Monday, September 8, 2014

Modern "Classical Greek Literature" Ephemera

The Odyssey is perennial --for good and for ill--as these links suggest.
And they're still talking about Sophocles, even on the estimable Arts & Letters Daily...

Instructor's Contact Information

DR. STEPHEN A. OGDEN
Instructor, Liberal Studies
BCIT, 3700 Willingdon Ave.
Burnaby, B.C. V5G 3H2
stephen_ogden@bcit.ca

Office Hours: By Appointment

I began my IT career in 1979 as a Computer Operator: by 1986, Mananger of Computer Operations, Western Region, for Geac Computers International, which was a great Canadian corporate success story 'back in the day'—the company effectively created on-line banking technology. In 1987 I moved to SFU to take my Ph.D., working also full-time as an IT technician.

From 2003 to 2011 I was full time Lecturer in the Department of English at SFU, teaching and publishing in scholarly fields relating to Victorian literature, 20th C. British literature, and Japanese literature, classical & modern. This year I moved here to Liberal Studies at BCIT.

I have a very great deal of practical and academic experience in two areas pertinent to IT, Business expectations, and digital Course delivery.
  • Professional writing and Technical writing. Example, from 1992 to 2002 I was Chairman of the Advisory Committe to the Professional Writing Program—"Print Futures"—at Douglas College.
  • Online course incorporation, and development of pedagogy that advances individual independence as a necessary faculty for higher professional excellence. I began writing online course at Geac for staff at our international banking clients as early as 1981, and I worked for several years on Distance Education modules at SFU.
My expertise is available to help your own professional development through LIBS 7005.

Scientific Research on Marshall McLuhan's Theory of Technology

From BCIT scholar-in-training Ms. Ellen Boundy, this link to an article in peer-reviewed journal "Trends in Cognitive Sciences" which gives support to McLuhan's 'extension' theory of technology.

From the Abstract:
What happens in our brain when we use a tool to reach for a distant object? Recent neurophysiological, psychological and neuropsychological research suggests that this extended motor capability is followed by changes in specific neural networks that hold an updated map of body shape and posture (the putative ‘Body Schema’ of classical neurology). These changes are compatible with the notion of the inclusion of tools in the ‘Body Schema’, as if our own effector (e.g. the hand) were elongated to the tip of the tool. In this review we present empirical support for this intriguing idea from both single-neuron recordings in the monkey brain and behavioural performance of normal and brain-damaged humans. These relatively simple neural and behavioural aspects of tool-use shed light on more complex evolutionary and cognitive aspects of body representation and multisensory space coding for action.