RAPPELLE-TOI CELESTE

Rappelle-toi Céleste
Des contrées qu’on a traversées
Entre le nord et le sud-est
Des collines qu’on a grimpées
À la recherche d’un instant
Des amonts sous lesquels
Nous avons tous les deux édifié un recours
Des mots qu’on a tissés de part et d’autre
De nos rencontres
L’eau qu’on s’est partagée
Au milieu du désert
Rappelle-toi Céleste
Ne me dis pas que le temps est plus fort
Que la vie à des manières inédites
D’éteindre les murmures
De faire ensevelir les mémoires
D’enterrer les pistils et les fleurs
Céleste, chérie;
Jette un coup d’oeil sur le trajet
Qui sait quel serait son concours
Pour toi, et pour les images
Qu’on a peintes sur la toile de ce parcours
Qui est le nôtre
Quand j’étale le bagage que nous portions
Tous les deux, l’un et l’autre
Ses couleurs, ses refrains, ses odeurs
Ses promesses et ses lueurs
J’aperçois un soupçon de ce qui fut.
Merci tout de même pour les mots
Les gouttes d’eau, les traversées
Et les mémoires
Au revoir.

WHAT ON EARTH OVERTOOK THOSE CLOUDS

What on earth overtook those clouds

Happily fluttering in the sky

On this special summer day

And wrapping the heights near and far

And stroking with their sea breeze

The landscape all around

And the twenty-seven trees

Shading this abode in the middle of nowhere

So much so that the skylarks

Thought it early autumn

And went a-fetching twigs and sticks

From last summer’s crops

To build their nests

And prepare for mating

Come December...

Whatever overtook

Those clouds

Fizzling out in the heat of the day

Without a moment’s notice?

THE TRUTH CARTEL IS FALLING DOWN: WHAT TO DO?

PLENARY SPEECH

Venue: Higher Institute for Applied Studies in Humanities of Tunis, Tunisia

Occasion: 2^nd International Conference on Truth and (Mis)Information

Language: English

Date: 04/12/2019

Length: 0:45. Size:

Media Type: mp4 (please scroll down below the summary to view)

Summary: How knowledge is constructed and whose truth is received have always constituted the focus of human endeavor in the fields of social sciences as elsewhere. However, the proliferation of knowledge-making paradigms, now accelerated by ease of publication and dissemination on cyberspace, has yielded a state of extreme relativization and erosion of what was traditionally canonized as truth and knowledge. The current landscape amounts to a collapse of the knowledge cartel and calls for an examination of the status quo, in order to theorize it and to delineate the lines of corrective or preemptive action. This presentation starts off by identifying and explaining the traditional rivalries between two major cannons of knowledge production, namely the scientific and interpretive paradigms. The next step will be the description and analysis of the effects of the technologically-mediated, web-based, social-media paradigm on the domain of knowledge construction. Preliminary analysis reveals a host of gains emanating from this paradigm shift, with attributes of democratization of de-commodification of knowledge assets, and an evening of the playing field allowing more users to contribute their versions of reality. A more sinister take on this shift will be described as one leading the academy, society, and the world into a state of chaos obtaining from lack of distinction between what truth and knowledge are, and what they are not. The final leg of the presentation suggests the lines of action which can be initiated by individuals and institutions to offset the effects of the coming destabilization and loss of meaning.  

Keywords: Knowledge, Truth, Post-Truth, paradigm shift, social media

ON SISYPHUS'S ROCK

Whoever said
One should envision
Sisyphus merry
Rolling the rock
Back to the top
Of the Rockies
Week in week out
Can go
Eat schist.

Zenith Is

No bleach of whatever make

Will make the Zenith fizzle into decay

Now that the day is nearly done

And the figures of the evening

Are seeping into the night coming.

Tomorrow at dawn,

The new day will stand

In no pump and circumstance

And shed away yesterday’s fluff

--Small talk of food and perfume

Fashion and fret and whatever else--

Over what was coughed out

Or implied

On the way up the lift

To whatever floor

And departure through the backdoor.

As always though,

The centerpiece

Will remain

What it is.

To William Carlos Williams

I ate them

The apples which I had put away

In my travel bag

The night before.

Soothe to say

Both were sweet

Though one sweeter than the other

The other still sweet

With an aftertaste of je ne sais quoi

That lingers

And gnaws into my taste buds

Long after the journey is done. 

Ali H. Raddaoui

02/16/2019

Recollections

On Grand Street of Montenegro Town

Evergreens come and go

After a fashion of alignment

Calculated from before inception time.

They slip into the rear view mirror

And out into oblivion.

On Grand Street of Montenegro Town

This olive tree stands tall

Her foliage slanted

Toward the end point of the horizon.

On the ground, underneath

The breeze jazzes with the bushes

And buzzes with the bees

And pats the wings of humming birds.

Underneath the trunk

Her roots dig into the ground

Sink toward the four corners

And seep into this Midwestern soil

As the branches up above

Wave good bye to the passerby.

I acknowledge the foliage

And wave back

Not knowing whether

I will wind back there

In this life or another.

Ali H. Raddaoui

02/16/2019