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 ( 7626 )
-
Sleep in Review
The Fashion and Style section of the NYTimes, of all places, has an article on sleep, "Sleep Is the New Status Symbol", by Penelope Green. It opens: At M.I.T. Read more
Posted on 08 April 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Author, Author, Who's an Author?
Gabrielle Bellot,How Many Shakespeares Were There? On Authorship, Erasure, and the Myth of the Great Solitary Writer, a The Literary Hub. Read more
Posted on 07 April 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Dancing is Good for the Brain
Gretchen Reynolds in the NYTimes: A new study that compared the neurological effects of country dancing with those of walking and other activities suggests... Read more
Posted on 05 April 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
GOOD: Global Organization of Democracies
Here’s a triple, a trifecta, a trinity, from Charlie Keil. It’s about a Global Organization of Democracies (GOOD). Let him explain it. Read more
Posted on 05 April 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Gaming the Codes to Increase Medical Profiteering
The American medical system is built on codes, codes to classify illness and procedures. And these codes can be gamed to increase profits; one can even take... Read more
Posted on 03 April 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Rogue's Gallery Revisited
Back in 2009 Michael Gross published a history of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. The title tells it all, Rogues’ Gallery: The Secret History of the... Read more
Posted on 03 April 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Numbers as Cultural Tools
FiveThirtyEight interviews Caleb Everett, author of Numbers and the Making of Us: Counting and the Course of Human Cultures. Numbers may feel instinctual. They... Read more
Posted on 02 April 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The "normalization" of Digital Humanities?
Over at The Stone and the Shell Ted Underwood has a new post, Digital humanities as a semi-normal thing: "In place of journalistic controversies and flame... Read more
Posted on 30 March 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
On the Conduct of Interdisciplinary Work (& Memes)
A few years ago I had a post in which I featured an article by Jeremy Burman on the the history of the meme concept, "The misunderstanding of memes" (PDF). Read more
Posted on 28 March 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Buffy Meets The Donald
In honor of the 20th anniversary of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the NYTimes has an article about Buffy fanfic. Here's a passage from one of the pieces they... Read more
Posted on 27 March 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Documentary About Lee Morgan
I CALLED HIM MORGAN (Trailer) from filmswelike on Vimeo. Lee Morgan is one of my favorite trumpet players. When he was in his early thirties he was shot by his... Read more
Posted on 25 March 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Department of WTF! Mysteries of Memetics Edition
Yesterday, with 5,725 vies, this was the most viewed photo at my Flickr site: I'd uploaded it on August 18, 2012, so it's been online for 4 and a half years,... Read more
Posted on 23 March 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Working for 45
Jack Goldsmith has an interesting article at Lawfare: How Hard Is It to Work for President Trump? The problem arises, of course, because Trump spews forth an... Read more
Posted on 22 March 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
On the Nature of Biology as an Intellectual Enterprise
Ashutosh Jogalekar, Why Technology Won't Save Biology, over at 3 Quarks Daily: There have been roughly six revolutions in biology during the last five hundred... Read more
Posted on 20 March 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Numbers as Cultural Tools
Craig Fahman over at FiveThirtyEight has an interview with Caleb Everett, author of Numbers and the Making of Us: Counting and the Course of Human Cultures. Read more
Posted on 17 March 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Role of Navajo Women in the Early Semiconductor Industry
Lisa Nakamura: I learned that from 1965-1975 the Fairchild Corporation’s Semiconductor Division operated a large integrated circuit manufacturing plant in... Read more
Posted on 11 March 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Trump: The Man, the Oath, the Presidency
In the course of a discussion over at Marginal Revolution, prior_test2 linked to a most interesting post at Lawfare by Benjamin Wittes and Quinta Jurecic... Read more
Posted on 06 March 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Theft! A History of Music
From Duke University's Center for the Study of the Public Domain: We are proud to announce the publication of Theft! A History of Music, a graphic novel laying... Read more
Posted on 06 March 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Once Again, Language Universals
Cathleen O'Grady on Ars Technia: Language takes an astonishing variety of forms across the world—to such a huge extent that a long-standing debate rages around... Read more
Posted on 04 March 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What About All Those AI Assistants Kids Interact with These Days?
Michael S. Rosenwald in The Washington Post: “How they react and treat this nonhuman entity is, to me, the biggest question,” said Sandra Calvert, a Georgetown... Read more
Posted on 03 March 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
