“The ‘convent exposé’ [was] a book, fictional or not, that purported to reveal the sin and salaciousness hidden behind the walls of religious institutions. In these books, sisters are kept captive, denied medical care, and sometimes raped or otherwise subject to sexual depravities. … These books, mostly forgotten today, were some of the most popular publications of their time.” (One was outsold onely by Uncle Tom’s Cabin.)
Tag: 07.13.17
The Real Appeal Of All Those Online Personality Tests That People Keep Clicking On
“As BuzzFeed‘s quizzes really started gaining steam a few years ago, a deluge of think-pieces attempted to make sense of why people just can’t get enough of them, even when they clearly have little to do with reality. Reasons included narcissism, existential searching, and boredom. … These probably are all true, to some extent. But they overlook something deeper about the nature of personality itself.”
New York Magazine Hires Sara Holdren As Lead Theatre Critic
Writes editor Adam Moss: “Sara never imagined herself a critic, but she has the makings of a great one. She comes at theatre criticism from an unusual background and perspective, which will be helpful, but she also happens to be a wonderful critical writer—vivid, wry, interesting, impassioned. We’re excited to welcome her to the dialogue.”
Hell’s Mapmakers: Charting Dante’s Inferno, Circle By Circle
“In addition to being among the greatest Italian literary works, Divine Comedy also heralded a craze for ‘infernal cartography,’ or mapping the Hell that Dante had created. … There are several theories for why it was so important then to delineate Dante’s Hell, including the general popularity of cartography at the time and the Renaissance obsession with proportions and measurements. However, given the inherent limitations of mapping a fictional world, there was some debate between scholars over the specifics.”
The Death Of The Print Encyclopedia (And The Life And Death Of Encarta)
“We take Wikipedia for granted these days, but the encyclopedia on disc was a big deal – especially because it was both cheaper and smaller than the alternative. Today’s Tedium dives into the history of the electronic encyclopedia. Eat your heart out, Encarta.”
The Meaning Of Liu Xiaobo
If there is a gene for bluntness, Liu likely had it. In the 1980s, while still a graduate student in Chinese literature, he was already known as a “black horse” for denouncing nearly every contemporary Chinese writer: the literary star Wang Meng was politically slippery; “roots-seeking” writers like Han Shaogong were excessively romantic about the value of China’s traditions; even speak-for-the-people heroes like Liu Binyan were too ready to pin hopes on “liberal” Communist leaders like Hu Yaobang. No one was independent enough. “I can sum up what’s wrong with Chinese writers in one sentence,” Liu Xiaobo wrote in 1986. “They can’t write creatively themselves—they simply don’t have the ability—because their very lives don’t belong to them.”
The Hobby Lobby Cultural Looting Case Is Really Bad, Probably Worse Than You Thought At First
For instance, stop saying Hobby Lobby was funding ISIS: That’s not true, but also, “in West Asia, most looting and most damage to cultural heritage generally is not being carried out by ISIS. This is not to belittle the horrible acts culminating in murderous violence that are committed by ISIS. Rather, the problem is ignoring the massive scale of threats to cultural heritage by focusing solely on one entity.”
Tennis Movies Are Hard To Love
As Wimbledon wraps up and a new McEnroe versus Borg movie is about to come out, let’s take stock. “Cinema loves boxing and baseball, and these sports, by and large, appear to love them back. Knockout punches and home-runs, after all, provide neat movie resolutions. But tennis, for better or worse, is a long-form narrative. It ebbs and flows; it doesn’t naturally convert to bite-sized screen drama.”
Irina Ratushinskaya, Soviet Dissident Writer Who Inscribed Poetry On Soap With Burnt Matchsticks, Has Died At 63
Speaking of persistence: “Sentenced in 1983, on her 29th birthday, to the seven-year maximum term for ‘anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda,’ Ms. Ratushinskaya composed some 250 poems in prison, many drafted with burned matchsticks on bars of soap. She memorized them and smuggled them on cigarette paper through her husband to the West, where they were published, and where human rights groups indefatigably lobbied for her release.”
Agatha Christie Was Not Cool With Unflattering Author Photos
Whoops: “What ticked Christie off the most, quite understandably, was a comment from theatre producer Bertie Meyer, who decided to tell the author, after seeing her recent publicity shot, that, ‘Frankly, Agatha, that photo makes you look about 70.'”