Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
Margaret Atwood: Book-Banning In Historical Context
Freedom of expression is a hot potato—freedom for whom and for what, and who decides? The last English writer before the late 20th century...
Why Learning To Write Is About So Much More Than Writing
Learning to write is about more than learning to write. For one thing, it’s about learning to turn a loose assemblage of thoughts into...
Our Kids Are Struggling To Read. Growing Evidence Suggests We Can Teach Them A...
There is growing evidence from neuroscience and careful experiments that the United States has adopted reading strategies that just don’t work very well and that we haven’t relied...
Dudamel And The LA/NY Rivalry
The defection of Gustavo Dudamel from L.A. to conduct the New York Philharmonic reflects more than a switch in energy and show business muscle; the Venezuela-born...
Online Shopping Was Supposed To Improve The Experience. Instead, It’s Getting Much Worse
The search results are full of ads. You can’t come up with the right string of words to get more useful results. The reviews,...
Canada’s Indigo Books Hit By Ransomware
Indigo says it can't process electronic payments, accept gift cards or deal with returns. But at one location in Toronto on Friday, the store...
Of Institutions And Colonialism
It is hard to think of any human institution enduring for centuries of which it can seriously be said it was all good or...
Buckminster Fuller’s Greatest Talent? Self-Promotion
As Inventor of the Future reveals, “Bucky” had a penchant for claiming sole authorship over projects within his orbit, even when they were largely realized through...
Morton Subotnick At 90: New Music Isn’t Possible
possible. We’re not geared to it, because music is part of us—we get it so early in life that we’re not geared to something...
Why Legislation To Force Big Tech Platforms To Pay For News Stories They Link...
Journalists don’t particularly like to hear it, but news stories make up only 2% to 3% of the average user’s News Feed on Facebook,...
Dance On Film Is A Tricky Business
Call Me Dancer represents the strongest slice of the films on offer: works that engage the politics and economics of the dance world. These films...
Appreciating Burt Bacharach
Bacharach may have been a uniter, not a divider, but surely it’s easy to hear the complexity underneath that ease. The unpredictability and the...
Hirshhorn Museum Hits The Reality TV World With An Artist Competition
The program, which starts March 3, focuses on seven rising artists from around the country who were selected by Hirshhorn curators. Each week, the...
Two Major Maestro Appointments This Month: What They Tell Us About The Orchestra Business
Both Lahav Shani and Gustavo Dudamel are safe choices. Musicians and audiences feel comfortable with them. Unfortunately, challenging programs will probably be rare. - Van
Nezet-Seguin Talks About His Next Chapter
Now in his 11th season as music director, he’s hired 23 new musicians and commissioned 37 works, including from composers of different cultures, backgrounds,...
Canada’s CBC Is Heading To A Digital-First Future, Says Its President
“If we’re going to be audience first we have to be digital first. We get up every day and say, ‘What do our audiences...
New Numbers: North America Is No Longer Netflix’s Biggest Market
Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) quietly became the streamer’s biggest region in terms of subscribers, overtaking the combined user figure for the...
New Research: Vermeer’s Major Patron Was A Woman
The identity of Vermeer’s patron is of vital importance, since they purchased half of the artist’s entire oeuvre, at least 20 paintings. Equally significantly,...
Disney Will Reduce Spending On “Content” By $3 Billion
Disney still expects its content spending to remain “in the low $30 billion range” for fiscal 2023. - The Hollywood Reporter
The New Zealand Government Just Boosted Its Culture Funding. So How Will It Be...
While this Ministry of Culture and Heritage announcement is money already in the kitty for the sector’s from the COVID recovery fund rather...
We’re Learning Lots About How Brains Work. Here Are Three Misconceptions
From the myth that humans only use 10 percent of their brain to the idea that creativity and logic is a "right-brained" versus "left-brained" issue, there are many...
Is It Time To Rethink The Idea Of States In America? (Do Mega-Cities Make...
The modern U.S. economy is really made up of metropolitan regions, not states whose boundaries are arbitrary compared to local economies. A 2009 study...
America’s Theatres Are Struggling After COVID
"The key question is, what are the things that are being done in order to emerge from the pandemic in a sustainable way?" said...
Why Can’t We Get Certain Songs Out Of Our Heads?
I’ve got my Pods in and, for reasons I can’t explain but that they may one day understand, I am compelled to listen to...
How LA’s Shiny New Football Stadium Became A Venue For Art
A representative for SoFi Stadium told Hyperallergic via email that “over 15,000 guests have bought tickets to tour the Collection, but hundreds of thousands...
