A Link Post

Robert Stern was interviewed in 3:AM magazine; it is a good read.

In the wake of Förster's book, I have been reading more about Schelling and Goethe. Robert Richards's work has been very helpful here; "Did Goethe and Schelling Endorse Species Evolution?" (PDF) was particularly stimulating.

Richards gave a seminar on "The Origin of Species" while I was at Chicago; I only sat in on the first couple of classes at the time, since I was busy and it was being recorded for posting online. Sadly, the video and podcast links are dead now, but I had most of the podcasts downloaded. (For some reason I didn't download week 2's podcast; ironically, that is the one class I am sure I was present at. The slides for that week of the course are still posted (PDF), and are worth looking at just for the cartoon of Professor Icthyosaurus on page 13. (The context for that cartoon was a cyclical theory of evolution, where extinct species were supposed to arise again once catastrophic floods had changed the character of the Earth so that humans were no longer viable, but e.g. ichthyosaurs were again. I just really like the design on the whole thing.)

Edit: This is a great sentence: "This kind of metaphysics enticed Goethe the way several of his women friends did at this time: with great allure and seduction, with the poet giving way even while recognizing the impropriety of his indulgence." (Source, PDF)