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 ( 7816 )
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Blade Runner 2049, a Quick Hit
Saw Blade Runner 2049 yesterday evening. I had to. Don’t you? I saw the original when it came out and have watched some DVD version many times. Read more
Posted on 06 October 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Taboo, Abstraction, and Living with Animals
The late Mary Douglas had been kind enough to blurb my book on music, Beethoven's Anvil: Music in Mind and Culture. After it's publication in 2001 my editor,... Read more
Posted on 05 October 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Langauge Change: Grammar Evolves Faster Than Vocabulary
Simon J. Greenhill, Chieh-Hsi Wu, Xia Hua, Michael Dunn, Stephen C. Levinson, and Russell D. Gray. Evolutionary dynamics of language systems. PNAS, 2017 DOI:... Read more
Posted on 05 October 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Comparative Rings: To the Grocer’s, King Kong, Heart of Darkness
Skull Island ahead. While I’d originally learned about ring composition in the mid-1970s, I didn’t start thinking about it seriously until I had entered into... Read more
Posted on 04 October 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Why Radicals in the Professorate?
Neil Gross in the NYTimes: But there’s reason to believe widespread reliance on adjunct faculty may encourage the very radicalism conservatives fear. Read more
Posted on 03 October 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Ice, the Photoshop Edition
So, start with the photo I just posted, but before I'd turned it into a gray-scale image: It was sitting in a blue pail, hence the blueness. Read more
Posted on 03 October 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Once More, a History of American Lit Crit, This Time with Politics, Part 2
Back in July I took notice of a review of Joseph North, Literary Criticism: A Concise Political History (Harvard 2017) by Bruce Robbins in the LA Review of... Read more
Posted on 03 October 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Wolfram on Complexity and Evolution, with Some Observations on Directionality
From my notes, 5.22.2002. Posted originally to Brainstorms. Wolfram, S. (2002). A New Kind of Science. Champaign, Ill., Wolfram Media, Inc. Let’s consider some... Read more
Posted on 03 October 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Beauty and the Beast: King Kong as Ring Composition, Plus Myth Logic
Almost four years ago I’d done a post about the possibility that King Kong (1933) has ring-from composition [1]. In that post I mentioned that David Bordwell ha... Read more
Posted on 02 October 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Nation-state and Capitalism
Writing in Aeon, Dani Rodrik observes: The populist revolt of our day reflects the deep rift that has opened between the worldview of the global intellectual an... Read more
Posted on 02 October 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Close Reading? You Really Mean It? Just What is “close”, and “reading”?
Back on July 25, 2011 Andrew made a post at Stanford’s Arcade: Close Reading as Genre [1]. It began: Just what is that infamous thing, a close reading? Read more
Posted on 01 October 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
My Summer Job, Working in a Coal Mine – Or, How I Learned About Class in America
Well, not quite. Let me explain. I spent the first three or four years of my life in Ellsworth, Pa., but I don’t remember much, if anything, of that life. It wa... Read more
Posted on 29 September 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Objectivity and Intersubjective Agreement
Consider this an addendum to yesterday’s: Describing structured strings ofcharacters [literary form] Let’s start with a passage from my open letter to Charlie... Read more
Posted on 29 September 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Dancers! [Hoboken Arts & Music Festival Fall 2017]
Posted on 29 September 2017
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Describing Structured Strings of Characters [literary Form]
I recently argued that Jakobson’s poetic function can be regarded as a computational principle [1]. I want to elaborate on that a bit in the context of the... Read more
Posted on 28 September 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Problem with Software
James Somers in The Atlantic: It’s been said that software is “eating the world.” More and more, critical systems that were once controlled mechanically, or by... Read more
Posted on 28 September 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Helicopter Landing in a Slanted City
As you may know, there are lots of helicopters in the air space over and around New York City. While a few may contain tourists seeing the sights I suspect... Read more
Posted on 27 September 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Anthony Bourdain in Rome, and That Hoochie Coochie Song Pops up
Here it is, I've cued it up in the video (c. 16:15). It starts with a guitar riff and apparently is about two Hindu brothers, thus keeping its oriental... Read more
Posted on 26 September 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
2 Comments on Moretti’s LitLab 15: Patterns and Interpretation [#DH]
Franco Moretti has produced another pamphlet: Franco Moretti, Patterns and Interpretation, Stanford Literary Lab, Pamphlet 15, September 2017, 10 pp. I have... Read more
Posted on 26 September 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Over the Weekend the Nacirema Nationals Trounced the Trumptastic Bombers
The Trumpistas went up against the Nacirema and were creamed. How's this going to work out? What makes the question an interesting one is that many Trumptistas... Read more
Posted on 25 September 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
