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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Ring Form Opportunity No. 4: Gojira is a Ring
I have now all but decided that Gojira is a ring form text. It took a bit of work to sort through the film once again, but I spotted a temporal anomaly, as in... Read more
Posted on 19 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Can't We All Get Along?
Eileen Joy has made a plea for more generosity in (academic) conversations: This is Not My (or, Our) Time, so Please Take Ecstasy With Me: The Necessity of... Read more
Posted on 19 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Communication, Coupling, and Criticism
All too often literary interaction between author and reader is thought of as the author sending a message to or conveying information to the reader. Of course... Read more
Posted on 18 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Frye on Comedy and Tragedy
First some notes on my encounter with Frye, and then some passages from the Anatomy on comedy and tragedy.* * * * *I believe that I have read through Northrup... Read more
Posted on 18 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Ring Form, A Computational Approach
When I first discovered the structure of “Kubla Khan” I immediately began thinking in computational terms. Here’s the grouping structure for the first 36 lines... Read more
Posted on 17 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Photo Ontology 2
Five photos, each distinctly different from the others, together they suggest a world. Read more
Posted on 17 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Preview: Ring Form Opportunity No. 4: Gojira
Prompted by David Bordwell’s comment about King Kong being a candidate for ring form, I’ve decided to look into Gojira, the 1954 Japanese film that we... Read more
Posted on 17 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Cece’s Drum Lesson: Differentiated Control
This is a follow-up to Cece’s Jam. It’s about her drum lesson, that part that I saw when we re-entered the studio. Mitch was teaching her a basic drum beat. Read more
Posted on 16 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Ring Form Opportunity No. 3: Shakespeare
One book I discovered in Peterson’s “Measure and Symmetry in Literature” (PMLA, 91, 3, 1976, 367-375) in Mark Rose, Shakespearean Design (Harvard 1972). From... Read more
Posted on 16 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Two Problems for the Human Sciences, and Two Metaphors
My first post for 3 Quarks Daily is out (same title as this post). The post started out as a defense of the humanities, and I suppose it still is that. Read more
Posted on 16 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Portrait of the Photographer as a Ghost in the World
Posted on 15 December 2013
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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10 Influential Books
The "10 Influential Books" meme seems to be making the rounds again. I originally published this back in March of 2010. Here it is again, without revisions. Read more
Posted on 15 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Top 10 Words for 2013
The folks at Mirriam Webster keep track of how many time words are looked up in their online dictionary. That, in turn, means that they can compare lookups... Read more
Posted on 15 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Cece’s Jam
That’s Cece looking straight at the camera. The photo was taken a year ago, when she was eight. That’s her dad, Wymie, with his head turned. It wasn’t quite... Read more
Posted on 14 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Literary Criticism in the Contemporary Intellectual Milieu
All of which is to say that literary studies cannot effectively enter into dialogue with the newer psychologies by simply by adopting them as tools in the way... Read more
Posted on 13 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
On Deciding That Cognitivism is of Limited Value in Literary Criticism
Ripeness is all.– ShakespeareResearch in artificial intelligence (AI) has always been torn between two poles: On the one hand there is the desire to understand... Read more
Posted on 13 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Portrait of the Mind as an Artificial Enigma
Imagine That – MacPaint digital image, 1985Inside a MacIntosh Computer – Inhanced Digital Photograph, 2006Along the Waterfront –Enhanced Digital Photograph, 2007 Read more
Posted on 13 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
To Jeff Turpin: Stop Whacking the Post-Structuralists, They’re NOT the Problem
A few days ago I sent out a broadcast email on the topic, Ring Form and the Importance of Description in Literary Studies. I had no idea what response I’d get,... Read more
Posted on 12 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Ring Form Opportunity No. 2: The (Classical) Chinese Novel
While working on another post I took a quick stroll through Franco Moretti’s pamphlet, Network Theory, Plot Analysis. I found this paragraph (p. Read more
Posted on 12 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Testimonial: The Tantric Trumpeter Toots His Horn
This is a short companion to my earlier story about Fitzhugh Regensberg, horn maker to the American Dental Association and offers further testimony on the... Read more
Posted on 11 December 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
