Interview to Claire North: Ithaca

Author: Profa. Dra. Arantxa Serantes (*)

It is time to rewrite history and put a contemporary face on it. The figure of Penelope in Homer’s Odyssey has always been that of a woman who waits hopelessly without realizing that the sea is also hers and that the world does not end in Ithaca. However, duty calls her, or rather, tradition, and that is what creates a stereotype.

The synopsis of the book that has just been published in Spanish reads something like this, Ithaca (2023):

Seventeen years ago, King Ulysses sailed to war with Troy, taking with him all the men of fighting age from the island of Ithaca. None of them have returned, and it is the women of Ithaca who must run the kingdom.

Penelope was barely a grown woman when she married Odysseus. As long as he was alive, she was safe. But now, years later, speculation is mounting that her husband is dead and suitors begin knocking at her door.

No man is strong enough to claim Odysseus’ empty throne. Penelope knows that one false step can lead to a bloody civil war. Only through cunning, wit and her circle of trusted handmaidens can she maintain the fragile peace necessary for the kingdom to survive.

This is the story of Penelope of Ithaca, the famous wife of Odysseus, as it has never been told before. Above the island, the gods conduct the wars of men. But on Ithaca, it is the abandoned women and their goddesses who will change the fate of the world.

Claire North’s historical novel is realistic despite being fantastic, because the descriptions take us to the exact place, with precision, so that we are aware of the passage from myth to logos. Having the opportunity to interview her, in a humanistic key and having been able to meet her in person, as well as listen to her, has been a most enriching experience. I wanted to bring the interview to Neohumanismo in its original version, so that we do not miss a single detail of what the author wanted to tell us and that is why I have dedicated a special downloadable issue for all readers to enjoy. See you in the house of Odysseus and may the gods and the seas be propitious to us.

Download link

Bibliography

Itaca – Trini Vergara Ediciones – Somos lo que quieres leer. (2023). TriniVergara. https://www.trinivergaraediciones.com/Historica/Hist%C3%B3rica+mitol%C3%B3gica/%C3%ADtaca/202310ES

Geography of (cyber )space and non-place

Author: Arantxa Serantes (*)

It all started with geopositioning , with the need to locate ourselves, to find ourselves or to locate other entities through a search system within physical space, mediated by location software or GPS. A method of observation and analysis mapped and distributed that traces a route as a physical and cultural expression, in the midst of human works and the landscape itself.

The continuous concern for the significance of the environment in which we live has led to the development of a cultural geography to cover this space (tourism, transport, distribution, business, etc. ) need to see themselves represented by this medium to channel and guide that influx of public, improve efficiency, since the perceived environment does not always correspond to the expected social and physical environment, since the trajectories can be especially complex, in terms of movements on the map and in human behavior, much simpler than it appears to be, visually speaking.

Spatial behavior is affected by an invisible zoning in order to associate it with human movement so that it is natural and associated with real distance and orientation, taking into account the changes that the landscape may be associated with. This experience is narrated by Levrero (2000) in his novel La ciudad :

“No estaba seguro de la ubicación del almacén; luego me di cuenta de que más bien no tenía menor idea del lugar donde podría encontrarse. Había ido una sola vez, hacía años y en compañía de otra persona sin necesidad de prestarle especial atención al recorrido para fijarlo en la memoria (…)

Había pocas casas y no parecían estar habitables. Paredes descascaradas e incluso semiderruidas; jardines invadidos por altos pastos y plantas silvestres y una desoladora ausencia de signos de vida humana” (p.19).

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To the infosphere

Author: Arantxa Serantes (*)

An immaterial world. A framework of information ethics in which a multiplicity of entities that coexist and interact use information as a resource and, to a lesser extent, digital literacy as a means. The semantic environment has changed. We are informs in the words of prof. Luciano Floridi . Information organizations interconnected or integrated by a device: the mobile. It is the main source of modeling of the mind because it is a vital communicative instrument that intervenes and faces the world of data, thus designing an architecture whose models and representations are in the making, without a defined ethic. Let’s say it’s a constructivist view of information.

There is no prevention against possible corruption and exhaustion as well as the reduction in quality, content and value of the information, because it is not even raised in a coherent way, which collides with fundamental freedoms and rights, since the perspective anthropocentric has been abandoned. There is no interest in informing people, so that they understand the process in a natural and progressive way. There is prior conditioning to teach us to think according to a programmatic model in order to avoid the critical spirit.

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