Tag: 08.27.18

Maybe Literature Really Is Dead

If so, then modern technology is not the murderer, writes David Ulin. After all, when books had their greatest power and influence (he cites Thomas Paine’s Common Sense as an example), mass-market printing was cutting-edge technology. That’s not to say that today’s technology isn’t involved in the death, though.

Independent Music Festivals Say Live Nation’s Dominance Of Music Industry Is Stifling Competition

The US company or its subsidiaries control some of the country’s biggest outdoor live music events including Latitude, Isle of Wight festival, Reading and Leeds, Parklife and Lovebox. The AIF said Live Nation had a 26% share of the market for events with a capacity of more than 5,000 people, compared to its nearest competitor, Global, with 8%.

Do College Librarians Have Academic Freedom? Should They?

The question has become an active issue in the University of California system: employees at UCal’s 100 libraries are pushing to have a clause guaranteeing academic freedom included in the new contract they’re negotiating. The librarians thought the idea was “a no-brainer” and including it in the contract a mere formality, but UCal administrators maintain that the doctrine of academic freedom doesn’t apply to non-teaching staff.

In Defense Of Romance Novels

Many romance novels actually function as more than “imaginative opposition,” providing a very real space for enjoyment and relaxation, which might be otherwise missing from readers’ lives. The best romances can do this without lulling readers into a false sense of complacency.

When This Israeli Arab Choreographer Stopped Focusing On His Ethnicity In His Work, Here’s What Happened

Adi Boutros: “In my previous works, there was a text. But at some point I understood that I didn’t need to talk about it, but to experience and investigate it with the body. The body is a tool that has knowledge, and it also knows how to reflect this. All I had to do was investigate the body, and when I investigated it, my real identity got expressed.”

The Hidden Queer History Of Paper Dolls

Sure, paper dolls were manufactured and marketed – to the parents who held the purse strings – as tools for teaching little girls obedience and conformity. (Well, until the ’70s – more on that later.) Yet, as Benjamin Frisch and Willa Paskin point out, “the conformity represented by paper dolls was easy to subvert, because it was so easy to ignore. The virtue of simple toys is that it’s simple to use them any way you please.” And that’s exactly what gay men did. (article and podcast)

Shaw Festival Tries Every Way It Can To Engage Audiences Outside The Theatre

“[Artistic director Tim Carroll] points to the nearly endless number of meet-up opportunities: the post-show talkbacks, the cocktail hours, the classes and clubs, the pop-up patios, the escape rooms, the speakeasy jazz nights, and garden tours, some of which are for friends and members only, many of which are open to all. ‘I think all of that is as much part of the Shaw experience as coming to the shows,’ Carroll said. ‘People sign up for the whole ticket.'”

Fukuyama: What Happened After The End Of History

“It began to unfold back in the ’60s and ’70s, when identity came to the forefront. People felt unfulfilled. They felt they had these true selves that weren’t being recognized. In the absence of a common cultural framework previously set by religion, people were at a loss. Psychology and psychiatry stepped into that breach. In the medical profession, treating mental health has a therapeutic mission, and it became legitimate to say the objective of society ought to be improving people’s sense of self-esteem. This became part of the mission of universities, which made it difficult to set educational criteria as opposed to therapeutic criteria aimed at making students feel good about themselves. This is what led to many of the conflicts over multiculturalism.”