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 ( 7812 )
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Sex? What's the Difference? It's Not Binary; It's Complex.
Claire Ainsworth in Nature, from February 15, 2016: Sex can be much more complicated than it at first seems. According to the simple scenario, the presence or... Read more
Posted on 19 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Trump Conquers Japan, and Then the World
The strangest Trump video ever, in which Trump is elected world president, and if you suspect that it may not be shooting straight, you'd be correct: It's by... Read more
Posted on 19 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Jerry Seinfeld & the Craft of Comedy
Another working paper. URL at Academia.edu: https://www.academia.edu/26282876/Jerry_Seinfeld_and_the_Craft_of_Comedy Abstract: Stand-up comedy is tightly... Read more
Posted on 18 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
MIckey Mouse in Shanghai, but Only for 43%
Think of it what you will, but Disney is a cultural formation that has traveled around the world, first in cartoons and associated merchandise, then live... Read more
Posted on 16 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Louis CK on Hillary, Bernie, and The Donald (& a Bonus on Performing)
From an interview in Vulture: Sometimes I think the system is so deeply fucked up that somebody as disruptive as Bernie — maybe he doesn’t even do a good job... Read more
Posted on 15 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Trump and Fear as an Instrument in American Politics
From the NYTimes: Exploitation of fear has been part of the American political playbook since colonial pamphleteers whipped their neighbors into a frenzy over... Read more
Posted on 15 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Cat and Mouse in “The West Wing”
I’ve been watching The West Wing for the third time. As you may know, it’s a TV series that ran from September 1999 through to May 2006 and centered on Josiah... Read more
Posted on 10 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Computer Writes Sci-Fi Flick
Sunspring is a short sci-fi flick that was scripted by an AI that, apparently, calls itself Benjamin. The story is on Ars Technica. I was pointed there by... Read more
Posted on 10 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Boats
Posted on 03 June 2016
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Intimate Partner Violence in the Great Recession
A recent paper from Schneider, Harknett, and Mclanahan. Here's the abstract: In the United States, the Great Recession has been marked by severe negative... Read more
Posted on 03 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Nietzsche Like You've Never Seen Him! – Zarathustra in the Style of Dr. Seuss
John Holbo has been writing and illustrating On Beyond Zarathustra, which is Nietzsche in the style of Theodore Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss). Read more
Posted on 03 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The High Life
In New York City: In any case, 57th Street is now dubbed Billionaire’s Row, and wealth has reached new altitudes. Advances in skyscraper technology have much... Read more
Posted on 02 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Walter Freeman: My Legacy: A Launch Pad for Exploring Neocortex
I had quite a bit of correspondence with Walter Freeman at the end of the last century and in the early years of this one. I was using his conceptions of... Read more
Posted on 02 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Text, Intention from Textual to Interpretive Criticism
As some of you may know, there is such a thing as textual criticism, which is about the production of a definitive text, however that is understood, for literar... Read more
Posted on 31 May 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Hoboken Sings
Posted on 27 May 2016
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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William James on Music
Last year Kurt Newman went through William James's The Principles of Psychology, found all references to music, and gathered them into a single blog post. Read more
Posted on 26 May 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
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
