For anyone who missed the “Atlas Shrugged” episode of Stossel, it’s now available online via Hulu.
Category: The Atlasphere
All things Atlasphere can be found here, columns, podcasts, interesting anecdotes, and more.
Scholarships are available from The Atlas Society
From Will Thomas:
1) Graduate Scholarships: Application Deadline March 1, 2010
The TAS Graduate Scholarships program is looking for graduate students with a high potential to contribute to future work on Ayn Rand and Objectivism, and whose progress toward a degree could signally benefit from scholarship support. We offer up to $11,000 over the year-long period August 2010-July 2011. Students with a solid, systematic understanding of Objectivism and who are pursuing Ph.D. or masterâ??s degrees in philosophy, political science, history, psychology, and related fields are eligible. Full application information is online here.
2) Summer Seminar scholarships
The Atlas Society will be holding our 20th Summer Seminar conference, planned in cooperation with the Free Minds Foundation. The Summer Seminar is planned for June 30 through July 8, in Alexandria, Virginia, just outside Washington, DC. The latest updates on the Summer Seminar plans are online here.
While Free Minds handles the business side of the conference, we at TAS advise on program content and will provide key talks and courses. In addition, we at TAS will offer scholarships for students at all levels who need financial assistance in order to attend the Summer Seminar. These scholarships can cover event registration costs (tuition) and/or room and board costs at the Summer Seminar. We will post application information on our website, www.atlassociety.org, when Summer Seminar registration officially opens.
"Stossel" to cover Atlas Shrugged on Thursday
I just received the following announcement via Stuart Hayashi:
On Thursday, January 7, 2010, the Fox Business Network will air the episode of “Stossel” that will be about Atlas Shrugged happening in real life and happening today. It will be on at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time
Should be interesting.
UPDATE (1/29/10): You can now watch it online, here.
Avatar: The Atlas Shrugged of the Left
A new article by Nick Rizzuto at TownHall.com begins:
For 52 years now, Ayn Randâ??s Atlas Shrugged has stood alone as the shining example of political allegory. Rand’s novel has long been considered to be essential reading for American individualists and advocates of free markets. The American left on the other hand has not had a work of fiction that definitively embodies their worldview. Avatar might just fill that void. While the two stories are powerful, their messages are diametrically opposed.
See the full article for much more.
Ayn Rand: The Wired Interview
From the introduction at Wired.com:
I’m a month late on this, for the spotlight of public attention, but I have an Ayn Rand story, too. 11 years ago I blind-pitched Wired magazine an ill-defined article on Rand. In response, they asked me to write an “interview” with her, where I would come up with all of the questions and then cobble together her answers from things that she had written and said (she died in 1982). Fun! Around the same time, they published similar “interviews” with Nicola Tesla and Mark Twain under the rubric “The Wired Living Archive.”
I had a great time researching and writing it, and although they never published it, they must have seen something they liked in it because I started working at Wired the following year. Meanwhile I never did anything with it. But re-reading it now, I like the added time-trip aspect of it. The idea of the article was to make Rand relevant to the current day, of course, but things were different in 1998. Like, the biggest newsmaker was Monica Lewinsky (hmm… I didn’t see much 10th Anniversary coverage of that), and personally, things like the Critical Mass bicycle demonstration had a much larger role in my life than they do today.
Rand was a contradiction-filled woman who hated all contradictions, and whatever fiery, petite actress can succeed in bringing this complex character to life, in the inevitable major studio biopic, is pretty much guaranteed an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Meanwhile, here’s my attempt at bringing Ms. Rand to life.
Note that it’s long– over 4000 words, and written for an editor to cut down. Sources for all quotations are noted as abbreviations inline, with full titles listed at the end.
See the full interview for much more.
John Stossel may kick off his new Fox News show with Atlas Shrugged
From an interesting new interview with John Stossel about his new show on Fox News:
Stossel. How did you come up with that name?
They just sprung it on me.
Tell me a little bit about what the show is going to be.
