“I have far too many examples of workshops in which my peers have expressed aversion to writers engaging with issues of social justice or race… In my experience of having attended a prestigious MFA program in creative writing and having finished coursework in a prestigious PhD program in creative writing, the majority of fiction writers feel that a writer should only be concerned with aesthetics and form, i.e., the territory of true, high art. Sadly, not only is this common in fiction workshops in general, but among writers of color in fiction workshops.”
Tag: 01.11.16
When Philosophy Lost Its Way
These two professors pin it on “the locating of philosophy within a modern institution (the research university) in the late 19th century. This institutionalization of philosophy made it into a discipline that could be seriously pursued only in an academic setting. This fact represents one of the enduring failures of contemporary philosophy.”
How Does An Artist Find Inspiration? (Hints: Tennis And Ice Skating)
“I used to be a figure skater. That was mostly high school into college. You had to trace a figure eight on the ice. You had to go through three times and trace the same circle over the same circle. It was really about control and the body. So it goes back to using my body to trace this almost impossible circle over and over and over.”
Egypt Launches ‘World’s Largest Digital Library’
“Eight million Egyptians signed up for the newly launched ‘Egyptian Bank of Knowledge’ on its first day of operation on Saturday … The project … aims to gather international encyclopaedias, online publications, research papers, theses, books and articles in one website which will be accessible to any user with an Egyptian IP address.” (Problem is, much of that content is in English, not Arabic.)
Tamara Rojo On Dancing Juliet
“The first time I danced Juliet I was 19 and it was perfect for me because I believed everything that she believed in. I believed that true love was more important than social convention and that it was worth fighting, and dying, for. That changes over the years. It becomes difficult to be Juliet when you’re not in a moment in your life when you believe this anymore.”
Was He Gay? It Depends: David Bowie’s Complicated Relationship With Queerness (And Vice Versa)
In 1972, he said he’d always been gay; by 1976, he was bi; in 1983, he said he’d only been experimenting; in 1993 he declared, “I was always a closet heterosexual.” J. Bryan Lowder considers how “we for whom queerness is not a phase seem to have two options in terms of how we deal with Bowie’s fraught relationship to our name and our stuff.”
Why ‘Hamilton’ Probably Isn’t The Start Of A New Style Of Great Musical Theater
Jesse Green: “[The show’s] success has depended too much on the nearly unique combination of influences, talents, and tastes of one man, and on his will to deliver the results himself. What are the chances of another such person coming along anytime soon?”
Not Just a Joke – Comedy Plays A Serious Role In Our Culture
“Americans have come to take funny very seriously, and funny has many different interpretations. We embrace the idea that comedy is a right: the right to taunt, to mock, to satirize, and to deride. But every laugh today produces a discomfiting echo.”
For First Time, Debut Collection Wins TS Eliot Poetry Prize
“A new voice, who judges say ‘will change British poetry’, has won the TS Eliot poetry prize. Sarah Howe, a fellow at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute, was awarded the £20,000 prize for Loop of Jade, which explores her dual British and Chinese heritage.”
Is This Woman The CBSO’s Next Music Director?
Following a hastily arranged but triumphant concert last Sunday, Christopher Morley says that Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, currently assistant conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is leading the pack to become the next successor to Simon Rattle, Sakari Oramo, and Andris Nelsons at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.