Taste, Beauty and the Brain
From an interview with Elaine Showalter about her new book:
‘We’re in a new century. Some of the old taboos of political correctness have receded. It’s possible to say, “This is someone who has talent, and this is someone who doesn’t.” The quality of women’s writing is such that it can take that kind of criticism.’
“We’ve hinted at this, but now it’s confirmed: the first Neuroanthropology Conference will be held 8 October 2009 at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. Daniel and I are very pleased to be able to announce, ‘The Encultured Brain: Neuroanthropological Explorations.’ We’ll have lots of news and information, including how to register and get involved, coming soon, but we wanted to post notice of the upcoming conference as soon as possible so that you can have a chance to pencil it into your calendars.”
See Neuroanthropology link in Blogroll at left for more information.
“She, in fairy-story terms, is the ugly old lady, despised by all, who turns out to be a beloved and powerful princess; the spell that sets her free and makes her great is her magic talent. And the special magic of this talent is that it is makes no distinctions of age or beauty or disability; anyone might have this magic power, whether or not anyone else knows. Aspirations and dreams need not always grow old, though we must. It is a fairy story to make grown men and women weep, and it did.
Similarly, the jeering audience of vain young people trying to catch the camera’s eye and the preening judges of this contest are the nasty boys and girls of fairy stories who mock the poor old lady because she is not young and beautiful, only to be punished when her real self is revealed. And their punishment is to be revealed as they truly are – heartless, thoughtless and superficial – the flotsam and jetsam of the polluted seas of celebrity, likely to sink without trace into toxic foam. They will grow old too, to be ignored in their turn, and then they will understand that appearances are not everything. And those who despise people who are not thin, not young, not beautiful and not cool will one day find themselves despised in exactly the same way, by people just like their younger selves. That is enough to make young people think.”
…”the unpackaged artistic power of the unstyled, un-hip, un-kissed Ms. Boyle let me feel, for the duration of one blazing showstopping ballad, the meaning of human grace. She pierced my defenses. She reordered the measure of beauty. And I had no idea until tears sprang how desperately I need that corrective from time to time.”
One project emerging from the Science and Art Project at the University of Virginia links a microbiologist and an artist:
http://uvamagazine.org/index.php/only_online/article/when_art_and_science_hook_up/
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/arts/design/07buzz.html?_r=1&th=&adxnnl=1&emc=th&pagewanted=2&adxnnlx=1239109569-JdNHTo+LLbxtTyPV8Zw5Gg
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