British-Indian Playwright Revisits The Riots That Greeted Her Last Piece

When Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s 2004 play Behzti (‘Dishonour’), depicting violence and rape in a Sikh temple, opened in Birmingham, protests by enraged Sikhs became violent, she received death threats, and the play had to be cancelled to preserve public safety. Now she has written a new play called Behud (‘Beyond Belief’) that recreates the furor.

Pragmatism Isn’t Just A Character Trait, It’s A School Of Philosophy (Who Knew?)

This “distinctively American philosophy … emerged in the early decades of the 20th century in the work of William James, John Dewey and C.S. Peirce. Pragmatism may or may not be an ethical program … but it always emphasizes the resources of historically given institutions and practices and de-emphasizes the role played in our lives by supra-historical essentialisms (God, faith, truth, reason, brute fact, overarching theory).”

Toronto Critics Join Call For Iranian Filmmakers’ Release

“[T]he Federation of European Film Directors, the European Film Academy, the Asia-Pacific Screen Awards, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, the Berlin Film Festival, the International Film Festival Rotterdam and Human Rights Watch” have all “asked the Iranian government to either release or charge [Jafar] Panahi and [Mahmoud] Rasoulof.”

Chinese Artist Ai Weiwei Discusses His Digital Activism

“Ai described his evolution from an artist to an activist as ‘a very natural act’ and said that social media are ‘like water and air, but in China we can’t even talk about it.’ When asked if he fears not being allowed to reenter the country, the artist replied: ‘Nothing can silence me as long as I’m alive. I don’t give any excuse. It isn’t going to change my beliefs.'”

The Truth About Film Criticism’s Future: There Isn’t One

Glenn Kenny: “And now let me quote Vladimir Nabokov, as is my wont: ‘Sex as an institution, sex as a general notion, sex as a problem, sex as a platitude–all this is something I find too tedious for words.’ Now, just substitute ‘the future of film criticism’ for ‘sex’ in the above and you’ll have pretty much summed up my attitude. Why? Because I know it’s over. … And I’m fine with that.”