>reading at the moment?
this thread

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

I'm reading this right now:
https://fanfiction.net/s/6139141/1/

fun little story about a 40K Warhound Titan crew

I want to read about Taoism but I don't know where to begin （ ´,_ゝ`）

>>115160
The Tao Te Ching of course

I'm reading the Nichijou Manga

I had begun to read Don Quijo de la Mancha (En español, el mejor idioma del mundo). Unfortunately, I was tasked with reading a book about commerce for college purposes (Los Bienes Terrenales del Hombre, idk if it's in english).
An interesting book, though, so i don't really regret it

>>115204
Quijote*
Fuck

The 13th Paladin, Vol II: The Naming

I haven't read any fiction/fantasy in years, so it's been a fun change

>Otaku: Japan's Database Animals
Feels like a Nyu Aka throwback book. Good read so far but I'm not convinced. Azuma seems to say that otakus don't care about narrative or plot structure, they just love to collect stuff for the purpose of categorization. Not sure about that ┐(ﾟ～ﾟ)┌

>>115160
Part II of Toshihiko Izutsu's book is a great overview and covers pretty much everything for a beginner.
https://archive.org/details/ToshihikoIzutsuSufismAndTaoism/page/n1/mode/2up

>>115212
not read the book, but yeah the whole thesis seems kinda lame and over-essentialising. and there's nothing peculiarly post-modern about treating stories/characters as mere points in a space of tropes and traits: that's exactly how folklore works.

the book might just be bad because Azuma was influenced by Baudrillard, and Baudrillard was a fucking retard faggot.

I finished Parfum earlier this month, and I love the prose and language of it and it actualized me to how important and lovely smell is. No other sensation brings back the past and illicits emotion especially in a world where everyone stares at screens and sights themselves are cheap now.

The pacific war, about WW2 written by a japanese historian, but he is very critical of the japanese gov't.

I am also reading the disappearance of haruhi suzumiya

>>115212
>Azuma seems to say that otakus don't care about narrative or plot structure
from my experience talking with so-called otakus here on this site, that seems to be true

>>115299
NOT TRUE
Baudrillard WAS one of the most important thinkers in contemporary philosophy.

>>115326
What Baudretard calls “third order simulacrum” is a simple semiotic configuration that has existed for all time. By identifiying it as a unique attribute of post-modern society, he crudely metaphysicalises history.

>>115331
I've never read Baudrillard myself so I'm not sure what a “third order simulacrum” actually refers to, as a semiotic configuration; could you explain a little further?

>>115340
from https://cla.purdue.edu/academic/english/theory/postmodernism/modules/baudrillardsimulation.html:

1) in the first order of simulacra, which he associates with the pre-modern period, the image is a clear counterfeit of the real; the image is recognized as just an illusion, a place marker for the real; 2) in the second order of simulacra, which Baudrillard associates with the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century, the distinctions between the image and the representation begin to break down because of mass production and the proliferation of copies. Such production misrepresents and masks an underlying reality by imitating it so well, thus threatening to replace it (e.g. in photography or ideology); however, there is still a belief that, through critique or effective political action, one can still access the hidden fact of the real; 3) in the third order of simulacra, which is associated with the postmodern age, we are confronted with a precession of simulacra; that is, the representation precedes and determines the real. There is no longer any distinction between reality and its representation; there is only the simulacrum.

Although it is true that technological differences throughout history can produce representations with distinct semiotic structures, it has never followed such a determined pattern. How a technology effects what kind of representations are proliferated is contingent on historically specific context, and on what kind of thing is being represented. We still don't have smell-o-vision for example. The “third order simulacrum” is meant to be a representation that comes before and functions to determine what it represents. Bauldrillard's own examples of simulacrum don't even really fit that pattern because he's retarded. All he ever did was butcher and sensationalise the much better work of the Situationists and Semioticians.

PS: You might enjoy this video the Situationists made. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01tRfPOl89A

textbooks for college