In 1948, the Institute of General Semantics hosted a Summer Seminar-Workshop at Millbrook School in New York. Over 15 hours of audio recordings from that course were recently digitized, and for the first time ever, the recordings are now available for listening and download from the IGS Store.

Recorded in August and September 1948, the recordings reflect a wide range of speakers, general semantics lessons, and teacher-student interactions. They were digitized and enhanced in 2020 from reels rescued from the Institute of General Semantics archives.

Included with the MP3 album of 25 audio files is the Listener's Guide for IGS 1948 Summer Seminar-Workshop by Ben Hauck, which meticulously brings together archival information about the course -- from its planning to names of those in attendance, and more.

The following general semantics lecturers speak in the recordings on these subjects and others:

• Stuart Chase - House on Un-American Activities
• William Exton, Jr. - Audio-Visual Aids, Maps, Non-Verbal Symbols
• Harry Holtzman - Visual Art; Abstract Art
• Douglas Kelley - Work of Adelbert Ames, Jr., Psychiatry, Structure, Function of the Human Nervous System, Conditioned Reflexes; On Magic; Prejudice, and Question & Answer Session
• M. Kendig - Introduction to Allen Walker Read; Neuro-Linguistic, Neuro-Semantic Environments on Teaching and Writing General Semantics
• Alfred Korzybski - Introduction to Douglas Kelley
• Irving J. Lee - Statements of Fact, Inferencing; Question & Answer Session
• Allen Walker Read - Semantic Guide
• Sam Rosen - Using General Semantics in Medical Situations

Approximate Running Time: >15 hours

These audio recordings and listener's guide complement the motion picture produced during the 1948 course:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qep9ppZ0oK0

 
This audio collection is available as a downloadable ZIP file including 25 MP3 audio files and a listener's guide PDF with photographs.

Click here to order the 1948 Summer Seminar-Workshop Audio Collection »

NOTE: The ZIP file is 162MB, a large file. You have 4 days from the moment of purchase to complete the download, and 4 attempts to succeed.  Only order when you have enough time to download the file to a computer or external hard drive with enough space. To open the ZIP, you may need to extract the contents of the ZIP file with additional free software.

Martin H. Levinson has just released the revised second edition for his book Sensible Thinking for Turbulent Times,  and it is now available in the IGS Store.

About the Book

In these times of rapid change and constant upheaval, can we learn to think and communicate more effectively — at home, in school, on the job, and as citizens in the larger world? This book, which is based on the formulations of general semantics, says yes, yes, and yes! Topics in it include practical ways to improve your thinking ability, emotional self-management, creativity, and analysis of important social issues.

Order Sensible Thinking for Turbulent Times (Revised Second Edition) in the IGS Store »

About the Author

Martin H. Levinson, Ph.D., is the President of the Institute of General Semantics and the author of numerous articles and several books on general semantics and other subjects.

The audiobook version of Martin H. Levinson's popular, humorous book of general semantics lessons, Practical Fairy Tales for Everyday Living (Revised Second Edition), is now available for purchase and download from Audible.

In addition, the audiobook is available for download on iTunes (Apple Books).

About Practical Fairy Tales for Everyday Living

In Practical Fairy Tales for Everyday Living, fanciful characters that one can identify with battle personal problems, mishaps, and mayhem. None of them are guaranteed a happily-ever-after, but by applying the fundamentals of general semantics -- a communication-based self-help system -- they are better able to evaluate and understand everyday conundrums to successfully vanquish challenging situations. While these 24 stories may not be true in the literal sense, G.K. Chesterton observed that, “Fairy tales are more than true, not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten.”

The book is by IGS president Martin H. Levinson, and the audiobook is narrated by IGS trustee Ben Hauck.

All proceeds from the audiobook will be donated to the Institute of General Semantics.

The book is available in softcover and Kindle versions. You may order the softcover from the IGS Store.

Audiobook Links

Purchase the audiobook from Audible »

Purchase the audiobook on Amazon »

Purchase the audiobook on iTunes (Apple Books) »

To the IGS YouTube account, we have added nearly all of the videos of presentations from the 67th Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture and its subsequent 2-Day General Semantics Symposium, sponsored by the Institute of General Semantics, and co-sponsored by the Media Ecology Association and the New York Society for General Semantics.

