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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In 16 Books Dickens Used 37,504 Words
but just what that means is subject to various qualifications. For example: I downcased everything, split hyphenated words, and counted only all-alphabetic... Read more
Posted on 06 December 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Weekly Ramble 2: What’s Miyazaki Constructing? More Lit Crit
Almost a month ago I put up something I called “weekly ramble”, thinking that I might do more such columns, possibly weekly. The idea was to ramble over things... Read more
Posted on 05 December 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Humans and Animals
Kerri MacDonald has a moving article in the NYTimes about humans and animals She's discussing the photographs Jayanti Seiler has taken of animals and of... Read more
Posted on 04 December 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Nature and Culture
Posted on 04 December 2015
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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English Literature in the World at Large
From a column by Geoff Pullum, English and Its Undeserved Good Luck: Some of the biggest influences on the success of English came from literature, film, and... Read more
Posted on 04 December 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Digital Criticism Comes of Age
There's a new working paper, title above. Links etc. below. Academia.edu: https://www.academia.edu/19414113/Digital_Criticism_Comes_of_Age Social Science... Read more
Posted on 03 December 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
From Railroads to the Internet, Same Land
Ingrid Burrington in The Atlantic: Google didn’t come to Council Bluffs because of historical resonance. They came for the fiber, which runs parallel to Iowa’s... Read more
Posted on 02 December 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Literary Criticism and Spiritual Crisis (?)
One of the things I keep thinking about is the sense of professional narcissism that had academic literary critics writing as though their activity were... Read more
Posted on 02 December 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Wind Rises: Marriage in the Shadow of the State
01:45:17 The marriage between Naoko Satomi and Jiro Horikoshi is notable on several counts. In the first place, marriage is a major life event and a large numbe... Read more
Posted on 01 December 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
John Collins to Judge 6TH Annual 3QD Philosophy Prize
We are very honored and pleased to announce that John Collins has agreed to be the final judge for our 6th annual prize for the best blog and online-only writin... Read more
Posted on 30 November 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Form is Hard to See, Even in Sentences*
Though, unfortunately, it is easy to blather about. And that’s what literary critics mostly do, talk around it, but never actually examine it. Read more
Posted on 29 November 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Upon Reflection
Posted on 28 November 2015
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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How Caproni is Staged in The Wind Rises
After my first time through The Wind Rises I had the impression that it alternated between dream sequences and live-action sequences. Read more
Posted on 27 November 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Administering Torture to Others Does "moral Injury" to the Torturer
From the concluding paragraphs of Shane O'Mara, The interrogator's soul, Aeon:And significantly, the most empathic interrogators are also the most vulnerable... Read more
Posted on 26 November 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
High Castle and Inner Truth
With The Man in the High Castle streaming on Amazon Prime I figure it’s time to repost another piece from The Valve. This one appeared on March 6, 2008, and... Read more
Posted on 24 November 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Two Friends: Wordsworth and Coleridge
Vivian Gornick reviews three books about friendship among poets. These opening paragraphs are about friendship in general: In the centuries when most marriages... Read more
Posted on 24 November 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
How NOT to Run a Major Software Project
The Atlantic has an interesting article about signals and control in NYC's labyrinthine subway system. Well into the article we find these paragraphs about a... Read more
Posted on 23 November 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Commensurability, Meaning, and Digital Criticism
What do I mean by “commensurate”? Well…psychoanalytic theory is not commensurate with language. Neither is semiotics. Nor is deconstruction. But digital... Read more
Posted on 23 November 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Personal Observations on Entering an Age of Computing Machines
Another working paper, link, abstract, and introduction below. Academia.edu:... Read more
Posted on 22 November 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Identity, Terrorism, and the Nation State
I’ve got one thought about terrorism, and it has to do with identity. If you live in a nation-state, such as the United States, such as the states that have... Read more
Posted on 21 November 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
