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
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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 ( 7628 )
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I Think Like a Pirahã (What's REAL Vs. Real)
Something I'd recently posted to Facebook. I just realized that in one interesting aspect, I think like a Pirahã. I’m thinking about their response to... Read more
Posted on 22 September 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Brief Note on Interpretation as Translation
I’ve come to think of interpretation as a kind of translation, and translation doesn’t use description. When you translate from, say, Japanese into English,... Read more
Posted on 22 September 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: KidZ!
Posted on 22 September 2017
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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The Effects of Choir & Solo Singing
Front. Hum. Neurosci., 14 September 2017 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00430 Choir versus Solo Singing: Effects on Mood, and Salivary Oxytocin and... Read more
Posted on 21 September 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What Interests You, Or: How’d Things Get This Way in Lit Crit?
This isn’t going to be another one of those long-form posts where I delve into the history of academic literary criticism in the United States since World War... Read more
Posted on 21 September 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Origins of (the Concept Of) World Literature
Martin Puchner, writing in Aeon: On the afternoon of 31 January 1827, a new vision of literature was born. On that day, Johann Peter Eckermann, faithful... Read more
Posted on 21 September 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Problem with Close Reading: GIGO
I've bumped this old post (7.31.2011) to the top, as critical methodology is much in the air these days. And there is no universally agreed standard as to what... Read more
Posted on 20 September 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
African Music in the World
Another working paper available at Academia.edu: https://www.academia.edu/34610738/African_Music_in_the_World Title above, abstract, table of contents, and... Read more
Posted on 20 September 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Jakobson’s Poetic Function as a Computational Principle, on the Trail of the...
Not so long ago I argued that Jakobson’s poetic function could be extended beyond the examples he gave, which came from poetry, to other formal features, such a... Read more
Posted on 19 September 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
LitCrit: Getting My Bearings, the Lay of the Land
Another quick take, just a place filler. I’ve been playing around with this chart. Nothing’s set in stone. Terms are likely to change (especially the first... Read more
Posted on 19 September 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Trump, Gibbs & NCIS, and the Queen @3QD
I’ve got another post up at 3 Quarks Daily, Donald Trump is no Leroy Jethro Gibbs:... Read more
Posted on 18 September 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Literary Criticism: A Short Note on the Current State of the Art
Just a place-holder, really, I’ve got other things I’ve got to do. A meaning-centric criticism takes translation as its first principle. A naturalist criticism... Read more
Posted on 17 September 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Why Identity Politics? Because the Left Has Given up on Everything Else.
Writing in the Guardian, Kenan Malik reviews Mark Lilla, The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics. We've got a problem: Between them, Lilla and his... Read more
Posted on 17 September 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Two Observations on Wealth
John Waters’ Graduation Speech: Real Wealth is Never Having to Spend Time with Assholes https://t.co/dxdNPfn7xI pic.twitter.com/R1bE5ZjmcO — Open Culture... Read more
Posted on 17 September 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The City-state Redux
Jamie Bartlett, in Aeon: Until the mid-19th century, most of the world was a sprawl of empires, unclaimed land, city-states and principalities, which... Read more
Posted on 16 September 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Zero Dated to 3rd Century CE
From Oxford: Although a number of ancient cultures including the ancient Mayans and Babylonians also used the zero placeholder, the dot’s use in the Bakhshali... Read more
Posted on 15 September 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Jamming for Peace
This is 14 years old, but worth re-posting. It's about the power of music to make strangers into a community. It was Saturday, March 22, 2003, the day of the bi... Read more
Posted on 15 September 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Lawfare on Impeachment in the Context of the Contemporary Presidency
Bob Bauer (former White House Counsel to President Obama) observes: The presidency in its current form is, in many respects, something of a constitutional... Read more
Posted on 15 September 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Urban Pastoral with a Painted Elephant
Posted on 15 September 2017
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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We Have Met the Enemy and the Enemy is Us
a human byte (1974) pic.twitter.com/REp34NlSOb — James Ryan (@xfoml) September 14, 2017 an illustration for Harper's Magazine of a line of computer-generated... Read more
Posted on 15 September 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
