Epic Quest Research Articles

The Passionate Dispassion of the Vienna Circle

This article represents the author’s reflections on the book by Karl Sigmund “Exact Thinking in Demented Times. The Vienna Circle and the Epic Quest for the Foundations of Science” and the fate of the Vienna Circle. Sigmund paints a vivid portrait of the Vienna Circle against the background of the difficult historical period in which its members lived and worked. The Vienna Circle established the tradition of liberating consciousness and science from metaphysics. But the participants of the Vienna Circle and their entourage did not manage to get rid of the humanistic issues, despite the declaration of strict scientific character. The author of the article draws attention to the internal contradiction between strict scientific topics and the existential-humanistic perception of this topic by the Vienna Circle’s authors and their likeminded people, and by Sigmund himself. The author concludes that it was thanks to this contradiction the Vienna Circle became not only a stage in the development of philosophical science, but also had a broad cultural influence on art, politics, architecture, museums, etc. The historical and philosophical tradition connects the activities of the Vienna Circle with the beginning of the divergence between the philosophical scientific and humanistic traditions in the understanding of philosophy, and the controversy between R. Carnap and M. Heidegger is an important point in this process. But Sigmund’s book gives the impression that this is not the divergence strictly scientific and humanistic traditions, but the difference between two humanistic traditions, one of them tends to express its thoughts strictly analytically.

North Pole South Pole: The epic quest to solve the great mystery of Earth’s magnetism

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The limits of “no limits”: Young women's entrepreneurial performance and the gendered conquest of the self

AbstractNumerous programs have been set up to support women entrepreneurs on the basis that inequality results from incompatibilities between gendered emotional culture and the affective governmentality of the entrepreneurial paradigm. In the context of Spanish entrepreneurial training programs, this article identifies technologies of the self in young women's narratives of successful entrepreneurship. Using a crossed‐narrative approach, as part of three case studies, we conducted 14 interviews with program participants and 6 with program trainers. The analysis shows that, to overcome their supposed deficiencies, the participants understood that female entrepreneurialism required unlimited efforts to self‐modulate their emotional dispositions. The analysis identified three broad cultural narratives that frame entrepreneurialism as an epic quest, a vocation or calling, and a ludic pursuit of pleasure. Each of these provides an interpretative frame within which the limitless efforts demanded of feminized entrepreneurialism were resemanticized into three moral values that characterized the story protagonists (heroism, sacrifice, passion). The article further explores the vulnerability of young women to the depoliticization of entrepreneurialism by analyzing emotional suffering and lack of well‐being, distancing, ambivalences, and microresistances to the hegemonic paradigm.

Finding the Amazon's tallest trees - an epic quest to reach hidden giants.

Finding the Amazon's tallest trees - an epic quest to reach hidden giants.

Big Tree by Brian Selznick

Reviewed by: Big Tree by Brian Selznick April Spisak Selznick, Brian Big Tree; written and illus. by Brian Selznick. Scholastic, 2023 [528p] Trade ed. ISBN 9781338180633 $32.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R* Gr. 5-7 Louise and her brother, Merwin, never expected to be apart from their mom so young—they are still quite small Sycamore seeds when a fire leaves them alone in a giant and dangerous world. This world is full of terrors even if you aren’t a little seed, but for them water and wind can be risky, not to mention the dinosaurs and volcanoes. Louise is optimistic, trusting that her vibes will get her where she is destined to grow. Merwin is far more skeptical and fearful, but their love and mutual respect for each other lasts through separations, harrowing adventures, and, ultimately, two very different timelines for planting roots and becoming trees. The [End Page 232] story is unrushed, moving at a measured pace that encourages contemplation and patience: nature can be quick and wild, but trees will not be hurried. Selznick’s dedication to dual storytelling through text and hundreds of finely detailed pencil drawings allows for each to progress the plot in succession, creating a balanced and rich book that invites careful reading and poring over illustrations to find all of the connective threads. An author’s note describes how the pandemic derailed this Steven Spielberg idea from becoming a movie and how Selznick then adapted their project into a book. His expressive art that highlights the heart of the story, paired with his keen eye for creating sympathetic and memorable lost children (here he subbed in seeds for the kids) are a powerful combination to bring to this epic quest. Selznick fans will be delighted, and dinosaur fans and nature buffs will likely be just as enthralled. Copyright © 2023 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

From Aeneas to the Shaman: My Kinsman, Major Molineux and the Descent into the Underworld of the American Dream

The article focuses on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story My Kinsman, Major Molineux (1832) and aims at demonstrating how the journey undertaken by his young character Robin constitutes a re-elaboration of the classic theme of the catabasis within the mid-nineteenth century American cultural context. Robin, the protagonist of a tale on the foundation of the United States, is engaged in an epic quest which drives him into the underworld of a society where the values of freedom, equality, and happiness are inter-mingled with corruption, violence and wicked patriotism. At the end of his adventure, Hawthorne’s hero joins a violent masquerade that seems to anticipate the ‘patriots’ attack on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021.

