“I was inspired by the news that Harriet Tubman would replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, and subsequently saddened by the news that the Trump administration was walking back that plan. So I created a stamp to convert Jacksons into Tubmans myself. I have been stamping $20 bills and entering them into circulation for the last year, and gifting stamps to friends to do the same.” – Hyperallergic
Tag: 03.01.19
This Is Why Columbus Dance Theatre’s Founding Director ‘Resigned’ Last Fall
Veach, who founded CDT in 1998, quietly stepped down in October, and he told the press in January that the reason was health-related. In fact, he was accused of “improper behavior” with two underage dance students and was formally charged by police with (and subsequently convicted of) serving alcohol to a minor. – The Columbus Dispatch
Framing A Debate On The Purpose Of Museums In Contemporary Culture
In recent years, we have witnessed public calls to decolonize the museum space: the return of objects taken from other cultures, fierce debates about who has the right to tell whose story, exhibitions of alleged #MeToo offenders deferred or canceled, and artworks memorializing nations’ racist pasts taken down and/or recontextualized. Artists and activists, including hundreds of museum staff, have urged organizational leaders to disavow patrons involved in socially irresponsible investments that perpetuate violence and addiction. These events have shaped contemporary museum culture, motivating a profound questioning of the ongoing relevance and purpose of museums. – American Alliance of Museums
How Did Our Interactions With Historians Get So Pedantic?
Graduate students in the humanities can hardly escape reading Adorno and Foucault, and if they miss out on White, they absorb his arguments indirectly. So it is odd that, as scholars unite around the idea that historical writing constructs the past that it studies, they should at the same time turn to literalism as their favored mode of public engagement. – Chronicle of Higher Education
The Musical That’s ‘Too Dark To Live’: ‘Lolita, My Love,’ Lerner’s Worst Disaster
Troy Patterson: “Its first act is weird and perfect; the second indicates the limits of this salvage operation. In The Complete Lyrics of Alan Jay Lerner, the editors ask, in a headnote, ‘How could songs and laughter be woven into a sinister story of a murderous pedophile?’ In other words, how do you solve a problem like Lolita? You don’t, not entirely, but the attempt offers a rare view of a masterpiece.” – The New Yorker
In US, Demand For Foreign Literature In Translation Grows, But Number Of Translated Books Published Declines
As one publisher put it, “Translated literature has found recent mainstream success partly because books coverage, like Congress, is catching up to the changing culture of America.” Yet for two years running, the number of translations published here has fallen. – Publishers Weekly
At Last, Académie Française Allows Feminine Forms Of Job Titles
At least they agree on something. “Female researchers, authors and firefighters in France could soon be known as chercheuses, autrices and sapeuses-pompières after the conservative Académie Française abandoned years of opposition to the feminisation of job titles.” – The Guardian
Signs Are Pointing To A Big Slowdown In Charitable Giving
Signs of an impending slowdown in charitable giving are emerging from multiple studies examining contributions last year, particularly those from donors of modest means. For example, a new analysis of giving to more than 4,500 charities released by the Association of Fundraising Professionals this week found that overall donations in 2018 were up by only 1.6 percent, lower than the rate of inflation. – Inside Philanthropy
Congressman Writes Jeff Bezos, And Five Anti-Vaxxer Docs Get Pulled From Amazon Prime Video
“The anti-vax documentaries had been available in the U.S. as part of Prime Video but as of Friday afternoon were not available to stream. … The move came just hours after U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) publicly announced that he’d sent a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos expressing concern that Amazon is ‘surfacing and recommending products and content that discourage parents from vaccinating their children.'” – Variety
UK Panel Rules National Gallery’s Laid-Off Educators Should Have Rights As Workers, Not Freelancers
Mind you, the tribunal didn’t find that the 27 plaintiffs were unfairly sacked; neither did it say they should have all the rights of Gallery employees (not the same thing as “workers” under English employment law). But the ruling did say that the group, mostly lecturers and docents, must “enjoy benefits such as minimum wage, holiday pay, and protection from dismissal, which self-employed contractors do not” — a finding with major implications for how freelancers are treated in Britain. – Hyperallergic