Boria Sax
We writers constantly try to build up our own confidence by getting published, making sales, winning prizes, joining cliques or proclaiming theories. The passion to write constantly strips this vanity aside and forces us to confront that loneliness and the uncertainty with which human beings, in the end, live and die. That is, in brief, the story of my professional life. Boria Sax
Address: 25 Franklin Avenue, Apt. 2F
White Plains, NY 10601-3819
Address: 25 Franklin Avenue, Apt. 2F
White Plains, NY 10601-3819
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Videos by Boria Sax
We’re talking with Dr. Boria Sax about all things alchemy, from its medieval roots to what it actually was, what it represented, and how those in the not-so-distant past could make a heck of a career out of it. First, you’ll need some supplies: Go grab one part Fiery Dragon, a few Doves of Diana, and seven Eagles of Mercury. Now, mix them together. What do you get? According to a recently discovered manuscript by none other than famed physicist Isaac Newton, you’ve got the basis for the legendary Philosopher’s stone. We'll also hear a little from the journals of a young alchemist in training and some of the patrons he had to deal with. (recorded over zoom)
From the podcast "Working Over Time," a series by Nigel Hetherington, Dr. Karen Bellinger, Raz Cunningham, and
Aidan Laliberte
Books by Boria Sax
In 1985 Boria Sax inherited an area of forest in New York State, which had been purchased by his Russian, Jewish, and Communist grandparents as a buffer against what they felt was a hostile world. For Sax, in the years following, the woodland came to represent a link with those who currently live and had lived there, including Native Americans, settlers, bears, deer, turtles, and migrating birds. In this personal and eloquent account, Sax explores the meanings and cultural history of forests from prehistory to the present, taking in Gilgamesh, Virgil, Dante, the Gawain poet, medieval alchemists, the Brothers Grimm, Hudson River painters, Latin American folklore, contemporary African novelists, and much more. Combining lyricism with contemporary scholarship, Sax opens new emotional, intellectual, and environmental perspectives on the storied history of the forest.
This delightful book gives lizards their due, demonstrating how the story of lizards is interwoven with the history of human imagination. Boria Sax considers the lizard as a sensual being—a symbol, a myth, a product of evolution and an aesthetic form. He describes the diversity of lizards and traces the representation of the reptile in cultures including those of pre-conquest Australia, the Quiché Maya, Mughal India, and central Africa. Illustrated throughout with beguiling images, Lizard is a unique and often surprising introduction to a popular but little-understood reptile.
Dinomania tells the story of our romance with the titanic saurians, from early stories that were inspired by their bones to the dinosaur theme parks of today. It concludes that, in our imaginations, dinosaurs are, and always have been, essentially dragons, and their contemporary representation is once again blending with the myth and legend from which it emerged at the start of the modern period.
tradition, and at the ways in which they endeavor to correct mistakes in the distant past. First,
there is Paul Shepard, who believes a false turn took place with the domestication of crops and
animals in Neolithic times. His solution is a return to an economy of hunting. Next, there
is Jacques Derrida, who finds the fatal wrong turn in Descartes’ Meditations, a work often
regarded as the manifesto of modernity. Derrida’s, solution is to repeat Descartes thought
experiment of universal doubt, deciding that the one thing impossible to doubt is the existence
of his cat rather than of himself. Finally, Roberto Marchesini and Rosi Braidotti locate the
error in the Renaissance, most especially in Leonardo’s depiction of Vitruvian Man, and they
endeavor to correct its glorification of humankind. All four regard the errors of their mentors
as emblematic of an even more universal mistake of humanity at some undetermined time.
They are based on highly speculative historical reconstructions, yet they have a resonance, and
even a lyricism, that transcends purely intellectual analysis.
https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Parenting/russian-spy-ring-happen-kids/story?id=11069481
"
Legends tell us that imaginary animals belong to a primordial time, before everything in the world had names, categories, and conceptual frameworks. In this book, Boria Sax digs into the stories of these fabulous beasts. He shows how, despite their liminal role, imaginary animals like griffins, dog-men, yetis, and more are socially constructed creatures, created through the same complex play of sensuality and imagination as real ones. Tracing the history of imaginary animals from Paleolithic art to their roles in stories such as Harry Potter and even the advent of robotic pets, he reveals that these extraordinary figures help us psychologically—as monsters, they give form to our amorphous fears, while as creatures of wonder, they embody our hopes. Their greatest service, Sax concludes, is to continually challenge our imaginations, directing us beyond the limitations of conventional beliefs and expectations.
