Category: issues

• Choreographer Bill T. Jones on his decision to boycott this year’s Spoleto Festival in Charleston because of an NAACP boycott: “The questions you should be asking is not ‘Why I’m doing what I’m doing’ but ‘Why are there so few people who feel that they have to boycott? Why do so many people have a rationale that allows them to find other ways of responding to the [Confederate] flag?’ People have a lot of deep responses to the issue, but the biggest response is the silence.” – Los Angeles Times

“There is something appallingly appealing about the notion of being chastised with culture. Who among us would object to being sent to Devil’s Island for a few years if we could take the contents of the British Library?” But that’s not exactly the thrust of East Connecticut State University’s new program of forcing students who infringe campus rules to attend classical concerts or opera as their punishment. – The Telegraph (UK)

Earlier this year the Federal Communications Commission voted to allow low-powered radio stations. Last week National Public Radio, “the mighty non-profit corporation which counts more than 600 member stations nationwide and is heard by 14 million listeners each week,” publicly supported efforts to gut the ruling. Why? “NPR is willing to give lip service to low-power radio and supports its goals of diversity on the airwaves. But behind the scenes NPR’s been incredibly destructive,” charge critics. – Salon

“Distance learning” is all the rage in academia these days as universities rush to get online. But does anyone remember that a century ago correspondence courses were a very lucrative business? And that their history is rather less than glorious? – Le Monde Diplomatique

The cultural capital of Europe in the 18th Century? Paris? Nope – at least that’s the premise of a new blockbuster exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum. “Rome is where all the artistic sparks were going on. It was like Paris in the 19th century and New York in the late 20th century.” – New York Times

Science is changing our moral world. In turn, artists respond to its discoveries and challenges. “The ‘artistic’ culture differentiates itself from the scientific culture by cherishing the individual gesture and scribble, and very often by characterising itself as the subversive, the destabilising, the contrary.” – New Statesman

“We’ve been dallying with ‘simple’ for almost a decade. Not the simplicity of Ralph Waldo Emerson reflecting on nature in his barely furnished cabin by Walden’s Pond, mind you, but rather the dumbed-down simple espoused by the phenomenally successful “For Dummies” franchise, which reduces everything, from Wagner to Dadaism, to Grade Five-level comprehension. Or the sweet, witless simplicity advocated in the best-seller Simplify Your Life: A Little Treasury by Elaine St. James. Simple has even become a fashion statement, a design choice.” – National Post (Canada)

A new for-profit online education venture featuring partners including Columbia University, the Smithsonian, the British Library, Cambridge University Press and the London School of Economics promises something new. The venture “will go beyond traditional course offerings, by integrating content from museum exhibitions, lectures, reference books, interviews, and documents – from Frank Lloyd Wright interviews to a multimedia-infused presentation of the Magna Carta.” – Wired

Reviving an ancient rivalry, Beijing and Shanghai are competing for the title of China’s cultural capital. Both cities’ cultural scenes are thriving, and both cities are spending lavishly on new arts centers. Shanghai boasts a new art museum, antiquities museum, Grand Theater, and one of the world’s largest libraries; Beijing just broke ground on a glitzy new $420-million National Theater. “Ultimately, the question is whether Shanghai’s money will win out over Beijing’s moxie.” – Time (Asia)

Have we lost the will to be original? “The concept sounds strangely alien in a world in which novels routinely are based on previously published works or on history itself; in which the visual and photographic arts increasingly incorporate previous works; in which composers systematically layer previously produced works into their compositions; in which more and more plays are based on historical characters; in which a plethora of movies are based on previous movies or on TV shows; in which a steadily growing stack of TV shows are derived from earlier TV shows; in which ads raid movies and TV shows; in which people loot the Internet for whatever they want; in which everybody is copying from everybody else and nobody seems to mind.” – Chicago Tribune