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 ( 7620 )
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Kamasi Washington on the Groove
Adam Schatz has an article about Kamasi Washington in the NY Times Magazine. Here's some passages. Playing in church: When Kamasi first expressed a desire to... Read more
Posted on 21 January 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Curse of Parking
Clive Thompson in Mother Jones: The average automobile spends 95 percent of its time sitting in place. People buy cars because they need to move around, but... Read more
Posted on 20 January 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Does the 6-part Lucas Star Wars Series Constitute a Ring?
That's what Mike Klimo argued back in October of 2014. After noting all sorts of relationships among different episodes he asserts: Because here’s the thing: Th... Read more
Posted on 19 January 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Where Dogs Come from
James Gorman has an article about the origins of dogs in the NYTimes. The idea that humans bred them from wolves is now out of favor. Read more
Posted on 18 January 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
American Paranoia
David Masciotra in Salon: A major part of the American condition is fear. Paranoia in America stretches from fright of drugs to panic over Islamic invaders... Read more
Posted on 18 January 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Interior Monologue
Posted on 15 January 2016
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Art in the Brain and the Default Mode Network (DMN)
I've got abstracts and links to two articles on art and something called the default mode network, which Wikipedia defines as follows: In neuroscience, the... Read more
Posted on 15 January 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Attridge And Staten 5: Dickinson Started Early, Turned a Figure with the Sea
For their second exercise in dialogic minimal interpretation Attridge and Staten (The Craft of Poetry, 2015) chose Emily Dickinson’s “I started Early.”... Read more
Posted on 11 January 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
It's the Kids, and Their Parents, And, Yes, Their Teachers
How to fix the nation's schools, in the NYTimes: Today Union City, which opted for homegrown gradualism, is regarded as a poster child for good urban education. Read more
Posted on 10 January 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: A Little of This and That
Posted on 08 January 2016
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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The Age of Stupid Machines
Joel Achenbach has an article in The Washington Post about AI voodoo, The AI Anxiety. He’s properly skeptical about the possibility of superintelligence, as I... Read more
Posted on 08 January 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Most Cited Articles in Literary Studies
Jonathan Goodwin has some graphs depicting the most-cited articles in literary studies by the decade for four decades: 1974-2014. Read more
Posted on 07 January 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Attridge And Staten 4: Langston Hughes Crafts a Ring
I received The Craft of Poetry: Dialogues on Minimal Interpretation little less than a week ago and have been reading around in it, off and on, since then. Read more
Posted on 06 January 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Metaphor and Neural Processing
EDITORIAL ARTICLE Front. Hum. Neurosci., 05 January 2016 | http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00699 Editorial: The Metaphorical Brain Seana Coulson1* and Vick... Read more
Posted on 05 January 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Demise of the Nation-state
At the moment the nation-state seems to be the right and natural way for humans to govern themselves, and yet we know that it was a historical invention... Read more
Posted on 04 January 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Star Wars: The Malarkey Awakens
It was a Star Wars film, even a good Star Wars film. Fun, entertaining, but perhaps a half-hour too long. And all about a map to the last living Jedi? Gimme a... Read more
Posted on 03 January 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Attridge And Staten 3: Formal Features of The Sick Rose
When I began this series of posts I noted that I have long favored an austere approach to texts, but rather than think of “reading” of any kind – “close”,... Read more
Posted on 30 December 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The End of Science, Redux
John Horgan's 1996 book, The End of Science, has been republished. Horgan discusses it with Robert Wright: Here's my essay review, Pursued by Knowledge in a... Read more
Posted on 30 December 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Japan and Korea Reach Agreement About "comfortwormn"
Writing in The New York Timea, Choe Sang-Hun reports: SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea and Japan announced on Monday that they had reached a “final and... Read more
Posted on 28 December 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Falling Apart in Philly
It's been a slog these past couple weeks. Lots of good things happening, blot posts I like, the Arches project heating up, other things. But still, the energy... Read more
Posted on 27 December 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
