More on technology and digital culture in Atlantic Unbound and The Atlantic Monthly. A review of Plowing the Dark, by Richard Powers. Nobody seems to know, so just to be on the safe side the guy slugs DeNiro and starts a brawl. For one thing, as with mook, there is no agreement as to whether geek is an insult or a compliment. But these volumes need to be seen in the much broader context of the movies, animated cartoons, comic books, television sitcoms, Web sites , manifestos, and neurological writings that are all by, for, or about the geek.
Some constants emerge from geek studies.
Geeks are almost always depicted as deficient in traditional social skills but as possessing some special gift or talent in recompense. Much as God is always a presence, however peripheral, in the Hebrew Bible, so science rules the expanse of geek studies. T hese days, naturally enough, the science operative in geek studies will most often be computer science . But, contra Raymond, it's hardly computer science alone that figures in geek lore. That Dunn's book is set in the carnival, not the cubicle, underlines the fact that the geek and the hacker need not be identical.