The entire event was held at the Princeton Club in New York City, October 11-13, 2019.

The videos are compiled into a sequential playlist that mirrors the sequence of events from the weekend.

As of publication, not all videos are available as we await consent from the presenters. As presenters consent, we will release more videos in the playlist.

Watch individual entries from the playlist »

Our long-awaited and second double issue 74:3-4 (2017) of ETC: A Review of General Semantics is in the mail and is now available for download from the IGS Store in searchable PDF format.

• Click here to download ETC 74:3-4 from the IGS Store.

Table of Contents Preview

"The Pathologies of Perfectionism" by Paul Watzlawick

"Fanaticism: The Panhuman Disorder" by Margaret Mead

"The Rise of 'Middle Region' Politics" by Joshua Meyrowitz

"Television: The New State Religion?" by George Gerbner

"Laws of the Media" by Marshall McLuhan

"The Mystery of the Discovery of Zero" by Robert K. Logan

"An Aspect of the Role of Persuasion in a Technical Society" by Jacques Ellul

"Human Engineering and Social Adjustment" by Edward L. Bernays

"The Information Environment" by Neil Postman

"Harold Innis: A Man of His Times" by Eric A. Havelock

"A Few Speculations on the Future of General Semantics" by Russell Joyner

"Educational Research: The Romance of Quantification" by Charles Weingartner

"The Semiotic Aspect of Alfred Korzybski's General Semantics" by Allen Walker Read

"How Things Get Better" by Henry J. Perkinson

"Structuralism in Reverse" by Jay Rosen

"Multiordinality: A Point of Viewing" by Milton Dawes

"Time-Binding in Oral Cultures" by Lance Strate

"Dreamy Americans Prefer a Paper Moon to the Real Thing" by Lewis H. Lapham

"Not Without Us" by Joseph Weizenbaum

"Literacy as a Deviance" by Christine Nystrom

"Knowledge or Certainty" by J. Bronowski

"On the Recently Minted Hundred-Cent Piece" by John Updike

"Undoing Babel: C.K. Ogden's Basic English" by W. Terrence Gordon

"General Semantics and Practical Philosophy" by Sanford I. Berman

"Silence and Paralanguage as Communication" by Joseph A. Devito

"The Relevance of General Semantics" by Alvin Toffler

"Toward Understanding E-Prime" by Robert Anton Wilson

"How to Think Scientifically about Yourself, Other People, and Your Life Conditions" by Albert Ellis

"The Computer 'Virus' as Metaphor" by Raymond Gozzi, Jr.

"The Arithmetic" by Steve Allen

"ETC (Volume I, Number 1) Revisited" by Martin H. Levinson, Ph.D.

"Media Literacy, General Semantics, and K-12 Education" by Renee Hobbs

"Korzybski and Bateson: Paradoxes in 'Consciousness of Abstracting'" by Corey Anton

"Neil Postman's Advice on How to Live the Rest of Your Life" by Janet Stenberg

"Young Alfred Korzybski" by Bruce I. Kodish

"Appreciative Inquiry + General Semantics → IFD Disease Resistance" by Mary P. Lahman

Plus Letter from the Editor.

Cover Art

"Walter in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" by Dom Heffer (b.1978, London) -- an artist, based in Hull, who has worked with many arts and research organizations, some of which include the
Institute of General Semantics, the Media Ecology Association, UK City of Culture, 20/21 Visual Arts Centre, Scunthorpe, Arts Council England, and The Estate of Francis Bacon, London. Further information about Dom’s work is available at: ideasinthevoid.com

To the IGS YouTube account, we have added nearly all of the videos of presentations from the 66th Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture and its subsequent 2-Day General Semantics Symposium, sponsored by the Institute of General Semantics, and co-sponsored by the Media Ecology Association and the New York Society for General Semantics.

The entire event was held at the Princeton Club in New York City, October 26-28, 2018.

The videos are compiled into a sequential playlist that mirrors the sequence of events from the weekend.

As of publication, not all videos are available as we await consent from the presenters. As presenters consent, we will release more videos in the playlist.

Watch individual entries from the playlist »

Dominic Heffer is a trustee of the Institute of General Semantics and an artist based in the United Kingdom.

