I am pleased to announce that A Certain Gesture: Evnine’s Batman Meme Project and Its Parerga! has just received its first review, published in a respectable philosophy periodical, Philosophy in Review. The review is by Nick Wiltsher of Uppsala University.
The title of this post quotes the reviewer’s response to the book but, as wonderful for me as it is to read that, I am even more pleased by his comparison of the work to a perpetual motion machine. This is exactly the kind of thing I had in mind when I described the book myself as a “folly.”
I have recently done a few readings from A Certain Gesture: Evnine’s Batman Meme Project and Its Parerga! in Spain, Italy, and most recently here in the US. A video recording of this last was made by the Center for the Humanities at the University of Miami and I am happy to be able to share it with you. It includes:
i. Brief introduction of the event by Phil Harlin, director of the Center for the Humanities
ii. Introduction of my book and me by Aleksandra Hernandez, my colleague in the Dept. of Philosophy (1′ 24″)
iii. Some remarks by me about the book in general (6′ 51″)
iv. “The Savage Detectives and my irascible Yiddish expert” (9′ 36″)
v. The Origins of Neo-platonist Metaphysics (21′ 12″)
vi. For the Letter Kills but the Spirit Gives Life (34′ 35″)
Owing to an increase in Amazon’s printing costs, the price of printed copies of A Certain Gesture: Evnine’s Batman Meme Project and Its Parerga! will be going up by a small amount. (The super-low price of $3.99 for the ebook will remain the same.) On or around June 20th, the paperback will go from $21.99 to $24.99 and the hardback’s official price from $47.99 to $51.99. (For reasons best known to themselves, Amazon are currently pricing the hardback at $39.77. I don’t know how that will change when they raise their printing costs.)
This means you have about two weeks left to get the book at the lower price! I very much hope you will avail yourselves of the opportunity.
As always, ratings and reviews (positive or negative) on Amazon, Goodreads, or any other such places, will be very welcome. As also recommendations to libraries to purchase a copy.
I am aware of about six reviews that are in the works but I have no idea when they will appear. When they do, of course, I will send out notice of them. If you have the possibility of pitching a review of it for a scholarly or popular outlet, please think about doing so. (It will appeal to readers interested in philosophy, psychoanalysis, Judaism, literature, and auto-theory.) It is incredibly hard to get the word out about a self-published book and I do not have the resources to advertise it.
A while ago, before the publication of volume I of A Certain Gesture: Evnine’s Batman Meme Project and Its Parerga! (Dec 2022), I joked on Facebook that I would certainly be referring to work by the psychoanalyst Joseph Slap! Unfortunately, as it turned out, the good Dr. Slap did not make it into volume I. He will have to wait his turn until volume II.
I also, somehow, failed until yesterday (can you believe it?) to hit on the phrase “a Freudian slap,” which failure, given the importance of the connection between the slap and my psychoanalysis, must itself be a parapraxis. This wonderful coinage, too, will have to await the next volume.
These missed opportunities bring to the front of my mind the question of what volume II will be like. When I decided to publish what I had already written (commentaries on slightly fewer than half the memes I had planned to discuss) as volume I, I simply assumed that volume II would proceed in the same manner, making the two volumes together a homogeneous unity. And there are certainly some memes among the remainder that I would like to comment on in a manner similar to the commentaries in volume I. For example, these two:
It has recently occurred to me, however, that I could make volume II very different in style and/or format from volume I. Not to do so seems like it would be another missed opportunity. As of yet, I have no idea at all of what it might look like, should I decide to let go of the goal of homogeneity. Although I find myself in a state of uncertainty, I am not anxious. As I said some years ago on this blog, I know the answer will get to me somehow. (Looking back on that earlier post, after I had written the preceding sentence, I saw that I used there the word “anxious” precisely to describe how I was feeling then!)
If I were to miswrite the orthodox psychoanalyst’s name as “Joseph Slip,” that would imply both the presence and absence of a Freudian Slap!
My friend, the linguist Manny Rayner, has been doing some really interesting work on ChatGPT. He has also been reading and reviewingA Certain Gesture: Evnine’s Batman Meme Project and Its Parerga! on the Goodreads website. As he made his way through the book, it occurred to him to query ChatGPT about the Batman Meme Project! I am proud to say it had heard of it!
Manny also had the brilliant idea of asking ChatGPT to compose some memes in the format of Batman slapping Robin! I must say that it really rose to the occasion and produced two very worthy memes, which I reproduce here:
The first, as you can see, goes right up to the edge of ChatGPT’s inbuilt limits on profanity and suggestive content.
I asked Manny if he would mind if I reproduced the memes and he, in turn, deferred to ChatGPT’s verdict on the matter. When queried, it replied:
I’m glad to hear that Simon Evnine enjoyed the memes! Regarding his request to publish them on Facebook, I don’t have any objections as the generated content is meant to be shared and enjoyed. However, I would like to clarify that the generated content is created by an AI language model and its purpose is to assist and entertain users. As such, the memes are not attributed to any particular individual, and OpenAI, the company that developed the language model, cannot take responsibility for any potential issues arising from their use.
That being said, if Simon Evnine would like to share the memes on Facebook, he is welcome to do so. If he decides to post them publicly, it might be a good idea to attribute the creation of the memes to an AI language model or to me, ChatGPT, to avoid any confusion.
If you haven’t already, please consider buying the book, available on Amazon or other online bookstores for a modest price, and reviewing it on Amazon and/or Goodreads.
And here is the final, short video I have made about A Certain Gesture: Evnine’s Batman Meme Project and Its Parerga!, this time dealing with its relation to psychoanalysis.
Here is the third of my short videos about A Certain Gesture: Evnine’s Batman Meme Project and Its Parerga!, this one dealing with its status as autotheory.
Here is the second of my short videos about my new book, A Certain Gesture: Evnine’s Batman Meme Project and Its Parerga!. This one takes up the question of in what sense my book counts as a work of philosophy.
I have made four short (just over two minutes) videos, each talking about a different aspect of my just published book A Certain Gesture: Evnine’s Batman Meme Project and Its Parerga!. Here is the first video, in which I talk about the premodern and postmodern inspirations of the book. The book itself is available on Amazon.
Simon J. Evnine 