Bbenzon
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 ( 6893 )
-
Frank Foster Burns It up in Front of the Basie Band
I went to graduate school at SUNY Buffalo in the mid-1970s. I was getting a degree in English, but I hung out in the Music Department studying jazz improvisatio... Read more
Posted on 27 February 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Myth-Logic and a Lady Librarian in The Rockford Files
I’ve been working my way through The Rockford Files on Netflix. As many of you know the show originally aired in the later 1970s and is about a private... Read more
Posted on 27 February 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Current Flickr Favorites
Generally I've opted for some kind of thematic order for my Friday Fotos. Not so this Friday. Today I'm letting visitors to my Flickr page pick the photos. Read more
Posted on 27 February 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Hottest Man in Siam
Another working paper on a classic Walter Lantz cartoon from the 1940s. Download from: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2569130 https://www.academia. Read more
Posted on 24 February 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Case of Biased Technology: Photographing Black Skin
In a NYTimes article on the photography of Roy DeCarava, Teju Cole makes this observation: All technology arises out of specific social circumstances. Read more
Posted on 22 February 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Bodies of Literary Knowledge: The Texts Themselves and Commentary on Them
This post is an elaboration I made on a comment in my Academia.edu session on my open letter to Steven Pinker. From my point of view it is all but perceptually... Read more
Posted on 21 February 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Finding Patterns
is perhaps the most important skill of a literary critic. The trouble with Theory, then, is not so much the terms in which interpretations are couched, but the... Read more
Posted on 20 February 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Classic Improvisation by a Danish American Jewish Comedian, Victor Borge
Victor Borge never got the memo saying that classical musicians stopped improvising sometime during the middle of the 19th century. Read more
Posted on 20 February 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Escape from Flat Earth: J. Hillis Miller and the Evolution of a Critic’s Mind
I am, of course, speaking metaphorically, when I talk of a flat Earth, and, for that matter, when I talk of escape as well. By flat Earth I mean a set of defaul... Read more
Posted on 20 February 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Variations on a (mono)chromatic Theme
Once again: What does it mean to take a photo? This photograph, believe it or not, is a color photo. I took it in a snowstorm, and that pretty much eliminated... Read more
Posted on 20 February 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The State of Critical Play, a Blast from the Past
I was trolling through The Valve looking for an old post of mine (which I found) and came across this gem by Miriam Burstein, Critical. Read more
Posted on 19 February 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
David Brooks on Moral Injury
In the NYTimes: People generally don’t suffer high rates of PTSD after natural disasters. Instead, people suffer from PTSD after moral atrocities. Read more
Posted on 19 February 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Why I Like This Photo
It's certainly not a "pretty" photo. In fact, the dirty snow being caught in the blade of the snowplow is rather "ugly", no? But I like the contrast between... Read more
Posted on 19 February 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Tragedy
is the genre through which the playwright and his audience acknowledge and ‘take ownership’ of their unconscious. If Shakespeare hadn’t first written all of... Read more
Posted on 19 February 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Much Ado About Simulation (Characters as Props)
When I first started posting at The Valve I posted a series on the problem of literary character: Since they ARE fictions, why is it so difficult for us to... Read more
Posted on 18 February 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Adolph Reed on Selma, the Voting Rights Act, and the Civil Rights Movement
Characteristically, Reed argues in detail and at length. The opening paragraph: Ava Du Vernay’s film Selma has generated yet another wave of mass mediated debat... Read more
Posted on 17 February 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Who's Being Exploited? Two Comics Masters from the 50s and 60s
There's an interesting running argument at Michael Barrier's joint about whether or not two comic book artists (mostly of) the 1950s were exploited. Read more
Posted on 17 February 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Analyze This: A Curious Pattern Across Characters in Three Shakespeare Plays
When I first started posting at The Valve I posted a series on the problem of literary character: Since they ARE fictions, why is it so difficult for us to... Read more
Posted on 17 February 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Public Intellectuals, Through Partisan Review to the Present
Writing in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Marl Greif discusses "public intellectuals" through the lens of The Partisan Review, the touchstone of discourse... Read more
Posted on 16 February 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Notes on Place and Narrative Order
In the course of my current Academica.edu session (about the nature of stories and the discipline of literary criticism) Per Aage Brandt brought my attention... Read more
Posted on 15 February 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY