Tag: umberto-eco

  • Tsundoku and Eco’s Antilibrary

    Today I learnt of tsundoku: 19th-century Japanese slang for “the phenomenon of acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one’s home without reading them”. Yep, that’s me—with physical books, sure, but especially with ebooks. I love books as much as the next person, but I’m no bibliomaniac. Instead, I’m reminded of the more…

  • Why We Make Lists

    One of the current exhibitions being held in the Musée du Louvre, Paris has been curated by author and consistent top intellectual, Umberto Eco. The Infinity of Lists, as the exhibition is called, looks at the human fascination with lists and how they have progressed cultures. What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible. It…

  • 2005 Global Intellectuals Poll (100 Most Important Living Intellectuals )

    The 2005 Global Intellectuals Poll is a list of the 100 most important living public intellectuals […] compiled in November 2005 by Prospect Magazine and Foreign Policy on the basis of a reader’s ballot. Top five: Noam Chomsky Umberto Eco Richard Dawkins Václav Havel Christopher Hitchens Foreign Policy requires (free) registration to access the list.…