In May 1901, the great playwright married actress Olga Knipper – much to the dismay and confusion of his family and friends, who knew him to be a compulsive womanizer. Less than a year later, Knipper became severely ill and had to terminate a pregnancy. It turns out, as biographer Donald Rayfield has discovered, that the child could not have been Chekhov’s, and he almost certainly knew it.
Tag: 08.20.18
Why Has Philosophy Walled Itself Off From Non-Anglo-European Thought? Not Because Of Racism
Jonardon Ganeri, himself a biracial philosopher, argues that it’s an unintended consequence of one of the qualities the field most values in itself – one that distinguishes it from most of the humanities – combined with the conscientious scholar’s natural reluctance to muck about with subject matter she doesn’t know.
Cathedral Gets Pushback For Showing ‘Wicker Man’ In Movie Series
The autumn film series at Derby Cathedral in the English Midlands includes The Wicker Man (which features female nudity and a pagan sacrifice), Don’t Look Now (sex and seances), and The Life of Brian (the Gospels get the Monty Python treatment). Says one church warden from the diocese, “I just think it isn’t appropriate to show these films in a place of worship that is consecrated and hallowed.” Responds the Cathedral’s dean, “The first thing we’re trying to do is open the cathedral to new people. It doesn’t just belong to the people who go to church; it certainly doesn’t belong to me.”
Why Do Contemporary Philosophers Wall Off Part Of The World?
There is a great conundrum, or — if you prefer — a dark secret, about modern philosophy: while diversity is the lifeblood of philosophy, philosophy as we now find it in the United States (and equally elsewhere) has come to fear and shun diversity, specifically the diversity of philosophical opinion and argumentation from extra-European cultures. How did this happen? And why?
Business And Slavery (And Some Direct Lines Between Them)
Modern narratives of capitalist development often assume that vast wealth accumulated by a few accompanies improved circumstances for many. The history of slavery’s capitalism warns against all these expectations.
Increasingly Irish Arts Are Built On The Backs Of Interns
The arts in Ireland are built on top of unpaid labour. Everyone in the industry knows this. Sporadically, there is outrage about unreasonable advertisements seeking unpaid internships (recent culprits included TV3 and the Fringe Festival) but the hubbub eventually dies away and little changes. Unpaid labour takes different forms. There are the artists, writers and musicians who often create their work for little or no money and can be exploited for this by an entertainment and arts industry eager for content. There are also volunteers who do admittedly valuable work that comes, if truly a form of volunteerism, with no contractual obligations or real responsibility. Internships, on the other hand, are technically meant to be a form of skills training. In recent years, however, “internship” has become shorthand for “unpaid job” and the means by which Irish arts institutions coped with funding shortfalls.
Should Artists Be Fundraisers?
“Should we now encourage, if not outright expect, artists to take a more active and ongoing role in the fundraising business? If they indeed occupy a position that might increase their chances of succeeding at, or contributing to, the success of fundraising, shouldn’t, in the current landscape of the difficulty in fundraising, they be part of the process?”
It’s Getting More Difficult To Get Visas For Foreign Artists Coming To The US
“The whole system is a kind of trap for the unwary,” says Geoffrey Smith, former board chair at The Washington Ballet and a lawyer who has worked on visa petitions for ballet dancers and companies for four decades. “I’m a lawyer who does this for a living, and I’ve still made a lot of mistakes. The government isn’t going to go out of its way to let you know that you’ve made a mistake or, for that matter, tell you how to fix it.
What Does It Mean To Be Human? The Question Itself Is A Problem
Martha Nussbaum: “We humans are very self-focused. We tend to think that being human is somehow very special and important, so we ask about that, instead of asking what it means to be an elephant, or a pig, or a bird. … The question, ‘What is it to be human?’ is not just narcissistic, it involves a culpable obtuseness. It is rather like asking, ‘What is it to be white?’ It connotes unearned privileges that have been used to dominate and exploit. But we usually don’t recognize this because our narcissism is so complete.”
Another Poetry-Isn’t-Dying Piece
The “death of poetry” has been predicted with such frequency that it’s become a mordant joke, as have the “Poetry is dead, long live poetry!” rejoinders; everywhere, though, are reminders that these debates can miss the broader point. Poetry can’t die, any more than air or water can meet such an end, because poetry in the more expansive sense is not “poetry” in the narrow. Poetry is permeative; it is currency; and it is, thankfully, too big to die.