Synchronicity: The Epic Quest to Understand the Quantum Nature of Cause and Effect, written by Paul Halpern

Synchronicity: The Epic Quest to Understand the Quantum Nature of Cause and Effect, written by Paul Halpern

Coincidence, Quantum Physics and Statistics

Abstract Kim Sawyer interviews physicist Paul Halpern (pictured) about his new book, Synchronicity: The Epic Quest to Understand the Quantum Nature of Cause and Effect

Central Asia’s pipeline politics and India’s energy quest

Although Central Asia emerged out of the ashes of the disintegration of the Soviet Union, yet the ‘Five Stans’ (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan) as a single geopolitical entity has emerged as new hotspot of global politics by virtue of its huge untapped hydrocarbon potentials and promises of new discoveries. That is perhaps the reason that even after the disintegration of the USSR, the geopolitical importance of Central Asia has never waned down, instead emerged as a grand chessboard for regional and extra-regional players. In the quest for energy security and diversity of supply sources by the energy consumers, the heartland region has witnessed a new great game in the scramble for resources to which many now call as the New Great Game for not just controlling but administering the energy resources of the region. This article examines the position of India in Central Asia and her policy initiatives in the epic quest for oil and energy in the traditional bastion of Russia and the new grand chessboard of China and the USA and endeavours to unearth if India at all have a foreign policy discourse towards the region.

Energy Geopolitics and Pipeline Diplomacy in Central Asia: India’s Interests and Policy Options

The global energy scenario is undergoing a tectonic shift in recent times. While energy security has been emerging as one of the cornerstones of the foreign policy of major countries, a new geological survey has the promise of new discoveries and reserves untapped. One such epic new frontier of the world geological survey has been the post-Soviet Central Asia consisting of five “Stans” of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, along with the Caspian Sea region. Sitting on huge untapped hydrocarbon potentials, the Central Asian geographical entity in recent years has offered enormous opportunity and appeal for countries adjacent to the region and far beyond. That is perhaps the reason that even after the disintegration of the USSR, the geopolitical importance of Central Asia has never waned down, instead it emerged as a grand chessboard for regional and extra-regional players for the immense opportunities it offered for the energy-crunch countries as potentially new and non-OPEC source of oil and natural gas. In the quest for energy security and diversity of supply sources by energy consumers, the heartland has witnessed a new great game in the scramble for resources. This accentuated struggle for oil and energy in the region has further led to aggressive foreign policy formulations and strategic calculation by countries such as the United States, China, the European Union, Japan, Israel, Iran, Pakistan, and India, to which many now call “the New Great Game” for not just controlling but administering energy resources of the region. The bottom line of the New Great Game, unlike the previous version, is essentially played out around petropolitics and pipeline diplomacy. To support the scramble for energy in Central Asia and the aggressive petropolitics and pipeline diplomacy by major powers, the study adopts the peak oil theory of Club of Rome thesis to understand the global tectonic shift of energy frontiers. Further, this article attempts to examine the position of India in Central Asia and its policy initiatives in the epic quest for oil and energy in the traditional bastion of Russia and the new grand chessboard of China and the United States.

Petropolitics and Pipeline Diplomacy in Central Asia: Can India Afford to Wait in the Wings?

