Is UNESCO World Heritage Status A Kiss Of Death For Sites In Developing Countries?

Looking at Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Luang Prabang in Laos, and the Vietnamese town of Hoi An (whose historic buildings and streetscape miraculously survived the 20th-century wars), art and cultural management professor Jo Caust argues that the mass tourism that comes with the coveted World Heritage designation can turn such places into theme parks and suggests some steps that should be taken to mitigate that danger.

How Is It We Acquire A Taste For Something?

Whatever the answer to this question, the phenomenon is rife. Children are unlikely to appreciate a sip of beer. Yet a decade later they may relish the evening’s first pint. Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, they have acquired the beer-taste. Taste acquisition does not stop at beer and blizzards: consider coffee and classical music, olives and oysters.

A New $50,000 Prize For Improvised Music

The Instant Award for Improvised Music “is granted by a new organization called the Horse With No Name, formed specifically for that purpose by the funder of the prize (who insists on anonymity). [Chicago art gallery] Corbett vs. Dempsey functions as a conduit for administering the award. … The first two winners are Poughkeepsie multi-instrumentalist (and frequent Chicago visitor) Joe McPhee, who shows no sign of slowing down at age 78, and Baltimore pedal-steel virtuoso Susan Alcorn.”

Award-Winning But Strapped Southern Literary Journal Finally Pays Off Debt

“After more than a decade, the Oxford American, a nonprofit literary magazine that explores Southern culture, has finally paid off the entire $700,000 debt it owed the University of Central Arkansas. Since the debt began accumulating in 2004 and peaked in 2008, UCA has seen four presidents, and the nonprofit magazine has parted ways with its founding editor and has a new top editor and executive director.”

Here’s One Theatre That Raised Its Hiring Of Women Directors Tenfold

“The number of women directing plays at [the Gate Theatre in Dublin] is up from 8 per cent between 2006 and 2015 to 80 per cent in the last 18 months … The number of women writers increased from 6 per cent to 33 per cent over the same period, set designers 26 per cent to 44 per cent, lighting designers 13 per cent to 33 per cent, and sound designers 1 per cent to 44 per cent.”

Glasgow Art School’s Mackintosh Building Will Be Rebuilt, Not Replaced, Says Director

“In his first interview since the fire, [Tom] Inns said: ‘We’re going to rebuild the Mackintosh building. There’s been a huge amount of speculation about what should happen with the site and quite rightly so, but from our point of view and that of the city of Glasgow, it is critically important that the building comes back as the Mackintosh building.'”

How Music Fans Helped Build The Intenet

Just as industrialization and digital media changed the work of being a musician, they changed experiences and opportunities for audiences. While musicians dealt with the challenges of building and maintaining careers in the face of the new realities of their field, audiences developed new histories of participating with one another on their own terms. Now, even as musicians struggle to find their ways in an internet-mediated music world, audiences flourish.