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 ( 7356 )
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Theory of Literature and Theory of Criticism, Now Distinctly Different?
One of the things that happened during the 1970s and 1980s is that the distinction between the theory of criticism and the theory of literature collapsed and... Read more
Posted on 03 October 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Jonathan Culler on Literary Criticism at Harvard in the 1960s and Other Things
One of my interests here at New Savanna is the emergence of interpretation as the centerpiece of academic literary criticism. To that end I’ve quoted J. Read more
Posted on 03 October 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Hunting the Wild Myth, Cultural Phylogeny
Julien d'Huy, Scientists Trace Society’s Myths to Primordial Origins, Scientific American, 29 September 2016; here's the opening: The Greek version of a familia... Read more
Posted on 30 September 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Naked Tree, Down by the River
Posted on 30 September 2016
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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“Pardon These Anti-humanistic Intrusions, Madam”
Mark Rose’s slender volume, Shakespearean Design, has been on my mind recently, as I’ve been considering doing a book on ring-composition. Rose devotes a chapte... Read more
Posted on 30 September 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Describing Literary Form, a Quick Note
It seems there’s growing interest in (mere) description among literary critics. I, of course, am interested in description as well. Have been for a long time.... Read more
Posted on 29 September 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Has the Nation-state Become Obsolete?
Nation states cause some of our biggest problems, from civil war to climate inaction. Science suggests there are better ways to run a planet So argues Debora... Read more
Posted on 29 September 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Sharing Experience: Computation, Form, and Meaning in the Work of Literature
I’ve uploaded another document: Sharing Experience: Computation, Form, and Meaning in the Work of Literature. You can download it from Academia.edu:... Read more
Posted on 28 September 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
My Early Jazz Education 6: Dave Dysert
I started taking trumpet lessons in the fourth grade. These were group lessons, taught at school. As I recall, I was grouped with two clarinetists; I even... Read more
Posted on 27 September 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Obama’s Affective Trajectory in His Eulogy for Clementa Pinckney
This occurred to me while I was completing the draft to “Sharing Experience: Computation, Form, and Meaning in the Work of Literature,” originally entitled... Read more
Posted on 26 September 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Hierarchy and Equality: The Essential Tension in Human Nature
I'd originally published a longer version of this essay on The Valve in 2010, where it accumulated various comments and addenda. I first republshed it here... Read more
Posted on 25 September 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Conceptual Metaphor Wiki Online
Available HERE as of August 2016. * * * * * MetaNet Metaphor Wiki Overview The ongoing objective of the MetaNet Project is to systematize metaphor analysis in... Read more
Posted on 25 September 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The End of Cinema, NOT!
David Bordwell has a column about that film journalism favorite, the article proclaiming the end of cinema. He observes, quite rightly, that it's become a clich... Read more
Posted on 24 September 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Two Current Flicks: Kubo and the Two Strings, The Magnificent Seven
On Thursday I saw Kubo and the Two Strings. I saw The Magnificent Seven yesterday (Friday). They are very different films, obviously. Seven is live-action and... Read more
Posted on 24 September 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Chicago's Millennium Park the Summer It Opened (2004)
I bought my first camera, a Canon PowerShot A75, so I could take these photos. Read more
Posted on 23 September 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
In Psychology, the Times They Are a Changin'
Andrew Gelman has a long and very interesting post on the replication crisis in psychology, including a chronology of the major events that goes back to the... Read more
Posted on 23 September 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
23 Big Macs for 2016: More Special Sauce for the Elite Few
Back in 2013 I did a series of articles on the MacArthur Fellows Program (collected as The Genius Chronicles) arguing that the Academy of Big Mac (aka the... Read more
Posted on 22 September 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Emotional Arousal of a Drama Increases Social Bonding
Royal Society Open Science Emotional arousal when watching drama increases pain threshold and social bonding R. I. M. Dunbar, Ben Teasdale, Jackie Thompson,... Read more
Posted on 21 September 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Martha Mills: Defending Civil and Voting Rights in Mississippi @3QD
My friend, Martha A. Mills, is a very distinguished trial attorney and judge. Early in her career she worked in Mississippi and later Illinois as a civil... Read more
Posted on 19 September 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Consciousness, Once More Around the Merry-go-round
HYPOTHESIS THEORY ARTICLE Front. Psychol., 03 September 2013 | http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00574 The wild ways of conscious will: what we do, how we... Read more
Posted on 17 September 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
