Joshua Narins

Josh Narins died yesterday, after a protracted, cranky battle with scleroderma. He was 42-ish.

Josh had a vast online presence, from Twitter to Reddit to
his blog – pardon me, blogs, to his website on his theories about the interrelationship between language, nationality and conflict, to his numerous comments on bulletin boards and blogs, including this one, to Facebook and to other forms of social media you or I have never even heard of, but he did. And emails. His first email to me was precisely one week shy of ten years ago, and there have been hundreds since. He embodied the intellectual equality of the cyber age, corresponding with anyone and everyone who would respond to him, from the lowliest blogger to professors, politicians and Nobel laureates.  Despite a disease that made it all but impossible to sleep or eat, he was recommending readings on Islamic thought and movies and arguing with people on Twitter just a week ago, and now he is silent.

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