Bbenzon
Description
Humankind got its start on the African savannas some hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years ago. At various times in our cultural history we’ve moved to distinctly new cultural ground, as it were. And so we are moving now, and have been for the past half century. This blog is how I see that move. Intellectually, I'm broadly interested in culture and the brain. Within that compass, anything could show up here. Literature and films (including animation), certainly, music as well, and graffiti. But, other things may show up as well. It's a blog, don't you know, it moves.
MY BLOGS
-
New Savanna
http://new-savanna.blogspot.com/
Humankind got its start on the African savannas some hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years ago. At various times in our cultural history we’ve moved to distinctly new cultural ground, as it were. And so we are moving now, and have been for the past half century. This blog is how I see that move. I'm broadly interested in culture and the brain. Within that compass, anything could show up here. Literature and films (including animation), certainly, music as well, and graffiti. But, other things may show up as well. It's a blog, don't you know, it moves.
LATEST ARTICLES ( 7356 )
-
What Can Evolution Tell Us About Morality?
An online symposium: Has the story of human evolution moved beyond “survival of the fittest?” What if instead of seeing humans as ultra-competitors, we saw... Read more
Posted on 04 February 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Quick Note on Form: Forget the Invisible, Trust Your Eyes
While it’s not all I think about these days, I do think about it a lot. By “it” I mean literary form, and why, despite how important the concept of “form” is... Read more
Posted on 04 February 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Poetry at Buffalo, and Other Things
As regular readers of New Savanna know, I got my PhD at SUNY Buffalo in the 1970s. Here and there I've written about what the place was like (and here, the... Read more
Posted on 03 February 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Harry Bellefonte, I Had No Idea.... An American Icon
The New York Times has an article about Harry Bellefonte, who will turn 90 this coming March 1. I first knew of him as the singer behind "Banana boat Song (Day... Read more
Posted on 03 February 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Toy Trains, Longwood Gardens, December 25, 2017
Trains are magical mythical beings. During the 19th century they crisscrossed the globe, binding regions into continents. Here is what Henry David Thoreau said... Read more
Posted on 03 February 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Quick Note on Description: It’s Not Just Words
I’ve been thinking explicitly about description for at least a decade – my manifesto, as it were, Literary Morphology, talks of description and it was... Read more
Posted on 31 January 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The New Critics: Beyond Understanding Brooks and Warren
It goes without saying that the New Critics have had a strong influence on the practice of literary criticism in the American academy. Obviously thought it is,... Read more
Posted on 30 January 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Scienceandtechnology, Or, Engineers Rule!
I'm thinking about method these days, and whatever method I've got is more like engineering than science, so I'm bumping this to the top of the queue. There... Read more
Posted on 29 January 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: In Search of Beauty on September 12, 2011, at Sunrise
On September 12, 2011 I got up early in the morning, as I usually do, got my camera, and went out to photograph the sunrise. That's not so usual, but it's not... Read more
Posted on 27 January 2017 PHILOSOPHY -
Traffic's up at New Savanna
Lately I've been noticing an increase in traffic at New Savanna. Most days I get over 1000 hits and some days its 3000 or 4000. Here's traffic for the last seek... Read more
Posted on 27 January 2017 SOCIETY -
Protest Marches Aren't What They Used to Be: What Does Size Mean?
Zeynep Tufekci in the NYTimes: A protest does not have power just because many people get together in one place. Rather, a protest has power insofar as it... Read more
Posted on 27 January 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Useful Metaphor: 1000 Lights on a String, and a Handful Are Busted
Many years ago, probably back in my graduate school days, I came up with a rather awkward metaphor/analogy for thinking about intellectual progress in things... Read more
Posted on 26 January 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
How Insular is Literary Criticism?
One reason I became a literary critic is that the discipline seemed like a good arena for intellectual synthesis. Moreover, I had the example of Richard... Read more
Posted on 25 January 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Survivalism Among the Super-rich, the 1% of the 1%, and They're Running Scared
The New Yorker has a fascinating article on survivalism among the super-rich. They're making preparations for the time when society collapses and it's everyone... Read more
Posted on 24 January 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Sometimes David Brooks Makes Sense: After the Women's March
From today's NYTimes: In the first place, this movement focuses on the wrong issues. Of course, many marchers came with broad anti-Trump agendas, but they were... Read more
Posted on 24 January 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Derrida and Writerly Criticism
For some time now I’ve been arguing that academic literary criticism is (often) intrinsically free of diagrams, tables, graphs, and so forth, rather than... Read more
Posted on 24 January 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Rejected @NLH! Part 4: Déjà Vu All Over Again at New Literary History
I’ve been discussing a manuscript of my that was rejected at New Literary History: Sharing Experience: Computation, Form, and Meaning in the Work of... Read more
Posted on 23 January 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Fictionality as an Intelligible and Stable Category of Discourse
Andrew Piper, in Journal of cultural Analytics: This article makes a very different claim, one that is based on observing a great deal of instances in which... Read more
Posted on 21 January 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Trees of Longwood Gardens, December 25, 2016
Posted on 20 January 2017
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
-
Rejected @NLH! Part 3: Party Like It’s 1975
This is the heart of the story because it is during the 1970s when who knows? the discipline of academic literary criticism might have gone another way. But it... Read more
Posted on 20 January 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
