The technological realm provides an unusually active laboratory not only for new ideas and products but also for the remarkable linguistic innovations that accompany and describe them. How else would words like qubit (a unit of quantum information), crowdsourcing (outsourcing to the masses), or in vitro meat (chicken and beef grown in an industrial vat) enter our language? In Virtual Words: Language on the Edge of Science and Technology, Jonathon Keats, author of Wired Magazine's monthly Jargon Watch column, investigates the interplay between words and ideas in our fast-paced tech-driven use-it-or-lose-it society. In 28 illuminating short essays, Keats examines how such words get coined, what relationship they have to their subject matter, and why some, like blog, succeed while others, like flog, fail. Divided into broad categories--such as commentary, promotion, and slang, in addition to scientific and technological neologisms--chapters each consider one exemplary word, its definition, origin, context, and significance. Examples range from microbiome (the collective genome of all microbes hosted by the human body) and unparticle (a form of matter lacking definite mass) to gene foundry (a laboratory where artificial life forms are assembled) and singularity (a hypothetical future moment when technology transforms the whole universe into a sentient supercomputer). Together these words provide not only a survey of technological invention and its consequences, but also a fascinating glimpse of novel language as it comes into being. No one knows this emerging lexical terrain better than Jonathon Keats. In writing that is as inventive and engaging as the language it describes, Virtual Words offers endless delights for word-lovers, technophiles, and anyone intrigued by the essential human obsession with naming.

Virtual Words: Language on the Edge of Science and Technology

Reference

Keats, Jonathon

Words, Language & Grammar

Oxford University Press

A compelling call to apply Buckminster Fuller's creative problem-solving to present-day problems A self-professed "comprehensive anticipatory design scientist," the inventor Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was undoubtedly a visionary. Fuller's creations often bordered on the realm of science fiction, ranging from the freestanding geodesic dome to the three-wheel Dymaxion car to a bathroom requiring neither plumbing nor sewage. Yet in spite of his brilliant mind and life-long devotion to serving mankind, Fuller's expansive ideas were often dismissed, and have faded from public memory since his death. You Belong to the Universe documents Fuller's six-decade quest to "make the world work for one hundred percent of humanity." Critic and experimental philosopher Jonathon Keats sets out to revive Fuller's unconventional practice of comprehensive anticipatory design, placing Fuller's philosophy in a modern context and dispelling much of the mythology surrounding Fuller's life. Keats argues that Fuller's life and ideas, namely doing "the most with the least," are now more relevant than ever as humanity struggles to meet the demands of an exploding world population with finite resources. Delving deeply into Buckminster Fuller's colorful world, Keats applies Fuller's most important concepts to present-day issues, arguing that his ideas are now not only feasible, but necessary. From transportation to climate change, urban design to education, You Belong to the Universe demonstrates that Fuller's holistic problem-solving techniques may be the only means of addressing some of the world's most pressing issues. Keats's timely book challenges each of us to become comprehensive anticipatory design scientists, providing the necessary tools for continuing Fuller's legacy of improving the world.

You Belong to the Universe: Buckminster Fuller and the Future

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

According to Vasari, the young Michelangelo often borrowed drawings of past masters, which he copied, returning his imitations to the owners and keeping originals. Half a millennium later, Andy Warhol made a game of "forging" the Mona Lisa, questioning the entire concept of originality. Forged explores art forgery from ancient times to the present. In chapters combining lively biography with insightful art criticism, Jonathon Keats profiles individual art forgers and connects their stories to broader themes about the role of forgeries in society. From the Renaissance master Andrea del Sarto who faked a Raphael masterpiece at the request of his Medici patrons, to the Vermeer counterfeiter Han van Meegeren who duped the avaricious Hermann Göring, to the frustrated British artist Eric Hebborn, who began forging to expose the ignorance of experts, art forgers have challenged "legitimate" art in their own time, breaching accepted practices and upsetting the status quo. They have also provocatively confronted many of the present-day cultural anxieties that are major themes in the arts. Keats uncovers what forgeries--and our reactions to them--reveal about changing conceptions of creativity, identity, authorship, integrity, authenticity, success, and how we assign value to works of art. The book concludes by looking at how artists today have appropriated many aspects of forgery through such practices as street-art stenciling and share-and-share-alike licensing, and how these open-source "copyleft" strategies have the potential to make legitimate art meaningful again. Forgery has been much discussed--and decried--as a crime. Forged is the first book to assess great forgeries as high art in their own right.

Forged: Why Fakes are the Great Art of Our Age

HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU WANTED TO KILL YOUR BOSS? HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO FOR THAT CORNER OFFICE? Gloria Greene is young, beautiful, brilliant, and dead serious about what she wants. She's used her many charms to fuel her blazing rise from intern to editor in chief of sophisticated Portfolio magazine. But is she really the killer who hacked the former editor to pieces and shipped his body parts cross-country by UPS? The prime suspect, Gloria shines in the media spotlight and FBI glare, enjoying the attentions of a daddy who loves her a little too much and the excessive worrying of her fabulous and neurotic friends. Now she covets the editorship of the legendary Algonquin magazine -- after all, nobody is a suspect forever... For readers of Bright Lights, Big City and The Secret History comes an entertaining portrait of a devilishly ambitious modern woman, and a satirical look at the magazine world from an exciting new author.

The Pathology of Lies

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

Grand Central Publishing

This issue of 'Antennae' explores the rise of interest in art and science collaborations. Partly because of the resonance of the posthuman cyborg in the ontological turn; because of the rise of Bio Art; because of the prominence that multidisciplinarity has acquired in academia; and surely in light of our fraught relationship with our environment and climate change, the intersections between art and science have recently become more complexly de ned by new ethical, political, aesthetic, and poetic registers.This project is co-edited in collaboration with American artist and philosopher Jonathon Keats whose bold experiments have raise serious questions and put into practice his conviction that the world needs more “curious amateurs,” willing to explore publicly whatever intrigues them in de ance of a culture that increasingly forecloses on wonder and silos knowledge into narrowly defined areas of expertise.

Antennae #47 Experiment

Science & Math

Wertheim, Margaret

Nature & Ecology

Antennaeproject

Marvelous and mystical stories of the thirty-six anonymous saints whose decency sustains the world–reimagined from Jewish folklore. A liar, a cheat, a degenerate, and a whore. These are the last people one might expect to be virtuous. But a legendary Kabbalist has discovered the truth: they are just some of the thirty-six hidden ones, the righteous individuals who ultimately make the world a better place. In these captivating stories, we meet twelve of the secret benefactors, including a timekeeper’s son who shows a sleepless village the beauty of dreams; a gambler who teaches a king ruled by the tyranny of the past to roll the dice; a thief who realizes that his job is to keep his fellow townsfolk honest; and a golem–a woman made of mud–who teaches kings and peasants the real nature of humanity. With boundless imagination and a delightful sense of humor, acclaimed writer and artist Jonathon Keats has turned the traditional folktale on its head, creating heroes from the unlikeliest of characters, and enchanting readers with these stunningly original fables.

The Book of the Unknown: Tales of the Thirty-six

United States

Random House Trade Paperbacks

A fun reference book that will inform and entertain you while decoding the fast-changing language of high-tech culture.

Control + Alt + Delete: A Dictionary of Cyberslang

Dictionaries & Thesauruses

Lyons Pr

Il libro dell'ignoto. Storie di trentasei Giusti

Short Stories & Anthologies

Giuntina

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Keats, Jonathon. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Keats, Jonathon