Throughout December, his recent work "Meta/Semantic/Painting" will be shown on Big Screen Leeds, Millenium Square, in Leeds city centre.

The work was initially made for the 2018 General Semantics Symposium in New York City.

The work shows the developing structures of three paintings through a series of animated thought processes that emerge into "final" images. Ideas such as Alfred Korzybski's map/territory analogy and Gregory Bateson's research into denotative communication, inform the work.

You can see the full length film at https://ideasinthevoid.com/2018-meta-semantic-painting/.

Below are some representative images from the work.

Institute of General Semantics president Martin H. Levinson was recently interviewed on using general semantics for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The interview is part of a two-part series by Mike Kim on general semantics and managing war trauma.

• Part 1: Manage War Trauma Using General Semantics: An Interview with Dr. Martin H. Levinson
• Part 2: How to Apply General Semantics: Using the technology of the Self on the Veteran Readjustment Journey

The series appears on the website The Mindful Word.

 

The Institute of General Semantics is pleased to announce the release of the revised second edition of Practical Fairy Tales for Everyday Living by Martin H. Levinson.

In Practical Fairy Tales for Everyday Living, fanciful characters that one can identify with battle personal problems, mishaps, and mayhem.

None of them are guaranteed a happily-ever-after, but by applying the fundamentals of general semantics -- a communications-based self-help system -- they are better able to evaluate and understand everyday conundrums to successfully vanquish challenging situations.

While these twenty-four stories may not be true in the literal sense, G.K. Chesterton observed that, "Fairy tales are more than true not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten."

• Click here to purchase Practical Fairy Tales for Everyday Living from the IGS Store.

Our long-awaited double issue 74:1-2 (2017) of ETC: A Review of General Semantics is in the mail and is now available for download from the IGS Store in searchable PDF format.

• Click here to download ETC 74:1-2 from the IGS Store.

Table of Contents Preview

"etcetera" by e e cummings

"Science and Values" by Edward L. Thorndike

"People in Quandaries: And Why They Are There" by Wendell Johnson

"The Relation of Habitual Thought and Behavior to Language" by Benjamin Lee Whorf

"Adolph Hitler and Words" by F. K. Richter

"General Semantics: An Introductory Lecture" by S. I. Hayakawa

"Release of Atomic Energy" by Alfred Korzybski

"A Suggested Improvement in Semantic Usage" by A. H. Maslow

"Probability as a Guide in Life" by Rudolf Carnap

"Alfred Korzybski July 3, 1879 - March 1, 1950 Biographical Summary" by Anatol Rapoport

"On the Varieties of Research in General Semantics" by Irving J. Lee

"Lineal and Nonlineal Codifications of Reality" by Dorothy Lee

"Obiter Dicta: The Nylon War" by David Riesman

"Communication: Its Blocking and Its Facilitation" by Carl R. Rogers

"Recent Contributions to the Mathematical Theory of Communication" by Warren Weaver

"Metalogue: Daddy, How Much Do You Know?" by Gregory Bateson

"Background to Kinesics" by Ray L. Birdwhistell

"Toward a Humanistic Psychology" by A. H. Maslow

"'Never Have So Few Owed So Much to So Many'" by Newton N. Minow

"The Erewhonians and the Open Society" by Karl R. Popper

"Go Slow" by Langston Hughes

"Towards a Theory of Protest" by Kenneth E. Boulding

"The Backlash Blues" by Langston Hughes

"The Ambiguous Mirror: The Reflective-Projective Theory of Broadcasting and Mass Communication" by Lee Loevinger

"Crises in Communication: A Plea for Awareness and Response" by Nicholas Johnson

"Not Since Babel" by Edmund Carpenter

"The Limits of My Media" by Terence P. Moran

"What I Think Korzybski Thought--and What I Think about It" by Anatol Rapoport

Plus Letter from the Editor.

Cover Art

The title of this double issue's cover photograph is "Manhood of Humanity," by photographer Stephen Shore. Marty Levinson, President of the Institute of General Semantics, saw Stephen's photographs on display at a show dedicated to him at the Museum of Modern Art in late 2017, and was surprised to see this photo -- which as you will note, in the top half, includes the inset from Korzybski’s book. At Marty's request, Stephen has given the Institute permission to use the photo for the cover of ETC. As Marty wrote: "I think it’s a real paean to time-binding."