The Daily Rumpus
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From Stephen Elliott
As science and technology dominate our lives more and more each day, those of us in the humanities find ourselves increasingly on the defensive.
One way to demonstrate the humanities’ relevance is with neuroscience. Brain scans not only show us concrete evidence of the ways novels affect our thoughts and emotions, but also give us exciting new insights into how we process literature.
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Dr. Gary Habermas, a near-death experience expert, discusses the scientific evidence behind stories of those who have died—and have subsequently returned.
...moreAccording to scholars, Homer never mentioned the color blue in any of his works; neither did the Bible, nor an abundance of ancient texts. Also, linguists have found a near-universal pattern in which languages developed color in stages, and blue was always the last to be named.
...moreGuernica examines the intersections of science, emotion, and memory by way of an exchange between novelist Rivka Galchen and neuroscience professor David Linden, featured in the Rubin Museum’s Brainwave series.
“As Linden explains in his book, ‘memory retrieval is an active and dynamic process.’ Thus recollecting past experiences—reliving them again and again or retelling them to others—subtly modifies the memories we keep.
...moreSome things automatically disgust us, while others are learned triggered from an emotional experience.
Salon.com is dabbling in some neuroscience, speaking with Daniel Kelly who is an assistant professor at Purdue University and the author of, Yuck!: The Nature and Moral Significance of Disgust.
...moreArtists and certain brain damage patients have overlapping tendencies—lying or “chronic confabulation,” in neuroscience vernacular.
The difference is in that writers fabricate experiences and consciously control their associations whereas people who have incurred frontal lobe damage may be unable to stop the rush of associations and storytelling inclinations.
...moreThere’s an awesome Mother Jones article on how we intake our science like lawyers and how our reasoning is inextricably linked to our emotional centers. We’re used to scientific evidence and opinion-based beliefs competing or being on opposite sides of our reality spectrum, but they do, indeed, inform each other.
...moreAfter just five hundred years of movable type and the Enlightenment it begat, we are blinded by how brief our dwelling in the kingdom of print turned out to be.
...moreStop reading this and go outside and take a walk somewhere nature-like. Right now.
Okay, did you go? Good. Now you might actually pay attention to me.
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Why yes, I DO like pictures of Dubai.
Pain Pack let’s you experience other’s emotional pain.
The ultimate graphic novel (in six panels).
Blue whales voices dropping.
What does your brain think is funny?
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