Why should a name matter so much? Psychologists have a term that might help explain what’s happening here: prestige bias. Developed by the cultural evolution theorists Joseph Henrich and Francisco J Gil-White, the concept describes the human tendency to preferentially attend to, learn from, and value the outputs of high-status individuals. - Psyche

At the time, Americans did not understand that they were living through the largest energy transition in human history. Instead, they perceived a series of disconnected events. Unable to discern or conceptualize an underlying cause, they often declared the transformations around them were “kaleidoscopic.”  - MIT Press

Using social media applications to digest bite-sized educational content actually reduces a person’s ability to remember the information, according to new research. - Psypost

A.I. labs, and the related nonprofits around them, have been recruiting workers as versed in Consequentialism and John Stuart Mill as in neural networks and reinforcement learning. - The New York Times

Some called for defunding the national public broadcaster and others bemoaned the failures of successive federal governments to properly invest in the CBC. Many other Canadians, however, mourned the loss while simultaneously breathing a sigh of relief. - The Conversation

“What is the sense that something escapes the conditions of knowledge? It is, I think, the sense, or fact, that our primary relation to the world is not one of knowing it.” - The Point

The report often doesn’t even bother to engage with many of the claims it ridicules — like obvious and well-documented facts about anti-Chinese sentiment in post-Civil War America — or takes them as self-evident proof that the Smithsonian is misrepresenting history. - Washington Post

Joyce Beatty, a seven-term representative from Ohio, became an ex officio Congressional member of the Kennedy Center’s board in 2019. She says that the resolution to add Trump’s name to the complex was introduced without advance notice at a meeting in December, and she was muted when she objected. - The New York Times

“(Anthea) Hartig, director of the National Museum of American History since 2019, has commissioned exhibitions that … document the lived experiences of ordinary people, sometimes focusing on race, sexuality and colonialism. … Many historians support her goal of telling a more nuanced story of the United States.” - The New York Times

“Here are some of the report’s main charges, and how they relate to the administration’s broader push to promote what President Trump has called ‘patriotic’ history.” - The New York Times

The 162-page report, by the White House’s Domestic Policy Council, represents a sweeping attack on the museum’s presentation of American history. It is the latest step in the Trump administration’s campaign to pressure the Smithsonian into conforming to what President Trump has described as “patriotic” history.

“For decades, the premise behind buying games, VHS tapes, DVDs, and other media was simple. You handed over money, and in return you got the game, show, or movie to keep. That bargain is now breaking down.” - Fast Company

Joe Hisaishi developed his huge following with his scores for Hayao Miyazaki’s animated films for Studio Ghibli. Yet he’s long had a parallel career as a conductor of standard orchestral repertoire in Japan. Now he’s shifting his focus to classical music, and he’s been appointed the Philadelphia Orchestra’s composer-in-residence. - The New York Times

One of the key features is the dramatic spiral roof, which takes cues from an unfurled Chinese folding fan, a space that is accessible to visitors and serves as an observation deck overlooking the Huangpu River and the city's skyline. - New Atlas

“America’s obsession with celebrity has morphed into this really weird, parasocial thing, where people feel incentivized to be deputized defenders of that person and are there to attack anybody who says anything at least a little bit negative about them.” - Washington Post

“People are drinking. They’re happy. They’re paying for music.” - NPR

In 1976, “the centerpiece was the National Endowment for the Arts Bicentennial Orchestra Commissioning Project. That funded America’s six top orchestras to each commission a major work that all six would play.” - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

Javid from Afghanistan “said the festival in the idyllic Bannau Brycheiniog national park had been his first ever experience of a music concert. Under the Taliban, he said, ‘There is no music, and it’s banned to listen to any music.’” - The Guardian (UK)

“Three thieves targeted the Lalique museum in Wingen-sur-Moder in northeastern France at around 5:30 am on Sunday, … (and) made off with 27 pieces of jewelry worth an estimated €4.5 million ($5.1 million), prosecutors said Monday.” - AFP (Yahoo!)

“Salvador Salort-Pons, the director of the Detroit Institute of Arts, recently revealed the discovery of a portrait by Diego Velázquez made during the artist’s earliest years as a court painter to King Philip IV. Salort-Pons, a specialist in Velázquez, published his findings in the current issue of ARS Magazine.” - ARTnews

It is extraordinarily difficult for most brick-and-mortar stores in any industry to survive, and that is especially true for art galleries. These large art shows may create a lot of foot traffic, but that doesn’t always translate to robust on-site sales for the galleries. - The New York Times

From California bungalows to New York skyscrapers, from forest retreats to streamlined headquarters, what makes an architecture American, let alone the most significant example of such? - Architectural Record

Did someone hit a big flashing “irony” button for our timeline? - The New York Times

“There is nothing emancipatory, nor original, about creating a luxury venue that privileges sensibility over scholarship, allure over accessibility, and fine dining over gallery square footage.” - E-Flux

The problem is that not only does AI train on human writing, but humans are stylistically influenced by AI, the interplay creating a kind of linguistic hall of mirrors. Short of an author admitting it, it’s hard to say for certain whether an individual piece of writing is AI or not. That uncertainty is...

