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 ( 7356 )
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Why Jard Diamond Doesn't Interest Me
I read Guns, Germs, and Steel some years ago, but don't remember much from it. I thought is was interesting and entertaining, but Diamond didn't have anything... Read more
Posted on 27 October 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Vygotsky Tutorial (for Connected Courses)
Howard Rheingold recently mentioned Vygotsky in a Connected Courses discussion: And student-centric pedagogy in which learners attempt to make meaning of texts... Read more
Posted on 27 October 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Collective Creativity Vs. the Lone Genius in the Discovery of the Higgs
The discovery of the Higgs boson was a major scientific achievement, writes Neal Hartman in Nautilus. But who did it? An obvious candidate is Peter Higgs, who... Read more
Posted on 26 October 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Teaching and Learning: the Internet as Community Technology
As I’ve indicated in two previous posts, Authority, Trust, and Responsibility in Online Education and Learning/Teaching Styles: Connected Courses Exemplars, I’v... Read more
Posted on 25 October 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
John Lawler on the Current State of Generative Grammar
From a Facebook conversation with Dan Everett (about slide rules, aka slipsticks, no less) and others: The constant revision and consequent redefining and... Read more
Posted on 25 October 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Our Changing Mores: Sex on the Mind and on Campus
Emily Bazelon, Hooking Up at an Affirmative-Consent Campus? It’s Complicated, NYTimes: “It would be much more gratifying, and in both parties’ best interest, fo... Read more
Posted on 25 October 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: The Hallucinated City
Posted on 24 October 2014
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Geriatric Genius, Or: Age Before Beauty
Some years ago the late Kenneth Boulding had created an organization had created an organization for retired academics who were still lively of mind. Read more
Posted on 24 October 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Emergence in Gray Scale Outdoors
Posted on 23 October 2014
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Whoops! There Goes the Driverless Car
Lee Gomes in Slate: A good technology demonstration so wows you with what the product can do that you might forget to ask about what it can't. Case in point:... Read more
Posted on 23 October 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
We Are Neanderthals, Just a Tad
Greg Mayer over at Why Evolution is True about a recent paper in Nature: And, finally, there’s what we learn about the interbreeding between anatomically... Read more
Posted on 23 October 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Learning/Teaching Styles: Connected Courses Exemplars
When I signed up with the course I did so without much investigation or thought. To be sure, I’ve been online and active for two decades and know the web... Read more
Posted on 22 October 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Why I’d Abandoned Chomskian Linguistics Before I Got to Graduate School and Wher...
It wasn’t a matter of deep and well-thought princple. It was simpler than that. Chomsky's approach to linguistics didn’t have the tools I was looking for. Let m... Read more
Posted on 22 October 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Sad Music, Why We Listen to It
Liila Taruffi, Stefan Koelsch. The Paradox of Music-Evoked Sadness: An Online Survey. PLOS One. Published: October 20, 2014 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone. Read more
Posted on 21 October 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Sex, Talk, and the Future
Sex has bedeviled humankind ever since there WAS humankind, and perhaps a bit before. Who knows? California has just passed a new law governing sexual conduct... Read more
Posted on 21 October 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Cataphiles: The Cave People of Paris
From the NYTimes: PARIS — On a recent evening, a 31-year-old street artist led a small group through a dark tunnel off a disused train track in the south of... Read more
Posted on 21 October 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Separating Culture and Identity from One Another
This post is the introduction to a set of five posts I've collected as a working paper: Culture, Plurality, and Identity in the 21st Century, which you may... Read more
Posted on 21 October 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Death of the Firstborn Egyptians: Nina Paley Takes It up a Notch
Here's a kick-ass scene from Nina Paley's work-in-progress, Seder-Masochism: Death of the Firstborn Egyptians from Nina Paley on Vimeo. I think her artistry's... Read more
Posted on 20 October 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Theory of Cultural Ranks at 3QD
Posted at 3 Quarks Daily: Evolving to the Future, the Web of Culture Europeans had been trading with Asian peoples since ancient times. Read more
Posted on 20 October 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Recaps – How Do People Use Them?
Note to self: What about all these recaps? Are they as old as the web? When did the NYTimes start publishing recaps? – I just noticed a Boardwalk Empire recap... Read more
Posted on 20 October 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
