{"id":3631,"date":"2016-03-29T17:18:35","date_gmt":"2016-03-29T21:18:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/museumofnonvisibleart.com\/interviews\/?p=3631"},"modified":"2017-04-06T04:59:50","modified_gmt":"2017-04-06T08:59:50","slug":"victoria-n-alexander","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/museumofnonvisibleart.com\/interviews\/victoria-n-alexander\/","title":{"rendered":"Victoria N. Alexander"},"content":{"rendered":"<!--powerpress_player--><div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_5618\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-3631-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/museumofnonvisibleart.com\/interview\/victorianalexander.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/museumofnonvisibleart.com\/interview\/victorianalexander.mp3\">http:\/\/museumofnonvisibleart.com\/interview\/victorianalexander.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_subscribe_links\">Subscribe: <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/interviews-by-brainard-carey\/id1468502583?mt=2&amp;ls=1\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_itunes\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe on Apple Podcasts\" rel=\"nofollow\">Apple Podcasts<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/5ZxsN79E1W6VJOjQF9GNuZ\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_spotify\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe on Spotify\" rel=\"nofollow\">Spotify<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/tunein.com\/radio\/Interviews-by-Brainard-Carey-p1236598\/\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_tunein\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe on TuneIn\" rel=\"nofollow\">TuneIn<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/feeds.podcastmirror.com\/interviews-by-brainard\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_rss\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe via RSS\" rel=\"nofollow\">RSS<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/goo.gl\/xSQrKY\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_more\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click here to  join mailing list\" rel=\"nofollow\">Click here to  join mailing list<\/a><\/p><p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3632 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/museumofnonvisibleart.com\/interviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/hddecibi..jpeg?resize=261%2C303&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"hddecibi.\" width=\"261\" height=\"303\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/museumofnonvisibleart.com\/interviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/hddecibi..jpeg?w=261&amp;ssl=1 261w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/museumofnonvisibleart.com\/interviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/hddecibi..jpeg?resize=258%2C300&amp;ssl=1 258w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 261px) 100vw, 261px\" \/>Victoria N. Alexander is a philosopher of science, working mainly on a secular redefinition of teleology, the study of purpose in nature &#8212; and in human behavior &#8212; as emergent self-organization.\u00a0 Her 2011 book, <i>The Biologist&#8217;s Mistress: Rethinking Self-Organization in Art, Literature and Nature,<\/i> is named for Haldane&#8217;s famous quip, \u201cTeleology is like a mistress to the biologist; he dare not be seen with her in public but cannot live without her.\u201d Alexander claims that what has been missing from the general discussion of purposefulness is a theory of creativity, without which there can be no purposeful action, only robotic execution of inherited design. <\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3634\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3634\" style=\"width: 202px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-3634 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/museumofnonvisibleart.com\/interviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/afehcach..jpeg?resize=202%2C299&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"afehcach.\" width=\"202\" height=\"299\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3634\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Biologist&#8217;s Mistress:Rethinking Self-Organization in Art, Literature and Nature (Emergent Publications, 2011)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Alexander is currently a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nyhumanities.org\/publicscholars\/list.php#VAlexander\"><span class=\"s2\">Public Scholar for the New York Council for the Humanities<\/span><\/a> offering free lectures to NY State non-profits on &#8220;Vladimir Nabokov and Insect Mimicry: The Artist as Scientist&#8221;\u00a0 and &#8220;What can Art teach us about Artificial Intelligence?&#8221; She is also a director at the Dactyl Foundation, where she has worked to facilitate interactions between artists and scientists and is currently active in the literary fiction community as editor of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dactylreview.org\/\"><span class=\"s2\"><i>Dactyl Review<\/i><\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 She is on the editorial boards of <i>Biosemiotics<\/i> journal (Springer Publishing) and Meaning Systems book series (Fordham University Press). <\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3633\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3633\" style=\"width: 200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-3633 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/museumofnonvisibleart.com\/interviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/hiabehcc..jpeg?resize=200%2C263&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"hiabehcc.\" width=\"200\" height=\"263\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3633\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">&#8220;Chance, Nature&#8217;s Practical Jokes and the &#8216;Non-utilitarian Delights&#8217; of Insect Mimicry&#8221; in Fine Lines: Vladimir Nabokov&#8217;s Scientific Art. Edited by Stephen H. Blackwell and Kurt Johnson. (Yale University Press, 2016.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">She earned her PhD in English at the Graduate Center, City University New York and did her dissertation research in teleology, intentionality, evolutionary theory, and complexity science at the Santa Fe Institute, with support from the Jewish Foundation for the Education of Women and the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Her latest work on the surprising non-utilitarian evolutionary mechanisms behind butterfly mimicry just appeared in <i>Fine Lines: Nabokov\u2019s Scientific Art,<\/i> published by Yale University Press. Alexander is also a literary fiction novelist (<i>Smoking Hopes <\/i>1996, <i>Naked Singularity<\/i> 2003, <i>Trixie<\/i> 2010, and <i>Locus Amoenus<\/i> 2015) who writes about censored and controversial subjects to promote critical and creative thinking. <i>Locus Amoenus<\/i>, a dark political satire about conspiracy theory and the war on terror, has been nominated for the 2016 Dayton Literary Peace Prize.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>http:\/\/museumofnonvisibleart.com\/interview\/victorianalexander.mp3Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | TuneIn | RSS | Click here to join mailing listVictoria N. Alexander is a philosopher of science, working mainly on a secular redefinition of teleology, the study of purpose in nature &#8212; and in human behavior &#8212; as emergent self-organization.\u00a0 Her 2011 book, The Biologist&#8217;s Mistress: Rethinking Self-Organization in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5941,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3631","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artists"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/museumofnonvisibleart.com\/interviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/hiabehcc.-1.jpeg?fit=200%2C263&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p47FRq-Wz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/museumofnonvisibleart.com\/interviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/museumofnonvisibleart.com\/interviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/museumofnonvisibleart.com\/interviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumofnonvisibleart.com\/interviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumofnonvisibleart.com\/interviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3631"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/museumofnonvisibleart.com\/interviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3635,"href":"https:\/\/museumofnonvisibleart.com\/interviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3631\/revisions\/3635"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumofnonvisibleart.com\/interviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/museumofnonvisibleart.com\/interviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumofnonvisibleart.com\/interviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumofnonvisibleart.com\/interviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}