INTRODUCTION LECTURE: DAY ONE - LITERARY DARWINISM:

Watch the following video: Kitten vs. two scary things.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-1F-CokXNU&feature=player_embedded#at=98

What is this kitten doing? Why does the music work?

Flesch: Literary Darwinism

Brian Boyd: American Scholar article "On the Art of Literature and the Science of Literature"

Review the Flesch essay that students have read. Gather student responses - Cooperation/ Competition/ Theory of Mind

Show the YouTube video: The Deathly Sparrows - Bovine Theater Improvisation Company

Why is this funny?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFg980l7NpQ

What do the two videos have in common with Boyd?

(playing with tools for success as adults)

Boy'd brain development of repetition, expectation, surprise and learning patterns.

At later developmental stages,when kids say "look at me" then repeat a low-interest activity, they quickly learn that they lose attention when they fail to surprise.

The surprise should be within context and make some sort of sense, or else it's simply random, which is either startling or confusing - not cognitively enjoyable.

Possibly while peekaboo is so engaging to babies before they learn object permanence. The delight comes from the cognitive reward of fulfilled expectation.

Surprise engages attention; making right predictions feels good. It's a "just-right" combo that also rewards the individual in interaction with the real world.

Video of baby laughing at the sounds of books dropping:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUBKwak7cpg

Video of baby laughing at crunch of dad breaking celery:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJUNpgoXEao&NR=1

PADLET PAGE

UNIT ONE READINGS LIST/ VOCABULARY/ OVERVIEW

UNIT ONE - RELIGION AND THE BRAIN

Ancient Concepts in Modern Culture:

Signs Film Clip:

Evolutionary significance of religion- hope v. fear (Tiger's confidence theory)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27qUO8_9uT0&feature=related

The Evolution of Stress http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPS7GnromGo

(Couch scene - What kind of person are you?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKDqcuCpzf4&feature=related

(Joaquin Phoenix's response - Miranda McKenney)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFlgLxZI GW8&feature=related

Where the Wild Things Are

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_4iWsI1Tnc&feature=related

President Obama reading Where the Wild Things Are

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tClh7nnFAak

Interview with Hayden Panettiere - I Love You Beth Cooper http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PkS40tMIEg&feature=related

Heyden Panettiere's high school memories - Beth Cooper

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09X5RcO3OBY&NR=1&feature=fvwp

Trailer - where the children play "hope" and "wild thing inside all of us"

Connections to Flesch:

Cooperation and Competition, and the idea that civilization/ social situations cause STRESS, which stories help to alleviate.

Connections to Boyd: Stories provide practice in how to act in ultra-social situations/ civilized society. They are not real, but they are symbolically true. The hero of stories is symbolically us.

Connections to Gottschall - seeing patterns and making meaning - and making predictions.

Difference between story and myth: Story tries to say something about who I am. Myth says something about who WE are (as a community/culture.)

Connections to Great Medicine...

the existence of "the hairy men" - stayed in the wild, in caves - did not come to the mountain when All-Maker called them (lack of religion and trappings of civilization)

Connections to primary source documents: symbolic thinking/ possibilities of religious thought - theories of fertility worship and ritual

the handprints on the wall/ representational portrayal

LINKS:

Early Man video segments:

Lucy/ Homo Erectus/

Robot dog vs Robot human - locomotion

http://cashp.gwu.edu/ntroach/the-evolution-of-throwing/ video DNews: ev of throwing

Discovering Neanderthals/ CroMagnon Meets Neanderthal/ Mammoth v. Man

Early Humans Survive the Ice Age

Article: possible cause of Younger Dryas http://phys.org/news/2013-08-evidence-cosmic-impact-younger-dryas.html

Neanderthal and early Homo Sapiens: What we do and don't know

Did Neanderthals have rituals/ceremonies/ religious beliefs? Shanidar Cave (the flower grave)

http://bonesdontlie.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/neanderthal-burials/ Burial sites exist. What was the purpose of the burial? What are the indicators of "funerary culture?"

The First Peoples of Europe

Earliest evidence of Neanderthal "art"

Do animals make decorative "art?" For what purpose? Animals, art and human capacity (Marxist)

Cave art videos

Ancient Monuments: Stonehenge, Gobleki Teppi, and this guy, who moves 10 ton blocks on his own: video

New Gobekli Tepe video: National Geographic

new Gobekli finds: legend of the hairy man

Connections to Unit Two: FROM COMMUNITY TO CIVILIZATION/CITIES

Key development: Agriculture and Bronze Age weapons/ armor The blacksmith WAS a magician/ god

Areas that flourished into great civilizations had access to materials to make bronze.

Gilgamesh - Enkiddu is Gilgamesh's alter self - the wild man, civilized by women/ religion- the gods

Gilgamesh's search for immortality leads him back home. There is no individual immortality - the warrior must come home and find immortality through his wife and children.

Concepts of the Warrior Cult:

The Blood of Kings

The Giving of Gifts - The Sword/Armor - loyalty and gold - blood price

Laughing in the face of Fear (emotional detachment)

Sacrifice = Glory - The good death

The warrior who brings death/violence back to the village becomes the monster. (Cain/ Grendel/ unenlightened Gilgamesh/ Beowulf)

THE ICE MAN OTZI

Links:

Origins of Agriculture/ Archeology

The Bronze Age Timeline

What killed off the Megafauna circa 1300 BCE

Making Bronze- video