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 ( 7871 )
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Another (strenuous) Take on What Went Wrong with Literary Criticism, John...
Yeah, I know. But it’s important to get this right. Once again I’m going to review that Geoffrey Hartman statement I find so characteristic of the mid-1970s... Read more
Posted on 16 October 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Latour on the Second Science "war"
Jop de Vrieze interviews Bruno Latour in Science; an excerpt: Q: How do you look back at the “science wars”? A: Nothing that happened during the ’90s deserves... Read more
Posted on 15 October 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
This is Your Brain on Stories
Decoding the Neural Representation of Story Meanings across Languages Morteza Dehghani, Reihane Boghrati, Kingson Man, Joseph Hoover, Sarah Gimbel, Ashish... Read more
Posted on 14 October 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: On the Beach
Posted on 13 October 2017
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Why the Computational Form of Literary Texts is Mere Form in the Kantian Sense
Actually, it’s not me that’s taking the look at Kant. To be sure, I read some Kant years ago, and I do mean years, more like decades. Read more
Posted on 13 October 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Jerry Seinfeld: It's 98% in How You Deliver the Joke
Here's Jerry Seinfeld talking with George Stephanopoulos (who, you may recall, had been White House Communications Director under Bill Clinton) about comedy. Read more
Posted on 13 October 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Why the New Intellectuals Don't Cut It
Back in the mid-1990s I met one Cuda Brown (not his real name) online. We hit it off and went on to establish one of the first black zones on the internet. Read more
Posted on 12 October 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Lit Crit: A Short Take on What Went Wrong
It became besotted with meaning subordinated everything to it. Literary meaning was special. What made it special? Literary form. Read more
Posted on 12 October 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
More Pennies from Heaven, Once Again, the MacArthur Foundation Waffles in Its...
It’s that time of year, folks. The MacArthur Foundation has announced its latest round of so-called genius grants – a term they coyly back away from – and the... Read more
Posted on 11 October 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Two Questions About Language: Why is It Computationally Privileged? Why is...
What does that first question even mean? In what sense is language computationally privileged? They may well be an abstract answer to that question, but I... Read more
Posted on 10 October 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
How I Discovered the Structure of “Kubla Khan” & Came to Realize the Importance...
I say discover because I regard the poem’s structure as something existing objectively in the world, prior to and independent of my work, or anyone else’s for... Read more
Posted on 09 October 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
WWI and the American Security State
Geoffrey Wheatcroft reviews War Against War: The American fight for Peace 1914-1918. Here's one paragraph: Amid an ugly mood of coarse jingoism, nativism, and... Read more
Posted on 07 October 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Interesting, on the State
Writing in The Nation, Samuel Moyne has a long review of James Scott's, Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States: Scott makes his case by... Read more
Posted on 07 October 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Computation, Games, Humor, and Common Sense
Mark Liberman has an interesting post today, Cartoonist walks into a language lab… He poses a task for machine learning: New Yorker cartoons are usually... Read more
Posted on 06 October 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: More Festival Flix (Hoboken Arts & Music Fall 2017)
Posted on 06 October 2017
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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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
