“If the idea of studying literature without reading it strikes you as somewhere between bizarre and dangerous, you’re not alone. There’s a whole cottage industry devoted to dismissing such projects as hopeless (or trivial, or both) or denouncing them as the death of the humanities. But it’s worth asking what they entail and what they allow before we resign ourselves to living with the tremendous limitations of reading alone.”
Tag: 08.16.13
Turkish Soap Operas Conquer The Muslim World
“TV audiences across the Balkans, the Gulf, and the Middle East are soaking up Turkish soaps by the dozen, and to the tune of more than $100 million per year in sales. … The soaps not only communicate Turkish culture to the outside world, they market it.”
For Once, Actors Get To Throw Tomatoes (Real Ones) At Critics
“Performers at the Edinburgh Fringe were given a chance to have their revenge on critics this week, by pelting them with tomatoes. A handful of critics … volunteered themselves as human targets.”
Be It Proposed: Let’s Stop Writing For A Year (The World Would Be A Better Place)
“What if everyone could be persuaded to stop scribbling for a period of, say, 12 months? Of course we would lose some marvellous work during The Year of Not Writing, and that’s not to be taken lightly. But look at the compensations…”
TMI! Why Some People Overshare On Facebook
“There’s apparently something alluring about filling those empty white boxes with embarrassing anecdotes – anecdotes that BuzzFeed then compiles and publishes in list form for everyone else to laugh at. … What compels us to tell the world with our fingers what we’d hesitate to utter in a room full of loved ones?” Naturally, social scientists have some ideas about why.
Phoenix Arts Groups Are Struggling. And That Might Be A Good Thing?
“The Great Recession has done more than force arts groups to re-examine their business models, it is also forcing them to face the hardest truth of all: Society doesn’t owe you anything.”
The Immortal(ized) Cats Of The Hermitage
Yes, this is happening: Rat-catching cats in imperial servant dress, in portraits commissioned by the museum’s magazine.
Equity Launches Investigation Into (Yet Another) Spider-Man Injury
“Dancer Daniel Curry, an Equity member, was taken to Bellevue Hospital after his leg became trapped in a hydraulic stage lift.”
When The School Districts Bow Out Of Arts Ed, Local Groups Fill In
“We used to choose the content and say this is what’s good for you and do you want to come and hear the concerts. Now it’s a two-way street. We adjusted everything to make sure we support the curriculum teachers are delivering.”
What’s The Problem With Losing Theatre Critics (Or Well-Paid Factory Workers, Either)?
“I worry for the young journalists who should be ramping up to take my place. The new managerial passion to minimize payroll puts them in a permanent limbo, at least until people discover ways to make the Internet a paying market for writers who can think deeply about a subject. Just now the Web is all about breadth, not depth.”