Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
Carl Sagan’s Warning On The Dumbing Down Of America
“The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, but especially a kind...
Can Theatre Make Any Impact In The Abortion Debate?
When faced with a loss of human rights—with accounts of real women being forced to bleed out because they cannot get an abortion for...
A Warhol Copyright Case With Potential Big Implications For Artists
On Oct. 12, the justices will consider whether he violated the federal Copyright Act by basing a portrait of the musician Prince on a...
Evidence Howard Carter Stole Some Of King Tut’s Treasure
An accusation that Carter handled property “undoubtedly stolen from the tomb” has emerged in a previously unpublished letter sent to him in 1934 by...
What Kids Learn From Play (And We Don’t Have To Teach Them About)
If you are a kid, it is your job to get inside a cardboard box from time to time and pretend it is a train. It...
Seattle’s ACT Theatre Board Has Resigned En Masse (No, It’s A Good Thing)
“The question we asked most pointedly was: ‘If you can do this all over again, what would you have done differently? And the outcome...
Fifty Years Late, Motion Pictures Academy Apologizes To Native American Actress
Almost 50 years after she was booed on the Oscars stage for declining Marlon Brando's award on his behalf in protest at the film...
The TikTok Music Phenomenon
The world’s biggest new social media platform hasn’t just propelled thousands of its users to viral stardom, it’s also provided huge momentum for...
Indigenous Musicians Are Getting Attention For New Experimental Music
A loose confederation of Indigenous artists is finding a wider audience by working at the fringes of modern music. These musicians and many of their...
Why Storytelling Is A Critical Part Of Good Medicine
“Yes, it’s important to examine people, but you work out what’s going on from the stories. And if people know you and trust you,...
Might The Next Blockbuster Movie Be Based On NFTs?
The question is simple: Is it possible for a show based on NFTs to cross over to a mainstream audience that may not even...
A Salzburg Festival That Portends The State Of The World
It is a telling bit of weakness as Salzburg faces renewed competition, especially from the growing Aix-en-Provence Festival in France — and even from the likes...
McWhorter: Cancel? Let’s Just Acknowledge Missteps And Move On
We should be able to evaluate various figures, past and present, by noting their indecorous or hateful views and continuing to appreciate, even celebrate,...
What It Takes To Be A Conductor
“I didn’t know this when I started down this path, but leadership, charisma, group psychology and the ability to motivate people and manage egos...
Edinburgh Fringe Cancels Comedian After He Made Audience “Uncomfortable”
Jerry Sadowitz, 61, an American-born Scot, is a veteran of the Fringe and known for his provocative stand-up shows. The venue said it received...
How “Gangnam Style” Opened Korean Culture To The World
This goes some way to explaining the surprising Western enthusiasm, in the decade since “Gangnam Style,” for not just Korean popular culture but Korean...
Study: We Make More Virtuous Decisions When We Read On Paper
For example, participants who read their options and made a selection on paper were significantly more likely to give money to charity, choose a...
Salman Rushie, The Man, The Words
What makes the story so tragic, and the comic-television moment so illustrative of his nature, is that Salman, to those who knew him—no, know him—as a...
The Attack On Rushdie Is An Attack On Freedom Of Speech
The fatwa threatened not only Rushdie and those associated with The Satanic Verses, but freedom of expression more broadly. If Khomeini and the government of...
The Purpose Of Learning, The Links To Creativity
We accumulate what the philosopher Ruth Garrett Millikan calls “dead facts” — knowledge about the world that is useless for daily living, like the...
Movie Theatres: We’re Back!
The enthusiasm for movies adds to the list of prepandemic experiences people are embracing, such as going to concerts, gambling in casinos and traveling aboard...
How Teens Are Getting Around Book Bans
Students have formed banned book clubs like the one at Vandegrift High School, organized with statewide groups, and even overturned bans, like the students at Central...
Colored Statues — Did The Ancients Just Have Bad Taste?
The supposed whiteness of ancient statuary is intertwined with larger ideas of Whiteness in European culture, and the sense that colorizing the statues somehow...
Is The Out-Of-Town Tryout Done?
There’s a certain romance in the bygone days when shows would play Boston, Philadelphia and New Haven before turning up in the Big Apple,...
Why Facts Mostly Don’t Change People’s Minds
For many people, a challenge to their worldview feels like an attack on their personal identity and can cause them to harden their position....