It will be one subject. The first subject will be maybe Atlas Shrugged or global warmingâ??Atlas Shrugged because I think 50 years ago, Ayn Rand predicted today. It sort of sums up what Iâ??m going to be reporting about.
Ayn Rand predicted what?
Big government, nice-sounding legislation like â??The Preservation of Livelihood Law,â? which mandated that Hank Reardenâ??s production must not be bigger than any other steel mill, to make it a level playing field. Itâ??s silly.
Is that a new law passed by this Congress?
No, but itâ??s what Wesley Mouch, the evil bureaucrat in the book, passed. And what Tim Geithner and what Barney Frank might like to pass.
See the full interview for more.
The Atlasphere hits 20,000 members!
As of today, the Atlasphere has over 20,000 admirers of Ayn Rand’s novels in the member directory, which is our biggest milestone in years.
When we launched the site in 2003, I remember thinking that if the site was really successful we might have as many as 20,000 members from all over the world. It’s quite surreal to see that this has come to pass.
Those of you who have only joined recently may enjoy reading about the Atlasphere’s origins.
My thanks to all of you who have supported the site, either through being one of our original sponsors, buying a subscription, inviting your friends to join, or sending us suggestions for how to improve the site.
Reason TV interviews Atlasphere founder Joshua Zader about Ayn Rand's legacy
Reason TV just published a video interview with me titled “Dating in the Atlasphere.”
In the interview, I discuss how the Atlasphere was founded, why Ayn Rand’s legacy is so important, and my own ideas about applying Objectivism to one’s personal life.
The footage is actually from last year, but they delayed publication so they could publish it together with their many other interviews (this week and last week) addressing Ayn Rand’s legacy.
If you have comments, feel free to leave those over on my blog.
Zogby survey: 25% of Americans have read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged?
From an ARI press release:
A recent Zogby national online survey indicates that 24.8 percent of the 2,232 respondents have read Ayn Randâ??s novel â??Atlas Shrugged.â?
When asked why they chose to read â??Atlas Shrugged,â? 37.6 percent of respondents in the online survey said it was recommended by a friend or colleague, 18.4 percent had it assigned or recommended in school, 9.9 percent read or heard about it in a print/Internet article or radio/TV program, 8.4 percent saw it in a library, and 1.9 percent noticed it in a bookstore.
The survey also indicated that 19.8 percent of respondents have read Ayn Randâ??s â??The Fountainhead,â? 6.9 percent â??Anthem,â? 4 percent â??We the Living,â? and 3 percent â??The Virtue of Selfishness.â?
In the past two years, national telephone surveys of about 1,100 people have indicated that 8.1 percent of respondents had read â??Atlas Shrugged.â? The latest online survey was randomly drawn from a pool of several hundred thousand people while the telephone surveys were drawn at random from larger lists of people who own telephones.
New York Times Book Review covers Anne C. Heller's new Ayn Rand biography
The New York Times Book Review has given front-cover treatment to a review of Anne Heller’s new Rand biopic.
In response, Atlasphere member Don Hauptman penned the following letter to the editor:
To the Editor:
Adam Kirsch, in his review of Anne Hellerâ??s biography of Ayn Rand (Nov. 1), commits far too many serious mistakes than can be refuted in a brief letter. So letâ??s consider just one:
â??Giving up her [Randâ??s] royalties to preserve her vision is something that no genuine capitalist, and few popular novelists, would have done. It is the act of an intellectual, of someone who believes that ideas matter more than lucre.â?
Kirsch is alleging that one cannot be an advocate of capitalism and retain oneâ??s integrity. In fact, of course, writers and other creative professionals are also businesspeople who like to earn money. Yet such individuals can and do act ethicallyâ??by turning down contracts and assignments and commissions and their attendant revenuesâ??if acceptance would compromise their principles. Kirschâ??s bizarre implication that one must either be a prostitute or an â??intellectualâ? is misguided and fallacious.
Integrity as the highest value of the creator-capitalist is one of the major themes of Randâ??s classic novel â??The Fountainhead.â? Perhaps Kirsch should have read it. Or, failing that, simply exercised some common sense.
DON HAUPTMAN
New York