“The No. 1 problem facing liberal arts colleges is demand. An increasing number of people don’t think they are valuable. In the past, people never really thought, ‘What I want is liberal arts education.’ They thought, ‘I want a degree from Williams or Swarthmore.’ Now that more people see college as an investment, asking what they can get out of it, they are choosing vocational majors. “
Tag: 09.27.11
Why Lying Takes More Energy
“Remembering a fiction is much more demanding than remembering something that actually occurred. Because you’re worried about your credibility, you’re most likely trying to control your demeanor, and “looking honest” also saps mental energy.”
‘Deep History’ – Searching For The Stories Of Early Humankind
“Distressed by most historians’ overwhelming preoccupation with the modern world, an unusual coalition of scholars is trying to stage an intellectual coup, urging their colleagues to look up from the relatively recent swirl of bloody conflicts, global financial exchanges and technological wonders and gaze further back, toward humanity’s origins.”
Dancing About Nelson Mandela
“How does one evoke and honor an iconic figure such as Nelson Mandela through dance? There would seem be plenty of risks.” But Garth Fagan has taken on the challenge, and “[the] resulting work, Madiba, will have its world premiere at the Joyce [next week].”
Steve Reich On Music History
“But for me, music history basically begins with Gregorian chant then goes to the end of 1750 with the death of Johann Sebastian Bach. Then it goes on without me paying much attention until Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, Bartok and so on. The entire classical and Romantic period is filled with geniuses that I don’t listen to and from whom I’ve learned absolutely nothing.”
A Plan To Dramatically Downsize Cincinnati’s Concert Hall
“The plans for the renovation of Music Hall show the main auditorium reduced by up to 1,500 seats, the orchestra seated on a stage that projects nearly 39 feet into space now occupied by seats, and the main lobby as one long expanse without glass doors dividing it.”
In The Courts: Can A Work Go Back In Copyright Once It’s In The Public Domain?
“This particular case is about whether the U.S. Constitution allows for copyright protection of foreign works to be restored to works that previously had been in the public domain.”
The Real Value Of A Liberal Arts Education: It’s Useless
“But uselessness is a good thing. I don’t mean useless in sense that it doesn’t advantage you. I mean studying something you don’t have to so you are focused on the act of learning instead of what you are learning it for. That’s huge. That’s the most important reason why people who have a liberal arts education do well.”
Ladbroke’s Lays Odds On Nobel Literature Winner
Adonis, the 81-year-old Syrian experimental poet, is the current favorite at 4-1, followed closely by Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer at 9-2. Farther behind are novelists Thomas Pynchon (10-1), Assia Djebar (12-1), and Haruki Murakami (16-1).
Lost Beethoven Quartet Fragment To Get Modern Premiere
“A ‘lost’ Beethoven movement is to be performed for the first time in more than 200 years, after being pieced together from early drafts. Beethoven wrote the slow movement for his string quartet Opus 18 Number Two in 1799 before discarding it and composing another version a year later.”