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 ( 7626 )
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On Deck: Getting Organized (as Always) – Lit Crit, #DH, Identity, Cultural...
When I did this a week-and-a-half ago I listed five to-do items. I’ve done three of them: NCIS boundary issues: But I intend to keep working on NCIS. I’m... Read more
Posted on 22 August 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Photographing the Eclipse and the Problematics of Color [#Eclipse2017]
This isn’t particularly about yesterday’s eclipse. That’s just a particularly extreme example of something face by every photographer working in color: Color... Read more
Posted on 22 August 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
On Finding a New Photographic Subject: Water
That’s right, water. Oh sure, I’ve got lots of photographs that have water in them, puddles and ponds, the Hudson River, droplets on flowers, but I never though... Read more
Posted on 21 August 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Substance Abuse Crisis in Food Service
Brittany Bronson in the NYTimes: According to a 2015 report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the food services and... Read more
Posted on 21 August 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Color Term Salience in Cultural Evolution
David G. Hays, Enid Margolis, Raoul Naroll, Dale Revere Perkins, Color Term Salience. American Anthropologist, 74:1107-1121, 1972. DOI: 10.1525/aa.1972.74.5. Read more
Posted on 20 August 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
New Savanna: How're We Doing?
Last week I reported that New Savanna broke 10K hits per day for the first time. Was that a fluke, or an emerging trend? It's too early to tell. Read more
Posted on 20 August 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Creativity Through the Life Cycle
Writing in the NYTimes, Alison Gopnik and Tom Griffiths, report the results of a study involve people of various ages: 4- and 5-year-old preschoolers; 6- to... Read more
Posted on 19 August 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Deliberate Cultural Engineering?
Anthony Biglan and Dennis D. Embry. A Framework for Intentional Cultural Change. Published in final edited form as: J Contextual Behav Sci. 2013 October 15;... Read more
Posted on 19 August 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Trump is a Nazi in Spirit...
if not in historical fact. Timothy Snyder, "The Test of Nazism That Trump Failed", The New York Times: “No. 1, I am the least anti-Semitic person that you’ve... Read more
Posted on 19 August 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Mode & Behavior 1: Sonnet 129
I'm bumping this to the top of the queue because it's useful in an argument I want to make about the importance of descriptive literary criticism to the science... Read more
Posted on 18 August 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Some Varieties of the Horizontal
Posted on 18 August 2017
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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The Rhetoric of Interpretation in Literary Criticism
This is a follow-up to my post, Description, Interpretation, Explanation, and Evaluation as Rhetorical Roles in Literary Criticism [#DH]. Read more
Posted on 18 August 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Alone in the Sky: 432 Park Ave., Manhattan
Posted on 17 August 2017
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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In Defense of Freud
George Prochnik reviews Frederick Crews, Freud: The Making of an Illusion, in the NYTimes. Crews, as you may know, is a literary critic who was a Freudian... Read more
Posted on 17 August 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
NCIS, Boundary Issues: Terrorism, Sexual Harassment, and Rambling on
As I mentioned in this post, I’ve been watching a lot of NCIS and wondering why it’s perhaps the most popular show on network TV. Read more
Posted on 16 August 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Swear Words in American Books
Jean M. Twenge, Hannah VanLandingham, W. Keith Campbell. The Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television: Increases in the Use of Swear Words in American... Read more
Posted on 16 August 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
In Search of a Small World Net: Computing an Emblem in Heart of Darkness [#DH]
This post is about aesthetics, one bit of Conrad’s craft. What’s the semantic ‘center’ of Heart of Darkness? I think Conrad has indicated that quite clearly... Read more
Posted on 15 August 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Nina Paley's God-Mother, a New Animation
God-Mother from Nina Paley on Vimeo. Nina says: Music: Kalimankou Denkou (Godmother Denkou) Bulgarian folk song, arranged by Krassimir Kyurkchiysky Performed... Read more
Posted on 15 August 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Chimps Can Learn Rock-paper-scissors (sorta')
Jie Gao, Yanjie SuMasaki Tomonaga, Tetsuro Matsuzawa. Learning the rules of the rock–paper–scissors game: chimpanzees versus children. Primates (2017)... Read more
Posted on 15 August 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Darwin’s Demon: A Thought Experiment About Complexity in Biology
Imagine a large vat containing prebiotic soup. Somewhere outside the vat is a source of free energy, like the sun provides to the earth. The vat is divided... Read more
Posted on 14 August 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
