Education-Social Science

Havana on its 500th birthday – then and now

The Guardian 11/18/2019

The Cuban government is planning a jubilee week as the capital city celebrates the anniversary of its birth, with hundreds of events at restored monuments and historic sites, a visit from the Spanish royal family and fireworks over the Malecon seaside promenade. Archive photographs show how much, and how little, the capital has changed.

Uncovering ancient Ashkenaz – the birthplace of Yiddish speakers

The Conversation 05/06/16

At 1,000 years, the search for the location of Ashkenaz – thought to be the birthplace of Ashkanazic Jews and the Yiddish language – is one of the longest quests in human history. It is perhaps second only in length to the search for Noah’s Ark which began in the 3rd century AD.

The place name Ashkenaz occurs three times in the Bible, but by the Middle Ages the exact origin of Ashkenaz was forgotten. Because of the migration of the Ashkenazic Jews it later became associated with Germany. This led to all German Jews being considered “Ashkenazic”, a term which was then applied to central and eastern European Jews who follow Ashkenazic religious customs and who speak Yiddish.

Can Film Save Indigenous Languages?

The New Yorker 11/14/2019

For decades, elders, activists, and linguists have sought to save North America’s indigenous languages, of which about a hundred and sixty-five remain. (There were around three hundred spoken on the continent when Europeans first arrived.) In recent years, film has proved especially fertile ground for this work. In 2001, “Atanarjuat” (“The Fast Runner”), the first feature film written, directed, and acted in Inuktitut, the eastern Inuit dialect, was released. Since then, “Star Wars” and “Finding Nemo” have been dubbed in Navajo, and many films—including animated shorts by the Cherokee director Joseph Erb and features by the Seminole-Muscogee director Sterlin Harjo—have been shot, at least partially, in indigenous languages.

Originally, these films were meant to bolster language preservation. Over time, though, they have created a new community of indigenous artists, who have begun to share questions about form, audience, and access. Among these are questions about the politics of applying intellectual-property regimes to indigenous art and culture, the accuracy of labelling legends as nonfiction, the appropriateness of dubbing animated characters who are also spiritual beings, and the implications of nominating indigenous movies for foreign-language-film awards. These filmmakers work in a variety of modes: some of them shoot live-action movies; some create animations; others dub Hollywood classics. But all of their work goes beyond mere preservation. Onscreen, they are giving new life to dying tongues.

How the early Christian church gave birth to today’s WEIRD Europeans

Science Mag 11/07/2019

In September 506 C.E., the fathers of what would later become the Roman Catholic Church gathered in southern France to draw up dozens of new laws. Some forbade clergy from visiting unrelated women. Others forbade Christians from marrying anyone more closely related than their third cousin. The authors of a sweeping new study say that last, seemingly trivial prohibition may have given birth to Western civilization as we know it.

Evolutionary epistemology versus faith and justified true belief:

William Hall Evolutionary epistemology versus faith and justified true belief: Power Point Atheists Society Lecture: 12 August 2014​