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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Irving Geis: He Saw Molecules
Well, not directly. No one can do that, they’re too small. They’re so small that you can’t even see them with the most powerful light microscope. They’re... Read more
Posted on 19 April 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Only Game in Town: Remarks on Alan Liu and Digital Humanities
I've collected five posts on Alan Liu into a single PDF. You can download it from my SSRN page: Remarks on Alan Liu and the Digital Humanities, A Working... Read more
Posted on 18 April 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
On the Road to Damascus...
I’m wondering how many digital humanists set out to do one thing and ended up realizing they were doing something else, something they don’t quite understand.... Read more
Posted on 17 April 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
To Capture Infinity in a Bottle: The Digital Humanities and Cultural Criticism
The Gist: The only way the digital humanities are going to develop a cultural analytics that is sui generis is by thinking about the nature of computation itsel... Read more
Posted on 17 April 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
As Greece Founders, Athens Becomes Graffiti Mecca
From the NYTimes: Graffiti in Athens, as in other cities the world over, has flourished for decades. But in a country where the adversity of wars and military... Read more
Posted on 16 April 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Gojira Papers
While I've got some more thinking to do about Gojira, I'm currently preoccupied with other things. So I've to decided to take what I've got so far and wrap it u... Read more
Posted on 15 April 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Machinic Theory and the Humanities Singularity
Back when I threw in my lot with cognitivism in the early 1970s, I did so because I was excited by the idea of computation. That's what animated the early... Read more
Posted on 15 April 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
From Quantification to Patterns in Digital Criticism
I would like to continue the examination of fundamental presuppositions, conceptual matrices, which I began in The Fate of Reading and Theory. Read more
Posted on 14 April 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Lilies in the Kitchen
The bag holds take-out dinner for three. Read more
Posted on 14 April 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
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
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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
