About
My name is Joe Raskind and I am a full-time lecturer at the School of Computing at Binghamton University. This is my personal website. It contains all of my research publications alongside essays and short stories I've written for fun. This site is generated using Emacs. You can contact me with questions about my research, or anything else, at [email protected].
Interests
Whenever I teach a class I like to share with students some of my interests outside of computer science. The hope is that showing them that I'm a person outside of the lecture hall and, therefore, there should be no reason why they can't engage with me as a person. Below I've listed some of my favourite books, movies, albums, and video games in alphabetical order.
Books
Few things in life are better than reading a good book. Even when I'm very busy with work and life I try to always make a point to be reading something.
Non-fiction
The #1 thing I read for pleasure is philosophy. Outside of that, I tend to read works on history, economics, or both.
- Capital by Karl Marx
- Civilization and Capitalism by Fernand Braudel
- Dialectical Logic by Eval Ilyenkov
- Fragments by Heraclitus
- Intellectual and Manual Labor by Alfred Sohn-Rethel
- Negative Dialectics by Theodore Adorno
- Religio Medici / Urne-Buriall by Thomas Browne
- The Ontology of Social Being by György Lukács
- The Phenomenology of Spirit by Georg Hegel
- Towards a New Socialism by Paul Cockshott
- Tractatus Logico Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein
Fiction
I don't read fiction as much as I read non-fiction, but few things rival a great novel.
- Aeneid by Virgil
- Crash by J.G. Ballard
- Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
- Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
- My Struggle by Karl Ove Knausgaard
- Stoner by John Williams
- The Castle by Franz Kafka
- The Dog of the South by Charles Portis
- The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth
- The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
Movies
I'm a huge movie buff and am always up to discuss movies! I like everything from "serious" art films to Hong Kong action flicks to big blockbusters.
- Andrei Rublev dir. Andrei Tarkovsky
- Earth dir. Oleksandr Dovzhenko
- Heat dir. Michael Mann
- Inland Empire dir. David Lynch
- The Cranes Are Flying dir. Mikhail Kalatozov
- The Passion of Joan of Arc dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer
- The Pied Piper dir. Jiří Barta
- The Seventh Seal dir. Ingmar Bergman
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre dir. Tobe Hooper
- Walker dir. Alex Cox
Albums
I believe music is incredibly important and I try to make an effort to always be listening to new things when I can. I also play the guitar (although I don't practice nearly as much as I should).
- 98.12.28 Otokotachi no wakare - Fishmans
- Amnesiac - Radiohead
- Black Up - Shabazz Palaces
- Filth - Swans
- Harmony in Ultraviolet - Tim Hecker
- History Will Absolve Me - Billy Woods
- Homogenic - Björk
- Hounds of Love - Kate Bush
- In the Aeroplane Over the Sea - Neutral Milk Hotel
- Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven! - Godspeed You Black Emperor!
- Low - David Bowie
- Madvillainy - Madvillain
- Obscura - Gorguts
- Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… - Raekwon
- Panzerfaust - Darkthrone
- Remain in Light - Talking Heads
- Some Rap Songs - Earl Sweatshirt
- The Cold Vein - Cannibal Ox
- The Inalienable Dreamless - Discordance Axis
- The Money Store - Death Grips
- This Nation's Saving Grace - The Fall
- This is Happening - LCD Soundsystem
Video Games
I don't play them as much as I did when I was younger, but every now and again I dip my toes back in.
- Advance Wars
- Cruelty Squad
- Dark Souls
- Deus Ex
- Disco Elysium
- Fallout: New Vegas
- Minecraft
- Portal
- Shadow of the Colossus
- Super Mario Bros. 3
- Super Meat Boy
- Team Fortress 2
- The Binding of Isaac