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 ( 6827 )
-
Of Music and Roller Coasters
This is from my notes, about 10 years ago or so. I’m using a roller coaster ride as an analogy for the subjective experience of listening (and even dancing) to... Read more
Posted on 14 April 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
To Capture the Sun in the Crotch of a Tree
Posted on 13 April 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Shades of the Tabula Rasa, Something’s Happening Here…
An open letter to Alan Liu concerning the notion of a tabula rasa interpretation which he introduced, though not in his own person, in “The Meaning of the... Read more
Posted on 13 April 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Computer, the Anthropocene, and the End of the World
Near the end of the previous millennium Francis Fukuyama declared history to be at an end. He did not of course mean that time has stopped or even that there... Read more
Posted on 12 April 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Suburban Arrangement
When I saw it I wondered What could that sign possibly mean? I don't believe that I've ever see such a traffic sign before. But I didn't think much about it. I... Read more
Posted on 12 April 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Human Sciences Are Just Getting Started
Santo Fortunato published in Nature pointing out that, in physics, the lag between fundamental discover and a Nobel Prize for that discovery is getting longer... Read more
Posted on 11 April 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Nearness of You
For the last several weeks I've been sitting-in at a Monday evening jam session at the Parkwood in Maplewood, NJ. The repertoire centers on "the Great American... Read more
Posted on 11 April 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Economy of Six-gun Experts in the Old West
The Six-Shooter Marketplace: 19th-Century Gunfighting as Violence Expertise Jonathan Obert (2014). Studies in American Political Development, Volume 28, Issue01... Read more
Posted on 10 April 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Origami Cranes, a Window, Light, Reflections, and a Problem
The problem comes from the dirt that's on the window. It's not grimy dirt, and you'd hardly notice it if you were in the room looking at or through the window.... Read more
Posted on 10 April 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Fate of Reading and Theory
This is one part of a longer piece. That longer piece may not, however, actually get written. So I’m posting this now. For as long as I can remember I’ve at... Read more
Posted on 10 April 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Dutch on Water: Let If Flow
The New York Times, How to Think Like the Dutch in a Post-Sandy World:In the Netherlands, a man named Henk Ovink offered to be Donovan’s guide. Read more
Posted on 09 April 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Geoffrey Hartman on Reading
While I’m working on a long post on reading, theory, and the machinic critic I thought I’d post some passages from Geoffrey Hartman’s 1975 – those were they... Read more
Posted on 09 April 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Famous Artists in the Home: Picasso, O'Keeffe, Chagall
There at the lower left, his signature: Picasso. At the lower right, a pair of light switches; notice the glow on the right hand switch. Read more
Posted on 09 April 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Hothouse Manifesto: Does Stephen Ramsay Sell Literary Criticism Short?
I think so.I first learned of Ramsay’s work from a Stanley Fish blog post back in 2012: Mind Your P’s and B’s: The Digital Humanities and Interpretation. Read more
Posted on 08 April 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Indirection, Reflection, and Inbetween
When I was a kid I was attracted to those puzzles where you were presented with an odd photo or three and asked to identify it. Read more
Posted on 08 April 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Blue Philosophy
It is obvious that these three photographs share the color blue, blue sky in two cases, blue shirt in the third. What is not at all obvious is that these... Read more
Posted on 07 April 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Of Bundling, Love, and Farmers' Daughters
3 Quarks Daily has just posted my Bundling, Dream Space, Love, and the Farmer’s Daughter, which is revised from something I'd posted a few years ago at New... Read more
Posted on 07 April 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Science of Godzilla
That’s the title of a post at Darren Nash’s Tetrapods blog (which, as a point of information, has relocated to Scientific American’s blogoverse). Read more
Posted on 07 April 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
One Person's Mystical Experience in 1959
Barbara Ehrenreich in the NYTimes:There were no visions, no prophetic voices or visits by totemic animals, just this blazing everywhere. Something poured into m... Read more
Posted on 05 April 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Have the Oligarchs and Plutocrats Won?
Just watched Alex Gibney's powerful documentary Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream (you can stream it on Netflix). Read more
Posted on 04 April 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY