Voice of the Shuttle: "Premier Online Destination"

Voice of the Shuttle is a "premier online destination" for surfers of the web and die-hard researchers, according to Forbes. It lists VOS in its "Summer 2002 Best of the Web" directory in the category for academic research.

VOS is a database and social bookmarking site that was started by a UC Santa Barbara professor, Allan Liu, in spring 1994.

Liu structured VOS’ mission to provide an annotated guide to online resources for the humanities, sciences, social sciences and new digital media. Its audience includes researchers, students and instructors from elementary through higher education.

The site offers more than 25 categories of research links for the humanities and social sciences: art, anthropology, architecture, classics, cyberculture, dance, history, law, literature, music, politics, postindustrial business theory, religion, science, and technology of writing. Resources include: museums, journals, publishers, listservs, conferences, and travel.

What does the allusion, VOS, mean? It refers to the Greek myth of a young girl, Philomela. Raped by her brother-in-law, who cuts off her tongue and imprisons her, she weaves a tapestry that communicates, instead of her voice. Likewise, VOS communicates by its cross weave of hyperlinks that are designed to form a tapestry of commentaries.

Dana Press Blog: Vonneguit, Creativity and Depression

Edgar Allan Poe’s melancholic colors are seen in many other writers. An example is Kurt Vonnegut Jr., writer of Slaughterhouse-Five, who died on April 11, 2007.

On the Dana Press Blog, Nicky Penttila posts an interview with Nancy C. Andreasen, a long-time friend of Vonnegut. “He matched the pattern of having significant mood disorder,” said Andreasen, a neuroscientist.

Vonnegut suffered with depression throughout his life and attempted suicide in 1984. “I would say the general pattern, for him and for most creative people, is they are not very productive when they’re depressed,” said Andreasen. “They do most of their creating after they’ve emerged from feeling depressed.”

Poe described his wrestling with depression in his letters. Similarly, Vonnegut expressed his melancholy in his writing. “But, in a sense, he overcame the sadness, to write,” Andreasen said.

By writing about the ebbs and flows of depression and mania, writers increase knowledge to recognize these forces in us or others. Awareness is part of the cure.