance Strate.  Dr. Lahman is Professor Emerita of Communication Studies at Manchester University in Indiana, and the author of Awareness and Action, published by the Institute of General Semantics. She is also a member of the IGS Board of Trustees. The discussion deals with communication as a field of study, the theory and practice of listening, and teaching on the topic of general semantics.

You can access Episode 10 via our host site, and it is also available through most major podcast platforms, and on YouTube, and below:

At the recent annual conference of the International Communication Association in Toronto, May 26th-29th, in Toronto, IGS President Lance Strate and Treasurer Thom Gencarelli met with the Chair of the Tomkins Institute, Phil Rose, to discuss possibilities of collaboration between our two organizations. As a result, the Tomkins Institute has agreed to join the list of cosponsors of our annual Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture and the Symposium on Non-Aristotelian Perspectives, Ecological Approaches, and the Anthropocene to follow, being held on October 27th-29th in New York City. 

Sylvan Tomkins (1911-1991) was a student of general semantics scholar Samuel Bois, and his affect theory is consistent with and complementary of the work of Korzybski, Hayakawa, Johnson, and Bois, as well as Norbert Weiner and Gregory Bateson's cybernetics, and media ecology.

Gary David, a member of the Tomkins Institute's advisory board, gave a memorable online lecture on General Semantics and Epistemics for the IGS this past March. Tomkins Institute's Chair (the equivalent of president) Phil Rose is a Past President of the Media Ecology Association, as are Strate and Gencarelli. Rose is also the editor of Confronting Technopoly: Charting a Course Towards Human Survival, an anthology based on the work of Neil Postman. Rose is also the author of Roger Waters and Pink Floyd: The Concept Albums and Radiohead and the Global Movement for Change: 'Pragmatism Not Idealism'.

The Tomkins Institute joins the New York Society for General Semantics, the Media Ecology Association, the International Bateson Institute, and the 404 Festival of Art and Technology as cosponsors of our 2023 AKML and Symposium.

The ninth episode of Semantic Reactions, the official podcast of the Institute of General Semantics, is now available for your listening pleasure. This installment features an interview with Martin H. Levinson, author, Trustee and Past President of the IGS, conducted by Lance Strate. Their conversation covers Levinson’s background in general semantics, his career in education, and his writing, centering on his satirical work. Levinson shares a reading from his latest book, Lunch with the American People: Satirical Food for Thought.

You can access Episode 9 via our host site, and it is also available through most major podcast platforms, and on YouTube, and below:

Our 2023 IGS lecture series continues with an online talk  featuring IGS Trustee Thom Gencarelli. The lecture will be delivered on Thursday, May 25th at 8:o0 PM EDT via Zoom. It will be free and open to the public, but registration is required. To view the event page and register, click here.