Countries Want Their Cultural Heritage Back. What’s A Museum To Do?

The first response to demands for restitution is simple. Concede to them. We have tons of other stuff in basements and attics. To be fair, this is starting to happen. France’s President Emmanuel Macron is legislating to “return Africa’s heritage to Africa”. The British Museum itself returns objects under permanent loan. The Benin bronzes are going to Nigeria and it has indicated a readiness to talk with Easter Island. A deeper worry is what restitution will mean to the purpose of world museums.

‘Moonlight’ And ‘If Beale Street Could Talk’ Director Barry Jenkins Says It’s (Past) Time For Hollywood To Draw From Black Authors’ Work

Jenkins says Hollywood “is also finally recognizing specifically that there is an audience for black literary adaptations: ‘It’s not only very clear there is an audience for this work, but to take it even further, there are people who are familiar with this work in its literary form — the same way people are familiar with work of non-black artists.'”

Mary-Rose McMaster, Actor And Producer Who Was The Last Member Of A Famed Irish Theatre Family, Has Died At 92

McMaster’s parents, uncle, and brother were all central to Irish theatre life for decades – and so was she, before she married and moved to San Francisco, where she continued to act, direct, and produce. “With her passing, the curtain has finally dropped on a significant chapter in Irish theatre history.”

How Dvorak’s New World Symphony Helped America Listen To, And Hear, Itself

The Czech composer listened to the people of the United States. “Dvorak recognized a rich tradition sitting under his nose, one that most American composers seemed blind to. He wove American roots music into his vast symphonic canvas. And, inspired by black spirituals, he came up with a bittersweet melody that would become a spiritual of its own: the ‘Largo,’ the symphony’s second movement, a kind of song without words scored for the English horn.”