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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Radical DH and the Xenaverse
It's not at all clear to me just what "digital humanities" is or will become, but it's clear that some are worried that it is just another form neoliberal... Read more
Posted on 26 May 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Emotional Contagion
From The Scientist: The idea that emotions can spread from person to person is not new. But recent research is starting to uncover the physiological mechanisms... Read more
Posted on 24 May 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What’s in a Name? – “Digital Humanities” [#DH] and “Computational Linguistics”
In thinking about the recent LARB critique of digital humanities and of responses to it I couldn’t help but think, once again, about the term itself: “digital... Read more
Posted on 23 May 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Chomsky, Hockett, Behaviorism and Statistics in Linguistics Theory
Here's an interesting (and recent) article that speaks to statistical thought in linguistics: The Unmaking of a Modern Synthesis: Noam Chomsky, Charles... Read more
Posted on 22 May 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Street Art Museum in Berlin
Renovation is not complete. Here's a sense of what it will be like when complete: Story HERE. Tim Renner, undersecretary of state for culture in Berlin is also... Read more
Posted on 22 May 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Graffiti Details
As the title indicates, these are details from various works of graffiti. Further, they are so relatively small in scale that you've got little sense of the... Read more
Posted on 20 May 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Who Put “The Terminator” in “Digital Humanities”?
In thinking about the current discussions provoked by the LARB takedown of digital humanities I’ve been thinking about the term itself: “digital humanities. Read more
Posted on 19 May 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Yet Another Response to LARB on DH: A Plague on All Your Houses!
Allington, Brouillette, and Golumbia (ABG) on digital humanities continues reverberating through the online hive mind. It's not clear to me that Justin Evans,... Read more
Posted on 19 May 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Godzilla Rises in Japan, for the First Time in 12 Years
The Godzilla franchise is one of the most prolific in the movie biz. Writing in The New Yorker, Matt Alt reports that the Japanese are releasing their first... Read more
Posted on 18 May 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Brain is Not a Computer
Robert Epstein in Aeon: But here is what we are not born with: information, data, rules, software, knowledge, lexicons, representations, algorithms, programs,... Read more
Posted on 18 May 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
SSRN Sold to Elsevier
SSRN (Social Science Research Network) is a text repository that's been around for over a decade. FWIW I joined up in November of 2009 and have over 90 document... Read more
Posted on 17 May 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
For the Historical Record: Cog Sci and Lit Theory, A Chronology
Another reprint from The Valve, though slightly revised. I'm bumping this to the top of the queue in view of this interesting post in which Scott Enderle... Read more
Posted on 17 May 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Navigational Skills of Dung Beetles
BBC News: Dung beetles record a mental image of the positions of the Sun, the Moon and the stars and use the snapshot to navigate, according to researchers. Read more
Posted on 15 May 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Google Opens a a Powerful Parser to the World
From Google's research blog: Announcing SyntaxNet: The World’s Most Accurate Parser Goes Open Source Thursday, May 12, 2016 Posted by Slav Petrov, Senior Staff... Read more
Posted on 14 May 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Branching Out
Posted on 13 May 2016
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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The Paradox of the Text and Computational Criticism
Computational criticism, in Franco Moretti’s well-known terminology, is said to be “distant” reading. And there is an obvious sense in which it consistently... Read more
Posted on 13 May 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Hiroshima
President Obama will be the first sitting American President to visit Hiroshima, a visit that carries heavy symbolic weight (see, e.g. this article in the... Read more
Posted on 11 May 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Why Do Philosophy Departments Pretend That Western Philosophy is All There Is?
Jay L. Garfield and Bryan W. Van Norden in The Stone, in the NYTimes: The vast majority of philosophy departments in the United States offer courses only on... Read more
Posted on 11 May 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Chess is for the Young
Tom Vanderbilt in Nautilus: Although it scarcely occurred to me at the time, my daughter and I were embarking on a sort of cognitive experiment. Read more
Posted on 11 May 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Nowviskie on Why DH is Not a Neoliberal Con Job
Melissa Dinsman interviews Beverly Nowviskie in LARB. Here's one bit: So how can we reconcile the digital humanities benefit outside the academy with critiques... Read more
Posted on 09 May 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