"
We’re talking with Dr. Boria Sax about all things alchemy, from its medieval roots to what it actually was, what it represented, and how those in the not-so-distant past could make a heck of a career out of it. First, you’ll need some supplies: Go grab one part Fiery Dragon, a few Doves of Diana, and seven Eagles of Mercury. Now, mix them together. What do you get? According to a recently discovered manuscript by none other than famed physicist Isaac Newton, you’ve got the basis for the legendary Philosopher’s stone. We'll also hear a little from the journals of a young alchemist in training and some of the patrons he had to deal with. (recorded over zoom)
From the podcast "Working Over Time," a series by Nigel Hetherington, Dr. Karen Bellinger, Raz Cunningham, and
Aidan Laliberte
In 1985 Boria Sax inherited an area of forest in New York State, which had been purchased by his Russian, Jewish, and Communist grandparents as a buffer against what they felt was a hostile world. For Sax, in the years following, the woodland came to represent a link with those who currently live and had lived there, including Native Americans, settlers, bears, deer, turtles, and migrating birds. In this personal and eloquent account, Sax explores the meanings and cultural history of forests from prehistory to the present, taking in Gilgamesh, Virgil, Dante, the Gawain poet, medieval alchemists, the Brothers Grimm, Hudson River painters, Latin American folklore, contemporary African novelists, and much more. Combining lyricism with contemporary scholarship, Sax opens new emotional, intellectual, and environmental perspectives on the storied history of the forest.
This delightful book gives lizards their due, demonstrating how the story of lizards is interwoven with the history of human imagination. Boria Sax considers the lizard as a sensual being—a symbol, a myth, a product of evolution and an aesthetic form. He describes the diversity of lizards and traces the representation of the reptile in cultures including those of pre-conquest Australia, the Quiché Maya, Mughal India, and central Africa. Illustrated throughout with beguiling images, Lizard is a unique and often surprising introduction to a popular but little-understood reptile.
Dinomania tells the story of our romance with the titanic saurians, from early stories that were inspired by their bones to the dinosaur theme parks of today. It concludes that, in our imaginations, dinosaurs are, and always have been, essentially dragons, and their contemporary representation is once again blending with the myth and legend from which it emerged at the start of the modern period.
tradition, and at the ways in which they endeavor to correct mistakes in the distant past. First,
there is Paul Shepard, who believes a false turn took place with the domestication of crops and
animals in Neolithic times. His solution is a return to an economy of hunting. Next, there
is Jacques Derrida, who finds the fatal wrong turn in Descartes’ Meditations, a work often
regarded as the manifesto of modernity. Derrida’s, solution is to repeat Descartes thought
experiment of universal doubt, deciding that the one thing impossible to doubt is the existence
of his cat rather than of himself. Finally, Roberto Marchesini and Rosi Braidotti locate the
error in the Renaissance, most especially in Leonardo’s depiction of Vitruvian Man, and they
endeavor to correct its glorification of humankind. All four regard the errors of their mentors
as emblematic of an even more universal mistake of humanity at some undetermined time.
They are based on highly speculative historical reconstructions, yet they have a resonance, and
even a lyricism, that transcends purely intellectual analysis.
https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Parenting/russian-spy-ring-happen-kids/story?id=11069481
"
Legends tell us that imaginary animals belong to a primordial time, before everything in the world had names, categories, and conceptual frameworks. In this book, Boria Sax digs into the stories of these fabulous beasts. He shows how, despite their liminal role, imaginary animals like griffins, dog-men, yetis, and more are socially constructed creatures, created through the same complex play of sensuality and imagination as real ones. Tracing the history of imaginary animals from Paleolithic art to their roles in stories such as Harry Potter and even the advent of robotic pets, he reveals that these extraordinary figures help us psychologically—as monsters, they give form to our amorphous fears, while as creatures of wonder, they embody our hopes. Their greatest service, Sax concludes, is to continually challenge our imaginations, directing us beyond the limitations of conventional beliefs and expectations.
"
Brett Rutherford, for The Poet's Press
Available at: https://poetspress.org/catalog.shtml#sax_raven
bit deceptively as "The Fable.of the Fox." Set against the background of a terrible drought, which may well have. destroyed the Akkadian Empire, it records the exchanges of a fox or jackal, a wolf, .a lion and a dog. The last of. these animals, especially, seems to bear a tragic destiny, of a sort that traditional literature tends to identify exclusively with the "human condition." The essay goes on to trace how the story may have been the origin of a tradition which includes such important literary u)orks as the Hindu Panchatantra, the Arab Kalila wa Dimna and even Shakespeare's "OthelIo."' Finally, it concludes with suggestions as to how recognition of tragedy, not simply as part of "the human condition" but also as a bond with animals and the environment may open new aesthetic possibilities in the years to come.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gs0hfD6LPgE
https://youtu.be/UP1-txbjjlw
https://youtu.be/NmueUAZuYzc
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/animalpeople/animal-tales/5952418
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/venona/fami_sax.html
https://mercy.digication.com/books_by_boria_sax/Welcome/