“Broadly speaking, cultural studies is not one arm of the humanities so much as an attempt to use all of those arms at once. It emerged in England, in the nineteen-fifties and sixties, when scholars from working-class backgrounds, such as Richard Hoggart and Raymond Williams, began thinking about the distance between canonical cultural touchstones—the music or books that were supposed to teach you how to be civil and well-mannered—and their own upbringings. These scholars believed that the rise of mass communications and popular forms were permanently changing our relationship to power and authority, and to one another. There was no longer consensus.”
Tag: 07.18.17
Report: One In Three Musicians Suffers From Eating Disorder
“A musician’s unpredictable work schedule, performing and low income are major factors which both from a mental (loneliness, anxiety, depression, personality disorders, substance abuse) and practical (irregular meals when travelling) aspect draw them into a vicious circle of unhealthy eating,” the report finds.
The Philosophy Underpinning American Political Culture
“We should stop assuming that making choices amounts to freedom itself, or that making them rationally is the whole job of human reason. Freedom of choice, like free markets and contested elections, is valuable only when situated within wider horizons of value. Divorced from them, it becomes first absolute and then disastrous.”
John Adams Talks About Being A Distinguished American Composer
“One thing that disturbs me is that the friends I have dinner with — people who bear the same intellectual, social and political interests as I — don’t listen to my music. Very few of them even listen to Beethoven. They listen to — I don’t know — James Taylor or the Gipsy Kings. I realize I travel in a small cultural arena.”
Two Lost Manuscripts By Gustav Holst Turn Up In File Cabinet In New Zealand
The music director and librarian of the Bay of Plenty Symphonia in Tauranga were weeding out old photocopies from their files “and [we] found these hand-written scores. We didn’t really believe we were holding genuine Holst manuscripts, but there was just enough of a tingle of excitement not to throw them away.”