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 ( 6822 )
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Who's a Digital Native?
NYTimes:...in the developed world, there is hardly any generational gap anymore between Internet users. Most people in wealthy countries are online — more than... Read more
Posted on 08 October 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Is New York City Becoming a Ghost Town?
Not literally of course. But spiritually. David Byrne ponders that issue in The Guardian:What, then, is the future of New York, or really of any number of big... Read more
Posted on 08 October 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Some Example Descriptions: Two Poems, a Novella, Two Manga Texts, and Two Films
Having called for more and more systematic description of literary texts, just what do I have in mind? A variety of things, of course, a variety of things. Read more
Posted on 07 October 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Eat Your Chekov, It's Good for Your Social Skills
From the NYTimes:...after reading literary fiction, as opposed to popular fiction or serious nonfiction, people performed better on tests measuring empathy,... Read more
Posted on 04 October 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Two Disciplines in Search of Love (Slight Return)
A week ago I published long guest post at Language Log, Two Disciplines in Search of Love. The two disciplines, of course, are literary criticism and... Read more
Posted on 04 October 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
An Hour with Dizzy Gillespie
Well 50 minutes or so. This is from the early days (1940s I'd guess) with his big band, plus vocalists and dancers. Very interesting as a period document, and... Read more
Posted on 03 October 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Banksy Takes Manhattan
“For the next month Banksy will be attempting to host an entire show on the streets of New York,” read a message posted on the artist’s Web site on Tuesday,... Read more
Posted on 03 October 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Biodiversity 'R Us?
Are we raising the biological diversity of the planet? Is that what the Anthropocene is about?Human development — dubbed the age of the Anthropocene — boosts... Read more
Posted on 03 October 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Fluid Mind and a Problem Dissolved
This post is doing double-duty. In the first place it links to and summarizes another set of notes that I've uploaded to my SSRN page: From Associative Nets to... Read more
Posted on 03 October 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Social Networks Among the Vikings
Phy.org reports:Pádraig Mac Carron and Ralph Kenna from [Coventry] University's Applied Mathematics Research Centre have carried out a detailed analysis of the... Read more
Posted on 02 October 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Old Friends: Just Like Yesterday
It’s common and remarkable. Why?I’m talking about an old friend. Someone you haven’t seen in years: two, three, five years. You meet and it’s just like old... Read more
Posted on 02 October 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI): Curiouser and Curiouser
A year ago physicist David Deutsch mused on the possibility of fully general artificial intelligence. The bottom line: We don't know what we're doing. Though... Read more
Posted on 02 October 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Work the Bottom Before You Work the Top
My father was an engineer who spent his life working for Bethlehem Mines, the mining subsidiary of Bethlehem Steel. He was a chemical engineer who was in... Read more
Posted on 01 October 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Ethical Criticism is About the Future
This post starts where the previous one, Ethical Criticism in the Wild, ends, looking forward.Let me begin with a passage from the end of Wayne Booth, The... Read more
Posted on 30 September 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Ethical Criticism in the Wild
As even casual users know, the world-wide web is jammed with commentary on pop culture and, for that matter, high culture covered as well, but not so... Read more
Posted on 30 September 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Apocalypse 'R Us
Steve Almond in the NYTimes:Yes, Virginia, apocalyptic ideation has migrated from the realms of science fiction and horror into the fun house of shtick. Back... Read more
Posted on 29 September 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Two Disciplines in Search of Love
That's a guest post I've contributed to Language Log. The disciplines are literary criticism on the one hand, and computational linguistics on the other. Read more
Posted on 28 September 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Dr. Sue Henderson Inauguration Concert
Last week I posted some photographs of trumpeter Jon Faddis performing in Jersey City. He was here to play a concert celebrating the inauguration of Dr. Sue... Read more
Posted on 28 September 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
How to Notice Things in Texts, Or The Key to the Treasure Really Is the Treasure
Working, as I do, at some remove from the world of academic literary criticism, I don’t have a very sure sense of how things are, “boots on the ground” so to... Read more
Posted on 27 September 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
All Hail Our Darwinian Overlords!
This piece was originally published in The Valve, 30 May 2009. I'm republishing it now because it stands in thematic counterpoint to a major essay I'm... Read more
Posted on 26 September 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY