Babel

The multilingual, multicultural online journal and community of arts and ideas. There's a heaven above you, baby.

Babel

Archives for December, 2011

Announcement: Forthcoming Edited Anthology

Posted by  on Wednesday, December 28th 2011     

I’m currently accepting submissions for the forthcoming volume Interpretation: Theory: History, an edited anthology examining figures significant to the history of textual interpretation within the context of their social, political, cultural, and intellectual histories. Those interested should visit the InterpretationTheoryHistory at WordPress for more information.

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How to save a dying language, like Ladino, with music

Posted by  on Wednesday, December 28th 2011     

(English subtitles available by pressing the “CC” button in the lower right side of the screen or the Interactive Transcript button to the right of the flag button below the screen.) Susanna Zaraysky speaks about the history of the Ladino language of the Spanish Jews expelled from Spain during the Inquisition and how it is [...]

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The Mill and The Cross Review

Posted by  on Tuesday, December 27th 2011     

The Mill and The Cross is unlike any film we have ever seen, a lush painting come to life, embodied by actors, set with sparse dialogue. Even the sound is gorgeous: a bird, a forest, the miller climbing stairs. Based on the book by Michael Francis Gibson and 16th century painter Pieter Bruegel’s 1564 masterpiece [...]

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Video: How a dying language saved a Jewish boy’s life during the Holocaust

Posted by  on Monday, December 26th 2011     

(English subtitles are available by pressing the “CC” button in the lower right side of the screen or the Interactive Transcript button to the right of the flag button below the screen.) Susanna Zaraysky, author of Language is Music speaks on San Francisco’s Univision station about how the ancient Ladino language (of the Sephardic Jews [...]

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Holy Night

Posted by  on Monday, December 19th 2011     

The bus arrived in the city as night came on, tunneling off the backstreets to the terminal underground, which seemed packed with every lost soul the devil could drag down – junkies, winos, pushers, pimps, beggars, hookers, small time cons, drifters, runaways, the down and out, and huddled here and there, in the corners, on [...]

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Creating Artificial Intelligence Based on the Real Thing

Posted by  on Sunday, December 11th 2011     

Computer engineers are becoming more literal in their interpretation of biological metaphors: For the most part, the biological metaphor has long been … simplifying analogy rather than a blueprint for how to do computing. Engineering, not biology, guided the pursuit of artificial intelligence. As Frederick Jelinek, a pioneer in speech recognition, put it, “airplanes don’t [...]

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Reblog PS SMS: MicroMemoir

Posted by  on Saturday, December 10th 2011     

Paging through ages / a hymn of heritage to / Switzerland snow capped. Reblog PS SMS:  ______________________________________________________________ The Literary Party: Growing Up Gay and Amish in America – All Romance Ebooks

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My Face to the Light: Alice Walker’s Thoughts about Christmas

Posted by  on Monday, December 5th 2011     

As I was reading Alice Walker (best known for her book The Color Purple) collection of essays entitled Anything We Love Can Be Saved, I thought her ideas only represented me on an abstract – perhaps metaphorical level. I can relate to her situation only in certain aspects, others I can’t even begin to understand. [...]

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Speaking a foreign language could save your life

Posted by  on Sunday, December 4th 2011     

The practical life-saving applications of speaking another language are topics that are dear to me but not all that apparent to many. As education budget cuts worldwide mean that non-vital courses are being eliminated. foreign language classes often fall into the category of non-essential. However, I know that being a polyglot can not only provide [...]

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