The fight for hegemony in Central Asia has existed for ages. Strategically placed between two nuclear powers—Russia and China—and geopolitically located at the heart of Eurasia, Central Asia has always remained in global limelight. Even after the disintegration of the USSR, the geopolitical importance of Central Asia never waned down, instead emerged as a grand chessboard for regional and extra-regional player for the immense opportunities it has offered in the form of widely untapped natural resources and geostrategic leverages. Importantly, it has emerged as the latest geological landscape for the energy crunch countries as potentially new and non-OPEC source of oil and natural gas. In the quest for energy security and diversity of supply sources by the energy consumers, the heartland region has witnessed a new great game in the scramble for resources. This accentuated struggle for oil and energy in the region has further led to aggressive foreign policy formulations and strategic calculation by countries like the United States, China, European Union, Japan, Israel, Iran, Pakistan and India, to which many now call as the New Great Game for not just controlling but administering the energy resources of the region. The bottom line of the New Great Game unlike the previous version is essentially played out around petropolitics and pipeline diplomacy. It is in this context this research article makes a modest attempt to examine the energy factor in the geopolitics of Central Asia and tries to figure out the position of India in the epic quest for oil in the traditional bastion of Russia and the new grand chessboard of China and the United States.

:Exact Thinking in Demented Times: The Vienna Circle and the Epic Quest for the Foundations of Science

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Karl Sigmund, Exact Thinking in Demented Times: The Vienna Circle and the Epic Quest for the Foundations of Science

textabstractThe real theme of the book is the contrast between the precise analytical philosophy of the Vienna Circle, and its turbulent political and social surroundings. It is also the story of how these philosophers seemed to retreat from the world, sometimes quite literally. The picture of Kurt Godel at the end of the book, which shows the philosopher at just 65 pounds in the garden of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, suggests that he has indeed all but retreated from the world. It is also this tension that the book ultimately leaves underdeveloped, as if the only natural response to the‘demented times’ is to retreat into pure science and philosophy. That this need not be so, is clear from the actions of Otto Neurath, the most political member of the Circle. He is involved with the Bavarian socialist revolution just after WWI, is the driving force behind public education programs in Vienna, the one who opens a museum for visual statistics, and the driving force behind the pamphlet which launches the Vienna Circle as a social movement in favour of the scientific world-view. But it is precisely Neurath who is throughout the book treated with little sympathy if not outright disdain by Sigmund.

Book Review: The Vienna Circle and the Epic Quest for the Foundations of Science

Book Review: The Vienna Circle and the Epic Quest for the Foundations of Science

Karl Sigmund. Exact Thinking in Demented Times: The Vienna Circle and Its Epic Quest for the Foundations of Science. With a preface by Douglas Hofstadter. New York: Basic, 2017. Pp. 480. $32.00 (cloth).

Karl Sigmund. Exact Thinking in Demented Times: The Vienna Circle and Its Epic Quest for the Foundations of Science. With a preface by Douglas Hofstadter. New York: Basic, 2017. Pp. 480. $32.00 (cloth).

The Arsenal of Democracy: fdr, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War by A. J. Baime

Reviewed by: The Arsenal of Democracy: fdr, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War by A. J. Baime Joe Fitzharris A. J. Baime, The Arsenal of Democracy: fdr, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2014. 364pp. $24.95. In Arsenal of Democracy, A. J. Baime makes a select part of the story—of mass producing the desperately needed b-24 “Liberator” heavy bombers—come alive. But his subtitle is misleading; in actuality, Henry and Edsel Ford, Charlie Sorenson, Harry Bennett, and Ford Motor Company (fmc) all are more central to Baime’s story than fdr. The story is framed between Franklin Roosevelt’s “arsenal of democracy” speech on December 29, 1940, and the return of the B-24s to Willow Run after victory in Europe. Most were built and scrapped there. Largely ignoring the Great Pacific War, Baime tells us how Edsel Ford, Charlie Sorenson, and fmc finally were able to produce B-24s like automobiles (which aviation moguls said could not be done). He makes a strong case that a pacifistic and increasingly irrational Henry Ford was an obstacle not an instigator of Ford’s war production. Henry’s cruel disdain for Edsel, and not admitting his son’s ill-health, is a noteworthy additional burden. Beset by Henry Morganthau’s treasury department sleuths investigating fmc ties to Ford of France and Germany-was fmc cooperating willfully with the Nazis?- and by the Truman committee, and the fbi (what were Henry Ford’s and test pilot-consultant Charles Lindbergh’s loyalties?), Edsel persevered to turn Henry’s farm camp for disadvantaged boys into the largest aircraft factory in the world—Willow Run. To please father, the plant was configured to stay within Washtenaw county which had voted Republican in 1940. As Henry’s favorite aviator, Lindbergh was hired as a test pilot. Since they were both prominent isolationists who received Nazi awards they were of interest to government investigators. Like other war factories built in rural areas, Willow Run had no housing and workers could not commute to work from Detroit. Perhaps because of the importance of the b-24, the government agreed to release materials to build housing—“Bomber City.” Needing ten thousand workers, fmc turned to recruiting and training southern whites and blacks—a hypergolic racial mix. They hired a very large number of women, again against social norms. Baime notes the presence of workers who were blind, handless, legless, and deaf—all doing needed work, and of dwarves, hired to work in fuselage sections too small for most people. In his dotage, Henry Ford’s narrowmindedness and vicious anti-Semitism combined with the criminal evil of Harry Bennett, head of fmc’s [End Page 113] security (the “Service”) department to allow Bennett to treat labor and management alike with a heavy hand, and union sympathizers with a heavy club. In response, a strike was called in 1941 and Bennett used blacks as strike breakers, intensifying racial tensions at Willow Run. Despite the 1943 riots in Detroit and societal bigotry, Edsel and fmc continued the extensive hiring, training, and promotion of black workers (and women) in an effort to create the needed labor force. In 1940, producing huge numbers of a highly complex machine (over 1.2 million parts) like Consolidated Aircraft Corporation’s b-24, was impossible. Consolidated did not mass produce bombers any more than the German aircraft industry did. Instead, both extensively used craft workers and many individually made or fitted parts while auto production used identical parts and lots of narrowly trained workers. fdr’s advisers thought his goal of (mass producing) fifty thousand bombers was impossible. Thus, Edsel’s determination to build bombers like Model Ts was improbable. Combining the genius of Charlie Sorenson and his people with the help of Charles Lindbergh, Edsel managed to achieve his goal of automobile-like mass production of the heavy bomber, although a bit later than he’d intended. Edsel’s death in 1943 precipitated a crisis of leadership at Ford. His son, Henry II, left the Navy to run the company. The grandfather, clearly incompetent, insisted on being president and Bennett...

