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 ( 7846 )
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The “Cultural Reticulum”, a Term in the Study of Cultural Evolution
I’ve long held the view that the environment to which cultural “things” must adapt is the human mind. But not the individual mind. Rather, a bunch of... Read more
Posted on 16 August 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
In Search of Literary Form
This post is a proper response to the essay by Sandra Macpherson that I mentioned in yesterday’s post, On the Matter of Form: Three Language Games. Read more
Posted on 15 August 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Frontiers Jam Session on Music
The journals Frontiers in Psychology and Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology have a set of 14 articles on music. I've got excerpts from three articles... Read more
Posted on 15 August 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
On the Matter of Form: Three Language Games (attn Sandra MacPherson)
Last evening I decided to avail myself of online resources available to me through my alma mater, Johns hopkins. I took a look through the recent journal... Read more
Posted on 14 August 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Sex, Power, and Purity in Kawajiri’s Ninja Scroll, the Working Paper
This is my most popular post, with 49,861 views as of the time of upload. I decided to turn it into a working paper. Dowload at Academia.edu:... Read more
Posted on 13 August 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Massive Human Entrainment
Fusaroli R, Perlman M, Mislove A, Paxton A, Matlock T, Dale R (2015) Timescales of Massive Human Entrainment. PLoS ONE 10(4): e0122742.... Read more
Posted on 13 August 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Latour, Language, and Translation
I’ve been reading Rita Felski’s draft essay, Comparison, Translation, and Actor-Network Theory, which is about the implications of Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network... Read more
Posted on 12 August 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Fear of Religion
I thought I'd repost this piece from The Valve while I'm sorting through a career's worth of work, thinking about my book-in-progress, Mind-Culture Co-Evolution. Read more
Posted on 11 August 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Visual Resonance 2
For an explanation, see Visual Resonance. Original image: Filtered version: Two different blends (look at. e.g. top center, lower right, the white ornamental... Read more
Posted on 10 August 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Coates, Baldwin, Obama and Expressive Culture
A couple of weeks ago I had a post in which I used game theory and the story of the emperor’s new clothes to talk about Ta-Nehisi Coates, Malcolm X, Game Theory... Read more
Posted on 10 August 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Visual Resonance
Look at this photo: Now I’m going to play around with it in Photoshop, which allows you to apply filters to an image and then, in you wish, to blend the filtere... Read more
Posted on 09 August 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Why Should Humanists Adopt Evolutionary Concepts in Thinking About Culture?
Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. – Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Defense of Poetry I started working on this post a month or two ago. Read more
Posted on 07 August 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Shooting Manhattan on a Wednesday Evening
Living as I do, in New Jersey, I have had ample opportunity to study and photograph the Manhattan skyline. Here’s a shot I took from Jersey City (you can see a... Read more
Posted on 07 August 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
An Inquiry into & a Critique of Dennett on Intentional Systems
A new working paper. Downloads HERE: SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2640687 Academia.edu:... Read more
Posted on 06 August 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Bento: The Japanese Art of Boxed Lunches
I've been rummaging around in a series of videos about Japan. Japanology they're called, a coinage I find somewhat awkward. Each video takes a different topic... Read more
Posted on 05 August 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Another Take on Coates: As Writer, as Celebrity
“Between the World and Me ... and Twitter”, Stephan A. Crockett, Jr. writing in The Root: The book is lyrical and rhythmic. There are lines in the book that... Read more
Posted on 04 August 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Dan Dennett, Hot and Cold
3 Quarks Daily has posted two videos by Dan Dannett on the topic of Information, Evolution, and intelligent Design. The first of them I think of as Dennett COLD. Read more
Posted on 04 August 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Michael Barrier and Andrew Osmond on Inside Out
Michael Barrier: Still, I couldn't get past the film's governing conceit, that the personified emotions inside eleven-year-old Riley's head were somehow distinc... Read more
Posted on 04 August 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Warner Brothers Stars: Bugs Bunny, Road Runner, Daffy Duck
Another working paper. Download from Academic.edu: https://www.academia.edu/14629094/Warner_Brothers_Stars_Bugs_Bunny_Road_Runner_Daffy_Duck Abstract,... Read more
Posted on 03 August 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Felix Culpa: The Judeo-Christian Underpinnings of Coates’ Reparations Argument
Yes, I understand that Coates is an avowed atheist. But he was born and raised in a culture that has been formed by Christian thought and ritual practice. Read more
Posted on 02 August 2015 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
