Comments on: Interdisciplinary Relations: On Consilience

By: a Parade – …The End of

a Parade – …The End of — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:33:37 +0000

[...] effort towards a specific goal. Keeping in heart and mind my friend Ben Ehrlich’s post on thebeautifulbrain.com (to quote a paraphrase from editor, Noah Hutton) whether art is “and adaptive trait or a [...]

By: Ben Ehrlich

Ben Ehrlich — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 18:45:53 +0000

Great point, Jeremy. I’m fascinated by what you say about dance. I wish I knew more about the subject. I chose to focus on literature, specifically fiction, because of the recent theoretical developments and my own background. But by no means should the conversation be limited to this medium. I agree that an examination of dance would be worthwhile.

Brian Boyd’s book “On the Origin of Stories” involves some examples of dance and storytelling, the oral tradition of fiction. Those two seem to me to be a sensible pair. Literature, as it is considered, is a modern invention, born from technological, social, and other changes. I’ll look around and see who writes and theorizes about the more basic art forms. I get the sense that they have an evolutionary primacy about them, as you imply.

If you are interested in the future of reading, I would direct you to a great post at Keith Oatley’s blog OnFiction: http://www.onfiction.ca/2009/12/future-of-reading.html

Perhaps dance will outlive literature because it is the reconciliation of a person with the situation of having a body. There is a fundamental humanity about that. Or perhaps technology will affect it all in unforeseen ways. In any event, this has been a long and rambling response but I appreciate your comment and thanks for reading! We can discuss this further in person.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 03:05:47 +0000

I know you focus mostly on literature in this essay, but it would be worthwhile to look into dance and not simply ‘written’ art.
There’s quite a bit of evidence that various ancient societies used primitive ‘dance’ forms to simulate hunting situations, increase communal bonds, train people physically and engage in shamanistic ceremonies. There is much less of that today, but those connections still exist.
I’m not quite sure how that ties into what you wrote, but it made me think that moving the body around is one of the most fundamental artistic things that we do.