D a l l a s R o b b i n s

Reading the good stuff is good for your brain

Just came across this:

Scientists, psychologists and English academics at Liverpool University have found that reading the works of the Bard and other classical writers has a beneficial effect on the mind, catches the reader’s attention and triggers moments of self-reflection.

Using scanners, they monitored the brain activity of volunteers as they read works by William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, T.S Eliot and others.

They then “translated” the texts into more “straightforward”, modern language and again monitored the readers’ brains as they read the words.

Scans showed that the more “challenging” prose and poetry set off far more electrical activity in the brain than the more pedestrian versions.

After discussing the implications of this, one of the researcher's conclude:

“Poetry is not just a matter of style. It is a matter of deep versions of experience that add the emotional and biographical to the cognitive,” said Professor Davis, who will present the findings at the North of England education conference in Sheffield next week.

“This is the argument for serious language in serious literature for serious human situations, instead of self-help books or the easy reads that merely reinforce predictable opinions and conventional self-images.”

Full article

 

 

"I hope I have done justice..." - Denis Dutton 1944-2010

Denis Dutton has passed away.  He was a professor of the philosophy of art at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and founder and editor of the journal Philosophy and Literature.  But he is most known for creating the indespinsible website Arts & Letters Daily, co-creator of the website Climate Debate Daily, as well as the author of the recent book on bio-aesthetics, The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution.

Of course I never knew him, but I truly admired him from afar.  A&L Daily is always the first website I check everyday after firing up my browser.  If you are not a vistor, do yourself a favor.   I like what Theodore Dalrymple (aka Anthony Daniels) has said,

The agenda of the English-language press, upon which the sun never sets, was driven to a startling degree by Arts and Letters Daily, produced in Christchurch. I once published an article in an excellent cultural journal of limited circulation about a subject of interest to few of my compatriots. I had forgotten about it; but suddenly, a frenzy of interest erupted in it. In the space of a few hours, at least 20 radio stations contacted me, wanting to talk about the article. I found this utterly mysterious until I discovered that Arts and Letters Daily had posted it shortly before.

A man, however, is not to be measured wholly by the quality of his achievements. I wish only that I were able to turn as fine a compliment of Denis Dutton as Doctor Johnson turned of Sir Joshua Reynolds: that he was the most invulnerable man that he knew, for if he should quarrel with him, he should find the most difficulty how to abuse him. Denis Dutton was of that ilk.

In speaking of Charles Darwin in the introduction of The Art Instinct, Dutton said "I hope I have done justice both to him and to the great artists whose achievements so captivate us."  Dutton has done justice to more than just Darwin and the artists that inspired him, he has done justice to the "humanities and sciences" and honest inquiry in the chaos of the interwebs, and we are better for it.

And last, but not least, he had a great sense of humor.  From his visit on The Colbert Report:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Denis Dutton
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog March to Keep Fear Alive

Another Meme About Memes

Memes seem to be the newish buzz word around theory/cultural circles in attempting to explain potentially all of human expression. At first I didn't think I understood quite what a meme was, being employed in such a variety of critical ways that made it's use and meaning ambiguous, if not deliberately confusing.

After a bit of reading here and there, I think I have a reasonable grasp of memes, but I just simply still don't "get it."  In reading Signorelli's harsh critique of meme theory in the New English Review, the sides of the debate came into clearer focus, and was a breath of fresh air from all the meme-ish circle-jerking.

In his book The Selfish Gene, noted nihilist Richard Dawkins ushered the faux-concept of memes into the world by declaring it to be a “unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation,” which is exactly like referring to a unit of literary theory, or a segment of talent, or a yard of affection. Such blatant linguistic hucksterism would be startling from any other man but Dawkins, who, after all, cozened his way into authorial fame by attributing a common psychological state to tiny globs of amino acids, and then swearing up and down that he was doing no such thing. With this man, such chicanery is of a course. Indeed, he is so entirely shameless about the matter that he freely professes to employing a “verbal trick” to illustrate the nature of memes. He will have his “unit of imitation,” in despite of common sense, and he will invoke the laws of science for his justification...more>>>

What think you of memes?