Talk:Vilém Flusser

Recent change

I think this recent change is wrongheaded, but I want to give someone a chance to respond before I edit:

1. Most obviously, if we are going to describe him as "Czechoslovakian", we should capitalize that word.
2. But I'm dubious on calling him "Czechoslovakian". He was a citizen (born just after the foundation of that country), but I'm not even sure he spoke Czech or Slovak natively. He was from a German-speaking Jewish background (and, because of the rise of Nazism, he left the region entirely while still in his teens). Blithely calling him "Czechoslovakian" seems a bit misleading.
3. Also, I can't imagine why the adjective "self-taught" was removed from the lead.

-- Jmabel | Talk 00:05, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your three points. The change seems wrongheaded indeed. RodC 01:06, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

He was a Czechoslovak, he had Czechoslovak citizenship, he spoke english, german and czech fluently. He left Prague in 1939 (his 29 not a teen). It is correct to write he was a Czechoslovakian. He is listed in the list of Czechs. Maybe we should change it to "self taught philosopher of czechoslovakian citizenship"

I removed self-taught because I read he graduated in the university of Sao Paulo, but maybe it's wrong. ≈Tulkolahten≈^≈talk≈ 09:40, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

If he left Czechoslovakia at the age of 29, then our biography is quite wrong. Given his Jewish background, I have no doubt that the date of 1939 for his departure is at least approximately correct. Our article says he was born 1920. [1], which appears to be an utterly reliable source for the dates, agrees with our article.

I don't have a problem with him being described as Czechoslovakian, but I think that his being from a Jewish background also merits mention in the lead. From what I've read (and I'm by no means expert), it seems to me he was far more profoundly (secular) Jewish than Czech. - Jmabel | Talk 19:50, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

The biography isn't wrong: Flusser was born in 1920, left Prague in 1939 at the age of 18 or 19 – a teen, literally – and emigrated to Britain with the family of Gustav Barth, his future father-in-law, and then to Brazil in 1940 (his first son was born in 1943 already in Brazil). It's unthinkable not to mention in the lead that he was a Jew. That's the essential fact for his life story at least at that point. Flusser is quite the model of the "stateless intellectual" – the emphasis on his "Czechoslovakian" citizenship seems rather misleading as he spent the whole of his productive intellectual life outside Czechoslovakia. RodC 03:56, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

So... can we now reword the lead to get the word Jewish back in there? It is now in the first sentence after the lead. - Jmabel | Talk 22:16, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Sure! go ahead, please. RodC 01:43, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

New page on Flusser

FYI, in april someone created a another page on Vilém Flusser spelled Villem Flusser. I already wrote a note into a discussion page of that article that it should be merged. --Tomash 13:04, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Merged 28 July 2007. Skomorokh ^incite 16:47, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as stub, and the rating on other projects was brought up to Stub class. BetacommandBot 16:51, 28 August 2007 (UTC)