Harsh oil: finding petroleum in early twentieth century Western Australia

Abstract Before becoming a science, an art or a form of investment, oil prospecting needed the mental vision of the discoverers of new oil fields in unexplored areas. According to Pratt, the minds of such men made the discovery of new wells possible, mostly in terrains that were not considered favourable such as in Australia. This paper is the initial outcome of an investigation into the first oil explorations in the SW of Australia in the early twentieth century. Following a review of the relevant literature, the paper provides an overview of the early global development of the oil industry, exploring expectations of oil resources in Australia in the context of international oil developments. This provides the background to an analysis of early oil exploration in Western Australia (WA), based on analysis of contemporary geological literature, unpublished government documents and newspaper reports. The result is not the tale of an epic quest for oil in Australia, but rather a story of sceptical scientists, visionary investors and a government that saw oil as an asset that would speed up Australia's transition from a British colony into an independent political and economic power.

The Prize: the Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power

The Prize: the Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power

Science as a quest: Don Quixote, neuroscience and the interrogation of truth

Neuroscientist Rodrigo Quian Quiroga has wondered whether «scientists, embarked upon their personal quests – their quixotic endeavours – spend their time just thinking». This adjectival invocation of Cervantes’s Don Quixote pitches science as an epic quest that equates scientific rationality with the Don’s delusions. Does science quest after truth in a quixotic, literary way that philosopher Nicholas Maxwell terms «rationalistically neurotic»?

Woven by Michael Jensen (review)

Reviewed by: Woven by Michael Jensen April Spisak Jensen, Michael Woven; by Michael Jensen and David Powers King. Scholastic, 2015 344p Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-545-68572-6 $18.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-0-545-68573-3 $18.99 R Gr. 8-10 This rich, elegant fantasy follows Nels as he goes from beloved local kid (whose mother has always tried to keep him hidden away without telling him why) to dead to not quite dead to savior, all in a short span of time. A shapeshifting bad guy, a mysterious and inscrutable mentor, and a giant needle all come into play as the story of how Nels is not actually dead (but absolutely dying should no change occur) is laid out. The epic quest for Nels to save himself, and perhaps the whole kingdom, involves Tyra, a cranky, spoiled princess who grows in leaps and bounds due to her association with Nels, a peasant who is wise beyond his stature; however, both characters are so intriguing beyond their stereotypical roles, and their journey so fraught with danger, that all is forgiven for the occasional dip into well-worn high fantasy tropes. The continuing theme of tapestries, needlework, and threads is effective in conveying this gorgeously detailed world where lives can be changed by fabricators, individuals who can alter the very threads from which reality is woven. A simple map is included. Copyright © 2015 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois