Kay Redfield Jamison, a specialist in manic depression and other mood disorders, talks about how Lowell’s poetry changed after being treated with lithium, his own attitude to his mental illness (and that of several of his well-known contemporaries), and the ethics of using the medical records she used (and those she chose not to use) in writing a book about Lowell.
Tag: 04.05.17
The Next Stage: Wendy Whelan And Virginia Johnson On Life After A Career In Ballet
“Former professional ballet dancers Wendy Whelan and Virginia Johnson join us to discuss life after a career in dance. Whelan, who had a 30-year career with the New York City Ballet (NYCB), is the inaugural Lida Orzeck Distinguished Artist-in-Residence at Barnard. Now artistic director of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, Johnson was a founding member and principal dancer with the company for more than 20 years.” (audio)
After Smashing Antiquities In Mosul Museum, ISIS Used It As Tax Bureau
“Iraqi troops took the museum back last month from the militants, who left its once-famous collection in a sorry state. … In a basement room under the main exhibition halls, there was a pile of envelopes used to issue orders to pay Islamic tax, one of main sources of funding for the militants. ‘The Islamic State … seeks to levy your duties which were forced by God on the rich people’s money.'”
What Would It Look Like If The Biggest TV Network Looked For Opportunities To Broadcast Arts? (The BBC Is About To Show Us)
The BBC will “create opportunities for arts organisations of all sizes to show their work on the BBC via a £4m fund, ‘Artists First’, that will commission artists and organisations to make new works for broadcast and online. The new Culture UK partnership, with Arts Council England (ACE), the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, the Arts Council of Wales and Creative Scotland, will also see the development of three major broadcast and live event festivals each year.”
What Use Are Historical Periods? They Often Confuse Things
Labels such as “medieval” and “modern” are highly relative scholarly impositions. What counts as “modern” in philosophy is quite different – in chronology and in style – from modernity in literary studies. While such categories may be convenient for organizing the historiography of philosophy (among other disciplines), no one really thinks they represent precise and absolute distinctions. What, after all, does it mean for a philosophy to be “modern”?
There’s A New Kind Of Booing From Britain’s Opera Audiences, And It’s Good, Says Covent Garden’s Music Director
The custom has made its way to the opera house from, of all places, Christmas pantomimes – and Antonio Pappano is all for it. (After all, that Pinkerton is a terrible cad.)
Poland’s Supreme Court Approves Government Takeover Of New World War II Museum
The current right-wing nationalist government in Warsaw is not happy with the way history is presented at the Gdansk museum, which opened two weeks ago, and they’ve been trying since they took office to scrap the museum or merge it with one more to their liking. Now the country’s Supreme Administrative Court has given clearance to do the latter.
London’s Southbank Hires TV Exec As New CEO
It’s Elaine Bedell, who was director of entertainment and comedy at ITV. “As well as becoming the organisation’s first woman chief executive in its 66-year history, her appointment alongside Susan Gilchrist as chair and Jude Kelly as artistic director will mean that the arts centre – Europe’s largest – has an all-female leadership team.”
He’s The Most Hated King In India’s Long History, But Does He Really Deserve It?
The Mughal emperor Aurangzeb was no saint: he (over-)extended the empire to the largest territory it ever had, but he killed his brothers and imprisoned his father (Shah Jahan, builder of the Taj Mahal). Aurangzeb is also said – especially by modern-day Hindu nationalists, including the ones in the current government – to have killed countless Hindus, destroyed countless temples, and to have ignored or suppressed the great Indian artistic traditions brought to their height by his great-grandfather, the emperor Akbar. Historian Audrey Truschke argues that for centuries, for political reasons past and present, the evidence about Aurangzeb was deliberately distorted and that he was no worse than any Muslim ruler of his era.
The MoMA Curator Who Lives In An Apartment With Almost Nothing In It
Klaus Biesenbach lives in an all-white, 550-square-foot high-rise apartment that contains little more than a table, a bed, a couch and two or three chairs. His favorite feature is the view from his window, which he photographs every day and posts to Instagram for his #window23 project. “It’s a calming place because there aren’t many distractions,” he said. “That’s what makes the window so important. How can you compete with the world?”