Spinoza, distributed rootless cosmopolitan

I have written about or documented Spinoza-related materials in various cyberlocales (this one included), and it occurs to me I should link to the relevant pages on my own sites at least, because I was not certain where to place this link to an insightful document on Spinoza's rootless cosmopolitanism:

Baruch-Benedictus: From uprooted roots to root-independent ideas? by Marcelo Dascal

This essay can be compared to Rebecca Goldstein's Betraying Spinoza, which was published at or near the beginning of a popular Spinoza revival of recent years. I wrote about this elsewhere, engaged Goldstein personally on the book talk circuit, and in an online forum. I do not recall where, offhand.  However, I began my blogging about Spinoza with . . . .

Rebecca Goldstein on the 350th Anniversary of the Excommunication of Baruch Spinoza

I followed this up with:

• My Yiddishe Spinoza
• Constantin Brunner (1)
• Leibniz
• October Reading Review (1):  Grossman, Neal. Healing the Mind: The Philosophy of Spinoza Adapted for a New Age

Newer entries show up in the current version of my Studies in a Dying Culture blog under the rubric Spinoza. The entries to date are:

• Leibniz’ Spinoza anxiety revisited
• Spinoza’s Semantics

There are a number of Spinoza pages on my main web site. Regardless of subject matter, they all (and also external web pages) can be accessed via my bibliography:

Spinoza & Marxism (with Basic Spinoza Web Guide)

Two Cultures going on 51

2009 marked the 50th anniversary of C.P. Snow's landmark lecture on "The Two Cultures," later supplemented and published in book form. The press covered this anniversary last year. I found some articles on the subject, and at some point I may review them and mention the most interesting ones. At the moment I have this reference at hand:

Brin, David. The old and new versions of "culture war", Contrary Brin blog, May 8, 2009.

A brief bibliography and web guide on the subject forms a section of my Positivism vs Life Philosophy (Lebensphilosophie) Study Guide.

Independently of this anniversary, the "two cultures" remains a theme in popular culture, addressed by a variety of serious intellectuals. Here are a few examples I just came across:

Mae Jemison on teaching arts and sciences together, TED, Feb. 2002.

Rebecca Goldstein, "The Two Cultures," in M. Kramer (ed.), The Jewish Experience in Contemporary Literature: Two Worlds? (Special issue of Maggid, The Toby Press, 2004).

"Gödel and the Nature of Mathematical Truth ": A Talk with Rebecca Goldstein, Edge: The Third Culture, 06.08.05.

Rebecca Goldstein, "Why I’ve Learned to Love the Novel," New Scientist, Aug. 25, 2007.

Rebecca Goldstein: 36 Arguments for the Existence of God

See the web site for Rebecca Goldstein's new novel, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction.

See also the page on 36 Arguments on Rebecca Newberger Goldstein's own web site.

When Goldstein appeared in Washington to promote her new book, she emphasized the subtitle, which renders the title deliberately ironic. The appendix to her novel catalogs the 36 arguments.

Rebecca Goldstein is a philosopher who turned to fiction with her first novel, The Mind-Body Problem. Since then she has written several works of fiction and non-fiction, the latter including an excellent book on Spinoza and an intellectual biography of Kurt Godel and his friendship with Einstein.

Here are a couple of reviews:

'36 Arguments' Poses Questions Of Faith, In Fiction by Maureen Corrigan
NPR, 20 Jan 2010

Trying to Paint the Deity by Numbers Against a Backdrop of Jewish Culture
By Janet Maslin
The New York Times, January 20, 2010