"Memetica as a phenomenon or set of phenomena is not only an idea (or set of ideas) but also is a practice and an organization (or set of practices and organizations).
 
It may be observed on a natural level or the level of nature but also on a social level on the level of human interaction.
 
All the usual labels for people, their ideas, structures, and actions still have value and usefulness but at least momentarily need to be ‘forgotten’ to get a fresh look, a new understanding of what’s going on on the world scene, including the large world stage and also the individual, particular worlds of a person’s daily life.
 
Hit the re-set button of conception and begin with something like a ‘meme,’ not simply the viral silly photo of social media sort of meme but, much more expansively, the ‘unit of information’ sort of meme – what some academics and intellectuals (and a few scientists) have discussed in terms of a ‘sign.’"

-Fragments of Memetica, No. 8  [20201004]

"‘Memetica,’ or ‘memetica ecologica’, is my way of describing where we live now.  By where, I don’t mean America or China or any particular place, although it includes places.  By ‘where we live’ I mean a composite of the material and social worlds along with the ‘world’ of our minds, individually and collectively."

-Fragments of Memetica, No. 7  [20200926]

"Let them eat pancakes. We shall have pancakes. Pancakes are the order of the day."

"Let Them Eat", Kitchen Table Quarterly out now:

https://www.kitchentablequarterly.org/

"On Memes: A Very Brief Introduction to Memetica, Or a Contemporary Rhetoric of Information"

Coming soon for the annual meeting of the Michigan Academy (MASAL, forthcoming March 2023).
 
Abstract                                                       
As is widely known, memes are commonly understood as catchy items on social media – often an image with text – that “goes viral” and gets shared/spread among many people online.  However, this presentation discusses the older, original, and more expansive sense of “meme”, introduced and elaborated upon by Dawkins, Blackmore, and Dennett, among others, that initially means something like a “unit of cultural information.”  One way rhetorically and philosophically these days to conceive of “it all” is as a massive ecology of memes.  What I call “memetica” is another way of exploring a rhetoric and conception of a totalizing ecology of information.  The term “information” may cover a massive amount of multi- and cross-disciplinary conceptual territory involving “bits” in physics, “genes” in biology, and “signs” in arts/humanities.  This presentation very briefly introduces the origins, rhetoric, and concept of memes as an initial way in to the topic of information – arguably one of the most powerful, dynamic concepts in contemporary existence.

-Benjamin Bennett-Carpenter

"We live in Memetica now.
 
Memetica is the Big Drama we’re all acting within, against, or alongside."

-Fragments of Memetica, No. 6  [20200926]