“House Bill 434 would require school districts to establish formal policies for removing content from schools that is ‘obscene and harmful to minors,’ … (creating) a standardized removal process in which parents could challenge any book, magazine, film, video, web-based content, sound recording, or live performance offered to students.” - New Hampshire Bulletin

For instance: "If The Brutalist, then Claire Messud’s This Strange Eventful History.” - LitHub 

Susanna Clarke: “A narrative makes illness seem rational – and it gives the sufferer a measure of control – or at any rate the illusion of it. This is particularly true of the sort of chronic illness in the face of which poor doctors are often at a loss. - The Guardian (UK)

True, the person writing this was a history major, but still: "A rare surviving copy of the Declaration of Independence has been discovered at The National Archives in Kew, the only known example of its kind outside the US.” Discovered by a volunteer. - BBC

Supposed AI tells - “are also characteristic of human writing, which, after all, the large language models (LLMs) that produce them were trained on.” - The Guardian (UK)

“Richard Heffner’s The Open Mind, the gleefully eggheaded talk show on which Martin Luther King Jr gave his first sit-down televised interview — continues to soldier on,” with grandson Alexander Heffner hosting since Richard’s death in 2013. - The Hollywood Reporter

“These new rules cross a line,” claims the streaming giant. “They attempt to fix in law the exact genre balance of our slate, constrain our ability to back other types of French works – drama, comedy, unscripted – and do so only for streamers, while traditional broadcasters are spared.” - Deadline

“Set inside the ‘Tillyverse,’ a digital world located somewhere up in the Cloud, the film” — titled Misaligned and made by Particle 6, the AI-oriented studio which prompted Norwood into existence — “will follow Tilly, an AI being with no real body … or lived experience of her own, only access to everyone else’s.”...

There is growing opposition to the rent-or-license model that has become increasingly common in pop culture, gaming, and streaming. In California, a law that took effect in 2025 requires digital stores to be clearer when consumers are buying a revocable licence rather than full ownership. - Fast Company

ITV confirmed to shareholders on Monday morning that it will sell to its pay-TV rival, meaning a crown jewel of British broadcasting becomes part of the NBCUniversal entertainment empire. - Deadline

Reuters said the fee would equate to around $650 million in cash to be paid by Paramount every three months, providing the U.K. government some leverage over Paramount if a study drags on to slow the deal’s closure. - The Street

Such an opportunity was bound to present itself to the director of San Francisco Ballet in the 2020s. It’s no surprise that she took the opportunity — but what she has to say about the experience, while quite perspicacious, isn’t much of a surprise either. - The Times (UK)

“Call it ballet-qua-haunted house. … Audiences came in-kind on opening night, sporting black lace, corsets, velour, brocade and, in at least a couple cases, a top hat and a waxed mustache.” - San Francisco Chronicle (Yahoo)

“Terminus Modern Ballet Theatre has been making movement magic in Atlanta for a decade. Artistic Director John Welker spoke to ArtsATL about its accomplishments so far and its vision for the future.” - ArtsATL

A photo journal of more than 30 teenage girls performing the Rejang dance for the Kuningan holiday, the close of a ten-day Balinese Hindu festival celebrating the triumph of good over evil. - AP

“Beading and sequins, silk bodices and boning, plus 10 layers of pleated net, all painstakingly cut and dyed by hand before being sewn together. ... ‘If you break it down to five days a week, 40 hours, it’s usually about two weeks. To make one tutu.’” - The i Paper

“A lot of the challenges that are happening right now are of the times. They’re reflecting what’s going on in our country, and I think it’s important that we all try to stick together through it and keep dancing.” - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

In a statement released on social media, the organisers said: “To Our BBTA Community, due to unforeseen circumstances, we have made the difficult decision not to hold the Black British Theatre Awards ceremony in 2026. We know this will be disappointing news … and it was not a decision we took lightly.” - WhatsOnStage...

Former employees describe the tenure of artistic director Hana S. Sharif, who resigned last month, as “three years of terror.” - Notus

“'After the show, people come to me in person and through messages,’ said. ‘A lot of people said, ‘I felt like I am not alone.’ That gives me so much hope and unity.’” - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo)

"Call it what you want: colonialism, toxic workplace culture, oppression, patriarchy, the result is the same: power in the hands of a few who extract all the benefit they can from the many while trying to convince us that we should be thankful for the honor of the extraction.” - Amy Wratchford

“Who are ‘our people,’ broadly defined? Can we even talk about a common American experience or identity, to which we can all attach a full-throated patriotism? We might look to the example of New York City’s Lincoln Center.” - American Theatre

“’Basil Biggs’ premieres this month in Philadelphia, written for the nation's 250th anniversary. The title character is her great-great-grandfather, a free Black man who became a … conductor of the Underground Railroad … and prominent figure at Gettysburg” who made Lincoln’s speech there possible. - NPR

“The problems at the Barnes were so obvious,” he told The New York Times in 1993, “Ray Charles could see them in a swamp at midnight.” - The New York Times

Robert Kimball, a musical theater historian and champion of American popular song who unearthed hundreds of pieces long thought to be lost and helped rediscover the work of the seminal Black Broadway songwriting team of Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, died on Wednesday in Manhattan. - The New York Times

Wallace was "a self-proclaimed radical historian whose magisterial, unvarnished biography of New York, Gotham, written with Edwin G. Burrows, won the Pulitzer Prize and inspired two more door-stopper volumes about the city.” - The New York Times

She’s from the US, but her family (like a whole lot of people in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and other diaspora landing spots) also claim Ireland. - Irish Times

“(He) often acted as a kind of Indiana Jones of song, as when he helped excavate a treasure trove of manuscripts by George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers and others that was found in a warehouse in Secaucus, N.J., in 1982. The hoard dated back to the advent of sound pictures.” - The New York Times

The four-time Emmy nominee, who received an honorary Oscar in 2022, says he was diagnosed with the disease three years ago. His 80th birthday is later this month. - AP