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
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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 ( 6831 )
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Throw It All Away: American Heartache Sick of Society
It started with an email to Jon Naar: Let’s meet. Naar, as you may recall, did the first book on graffiti. He took the photos back in '72, found a publisher, an... Read more
Posted on 16 September 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
How It's Done, Part 2: Tools and Methods (GVM008)
In the middle we have aerosol cans, the traditional medium of graffiti writers and used by street artists as well. The water is for thinning bucket paint. Read more
Posted on 15 September 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Do All Evolutionary Roads Lead to Rome?
Emily Singer in Quanta Magazine: In his fourth-floor lab at Harvard University, Michael Desai has created hundreds of identical worlds in order to watch... Read more
Posted on 15 September 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Versions of Little Nemo
From the caption at YouTube: A bit of history and comparison of Little Nemo in animation. The first pilot, after McCay's original short film, is actually... Read more
Posted on 15 September 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Does Evolution Have a Direction?
Of course. In press, corrected proof. John E. Stewart, The direction of evolution: The rise of cooperative organization, Biosystems, June 2014, DOI:... Read more
Posted on 15 September 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Shrine of the Triceratops: A Graffiti Primer
Or: Indiana Jones and the Green Dinosaur, a Tale of Exploration, Deduction, and Interpretation in the Wilds of Jersey City This is the first post I made about... Read more
Posted on 14 September 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Symposium on Universal Basic Income (UBI)
Appearing in the Boston Review, discussion took place back in 2000. Philippe Van Parijs makes the opening statement and then replies to comments on it. Read more
Posted on 13 September 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Multimodal Biofeedback Facilitates "inner Harmony"
Thilo Hinterberger at h+ Magazine: The Sensorium is a neurofeedback environment that allows people to experience signals from their nonperceptible body processe... Read more
Posted on 13 September 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Literature, Emotion, and Unity of Being
I've uploaded a new working paper. Here's the SSRN link: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2495398 Abstract and introduction are below. Read more
Posted on 12 September 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Flowers
Posted on 12 September 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Dyslexia is Different for Chinese Than for Europeans
From the Economist: Learning to read a language with an alphabet requires learning to sound out words; the visual form maps on to the sound of the word. Read more
Posted on 12 September 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Has Adulthood Been Demolished?
A.O. Scott in the NYTimes: What all of these shows grasp at, in one way or another, is that nobody knows how to be a grown-up anymore. Adulthood as we have know... Read more
Posted on 11 September 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
TO WAR! Part 2: A Marx Brothers Analysis of America's War Craziness
Another old time good one. The post is from 2011, the movie from 1933. And, at this rate, the movie will still be relevant in 2033. Think we'll be over it by... Read more
Posted on 11 September 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
TO WAR! Part 1: War and America's National Psyche
As part of a special WAR EDITION of New Savanna I'm reproducing a set of notes I wrote up during the 2000 Presidential Election. Read more
Posted on 11 September 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Criteria for Utopian Visions
Olin Wright has laid out five criteria for evaluating utopian visions: Evaluate alternatives in terms of three criteria: desirability, viability, achievability... Read more
Posted on 10 September 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Digital Humanities Around the World in 80 Days
80 links to digital humanities projects around the world, HERE. e.g. Day 8: Arab Image Foundation Jun 29, 2014 Established in Beirut in 1997, the Foundation... Read more
Posted on 10 September 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Hallucinated City
Posted on 09 September 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Report on Cultural Evolution for the National Humanities Center, Revised Edition
Back in 2010 I wrote a piece for the National Humanities Center, Cultural Evolution A Vehicle for Cooperative Interaction Between the Sciences and the... Read more
Posted on 09 September 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What Should You Get from a College Education?
William Deresiewicz: Learning how to think is only the beginning, though. There’s something in particular you need to think about: building a self. The notion... Read more
Posted on 09 September 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
10 Influential Books, Aka What Goes Around Comes Around
Back in 2010, at the urging of one of his readers,, Tyler Cowen seems to have started a books meme: What 10 books have influenced you the most? Read more
Posted on 08 September 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY