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 ( 7805 )
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Friday Fotos: Graffiti and the Homeless at an Abandoned Building in Jersey City
Posted on 28 November 2014
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Crimes Against Family: What Do Bill Cosby and the United States Military Have...
I’m sure I watched I Spy a time or three back in the day, but I didn’t watch it regularly. I DID watch The Cosby Show regularly. Read more
Posted on 28 November 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Rereading Goethe’s Faust 0: Assessing My Life at the Dawn of a New Era
I read Goethe’s Faust during my freshman year at Johns Hopkins. Prof. Harold Jantz – “one of the foremost Germanists of his generation” – offered a one-credit... Read more
Posted on 27 November 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Culture Will Have Arrived as an Area of Serious Study When
when things like truth, love, beauty, and justice are widely recognized as core human needs and motivators, as important as the need for food, water, shelter,... Read more
Posted on 26 November 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
And Scotty Said, "Computer, Tell Us a Story"
And so the computer did. Sorta. November is NaNoGenMo (National Novel Generation Month), started last year by Darius Kazemi, says The Verge. Nick Montfort’s... Read more
Posted on 26 November 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Policy, Strategy, Tactics: Intellectual Integration in the Human Sciences, An...
Roughly three decades ago, in my final year on the faculty at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, I participated in an exercise to rethink the School of... Read more
Posted on 25 November 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Some Basic Solid Forms, Natural Geometry
Posted on 25 November 2014
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Formal Citation for Blog Entries
How do you cite a blog post in formal academic writing? Martin Fenner at PLOS tells how (from 2011, ancient times in web-years). APA, MLA, Chicago, BibTeX. H/t... Read more
Posted on 25 November 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Parameters of Pedagogy 3: Courses I Have Taught (or Taken)
Now that I’ve put some ideas on the table – Vygotsky, coaching, lecturing – I want to describe four different courses, three of which I’ve taught, one that I... Read more
Posted on 24 November 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
From Multiple Personalities to Dissociative Identity Disorder
Below the asterisks I've copied some remarks about this disorder from my article, First Person: Neuro-Cognitive Notes on the Self in Life and in Fiction, PSYART... Read more
Posted on 24 November 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Robert Boyd on Cooperation
Why do humans cooperate in ways that other mammals don't? In the non-human world almost all cooperation can be explained in terms of genetic relatedness... Read more
Posted on 24 November 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Street Aesthetics: Why Jerkface is Killin’ It
Three things are distinctly odd about these images, both by Jerkface – as you see, Bugs Bunny is on canvas; Sylvester is on a wall. Read more
Posted on 23 November 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Interdisciplinarity is the Utopian Dream of an Academic Culture Whose Time is...
I was looking around over at dana boyd’s joint, apophenia, and came across an old post: identity crisis: the curse/joy of being interdisciplinary and the... Read more
Posted on 22 November 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: New York's Times Square from the Jersey Side
Obviously you can't see Times Square from across the Hudson River in Hoboken, New Jersey. But you can see the tops of buildings around it. Read more
Posted on 21 November 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Why Cultural Evolution Needs a Distinction Between “Genes” and “Phenotypes”
I’m thinking I’m about to burn out on cultural evolution, so this will be relatively short and informal. * * * * * Ever since I began thinking about a... Read more
Posted on 21 November 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Co-learning Models: Meta-Cognition, Democratic Schools, and Entrepreneurs
I have some brief reactions to three of the topics that came up in last evening’s webinar Connected Courses webinar, Successful Co-learning Models:... Read more
Posted on 20 November 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Beethoven in Memphis
In 1838 Ole Bull, the Norwegian violin virtuoso, gave the first classical concert ever heard in Memphis, Tennessee. I don’t know what he played on that occasion... Read more
Posted on 19 November 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Green Villain Plots Galactic Skywriting Program from Secret R&D Lab on the...
Green Villain has enlisted the services of Bradley Ehrsam to craft the technology that will take it out of this world. These hyper-flux transducers have two... Read more
Posted on 19 November 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Learning to Learn and Co-learning, NOW
I have a few remarks in response to the recent dialog with Howard Rheingold, Mia Zamora, Alec Couros, Lee Skallerup Bessette, Charlotte Pierce, and Joe Corneli... Read more
Posted on 19 November 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Marc Andreeson on Online Education
New York Magazine interviews Marc Andreeson, co-founder of Netscape turned venture capitalist. Here's what he says about online education, with some skeptical... Read more
Posted on 18 November 2014 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
