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 ( 6824 )
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Saturday Night Fever, It’s Worth Thinking About
In 1977 John Travolta became a star by playing the lead role of Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever. Manero worked a nowhere job in Brooklyn and lived for the... Read more
Posted on 06 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
RGB in Tooth and Claw (mostly Tooth)
Posted on 06 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
When’s the “Revolution” in Literary Studies Going to Happen?
I’ve just looked through the preface to Mark Turner’s Reading Minds: The Study of English in the Age of Cognitive Science. Here’s the opening paragraph:The... Read more
Posted on 05 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Computing Meaning: Topics and Divisions in Prose
With a note on poetry tacked to the endIt’s a little thing, really, how one divides a long piece of writing into subsections, if one does so at all. Most of my... Read more
Posted on 05 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Meditation on Golf: What Would Dad Think About Liberty National?
Thinking about golf and trying to master it takes one’s mind away from other troubles.– William Benzon I think a lot about golf as a metaphor for life. The... Read more
Posted on 04 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
It's a Blockbuster World, Maybe
Kelefa Sanneh reviews Blockbusters: Hit-making, Risk-taking, and the Big Business of Entertainment by Anita Elberse, of Harvard Business School. Read more
Posted on 04 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Cyberbabe Reveals All
Posted on 03 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Baby Feet: What’s Up With Representation?
Despite the fact that it has no photographs, this post a companion piece to What’s Photography About, Anyhow? Consider the following image, which is not a... Read more
Posted on 03 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
100 Most Influential Publications in Cognitive Science
At some time early in the millennium Minnesota’s Center for the Cognitive Sciences posted a list of the most influential 100 publications in cognitive science... Read more
Posted on 03 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Brain-to-Brain Coupling
Mark Liberman has just posted on this topic over at Language Log, so I'm boosting this post to the top of the pile. He also cites the Hasson article.* *... Read more
Posted on 02 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Lévi-Strauss and Contemporary Myth: Heart of Apocalypse
I want to pick up and extend the final remarks from my previous post on Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now and then I want to quote and comment on some... Read more
Posted on 02 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
How the Mystic Jewels Meet the Rez and Save the World, a Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy
Back near the end of the previous millennium I created a fictional organization, The Order of Mystic Jewels for the Propagation of Grace, Right Living, and... Read more
Posted on 01 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Tassels Waving Amber in the Early Morning Sun
Posted on 01 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Lakoff Lecture That Gets Around to His Current Neural Theory and Has a Detail...
Here's a video of a lecture Lakoff recently gave at the Central European University. It's cued to the beginning, but the segement that particularly interests... Read more
Posted on 01 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
There's Reading and There's Reading
A topic that interests me a great deal. It seems that one Natalie Phillips at Michigan State has been looking into the difference between reading for pleasure... Read more
Posted on 30 November 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Victor Mair at Language Log
One of the reasons I check Language Log regularly is to see posts by Victor Mair, a sinologist at U Penn. Half or perhaps more of his posts are devoted to the... Read more
Posted on 30 November 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What’s Photography About, Anyhow?
That’s something I think about a lot, though much of that thinking is in the form of the photographs themselves. I suppose the thinking began when I got my Cano... Read more
Posted on 29 November 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
From Heart of Darkness to Apocalypse Now
We know that Apocalypse Now was conceived as a film in which the story of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness would be not re-created but more like re-imagined... Read more
Posted on 29 November 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Tree in Winter
Posted on 28 November 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The History of Modern Linguistic Theory: Chomsky
For those interested in the history of modern linguistic theory, Noam Chomsky is a major figure, though one whose influence is rapidly waning. I recommend the... Read more
Posted on 28 November 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY