“a tender world” is a project inspired by gertrude stein’s essay, “tender buttons: objects, food, room.”
i aimed to use computer science, neuroscience and linguistics to understand what underpins the inner mechanisms of what makes “tender buttons” so evocative and tender
& now would like to curate “objects” in a digital museum – through writing, art, music, code, diagrams, or any other medium, that explores an object of intimacy, of home, of family.
the museum portion of atw aims to juxtapose creative and scientific manners of how we feel tender
submit to the museum of artifacts of domesticity
[ultimately, i want to use computation to analyze the underlying factors – visual, linguistic, or else – that pervade the structures all of our works, a contemporary scatter of what it means to be tender]
about the project
i first grew interested in the field of linguistics upon reading anne carson’s prose-poetry. i tried to study ancient greek to be like her, but realized i was more interested in the theory of language acquisition and development. i discovered gertrude stein in an english seminar and was immediately dazzled by the endless complexity of her work.
“a tender world” was initially conceived through separate final projects for 3 classes – computer science, cognitive science of language, and english poetry. “tender buttons” seized me and wouldn’t let go. nonsensical, yet logical; endless, yet finite; beautiful, yet mundane. full of paradoxes, mechanical yet immeasurable. i then developed my own creative responses to stein via the museum portion – making visual collages and writing prose-poems – but i realized that to bring together many different voices for this project would be far more fascinating than just considering my own response.
i’m interested in how anchors of tenderness, domesticity, and intimacy are what make us feel alive. poetry, without a doubt, has saved me. from ada limón to paul celan, we read to feel a common breath, as if we are standing in their living room, seeing the objects that they awake to. i would like to compile together a landscape of objects that bring together definitions of ‘tender.’ i would like to publish what brings you to tears. what makes you sigh. in the most lovely way possible.
this “museum,” if you will, is intended to unequivocally foreground and celebrate what generates the sensation of “home” for different individuals. eventually, i would like to bring together creatives and cognitive scientists to consider questions of what linguistic, cognitive, and computational elements form common threads of structure underneath this collection of written pieces that generate a sensation of “home,” and publish articles that dig at these questions.
with thanks to the digital humanities lab at yale for guidance on this project.
about me
i’m a junior at yale studying neuroscience & humanities with a concentration in english literature. i am a research assistant in an emotional memory laboratory, currently exploring how multiple memory systems interact under the influence of trauma.
about the cogs
stein.rkt – introduction to computer science (cs 201), prof. stephen slade
synaesthesia’s neural correlates – cognitive science of language (cgsci 216), prof. robert frank
a tender world: synaesthesia and accessibility in gertrude stein’s “tender buttons” – english poetry ii (engl 126), prof. anasthasia eccles