Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
The Struggle For A “Self” We Recognize
We imagine our choices are free, our selves sovereign, but much of our behavior arises automatically. We are driven by inner conditions, social cues,...
We All Read. But Our Reading Has Changed. This Has Changed Our Culture (And...
On average, we spend more than two hours scrolling through such platforms each day. But not all reading is created equal. The mind can skim over...
What Toni Morrison Was Like As An Editor
Her unwavering commitment to shoring up the integrity of a book at every stage solidified her legacy as an editor who could turn talent,...
Kennicott On The Met Museum’s Non-European Wing: Making The Case For Context
To appreciate these works only as visual objects exacerbates the intellectual violence of decontextualization. The Met has responded to this by writing extensive object...
How Much Do You Know About Publishing At The Beginnings Of America?
Which of America’s founding fathers began writing his memoirs in the early 1770s, a project that remained unfinished when it was posthumously published in...
Jordan Roth Made A Career Getting Other People’s Work Onto Broadway. Now He’s Making...
“I worked for a long time facilitating other people’s creativity, and that was very meaningful and very fulfilling, but I started to miss my...
The 21st Century’s Best Movies Reveal The Collapse Of Genre
What strikes me most about the list is this: Long-held categories in the movie business are fading, just like they are in the broader...
Hollywood’s Big AI Dilemma
The idea that AI-generated video is both the future of filmmaking and an existential threat to Hollywood has caught on like wildfire among boosters...
Making the Creative Turn: Is Using AI Cheating?
Throughout the digital age, Big Tech has promised us products that will make us more efficient and save time, which, it is assumed, is always an obvious good. It’s a cliché that tools shape the things we make. And through most of our history, better tools have helped us create better things. But what if this isn’t always true?
Warning: Welsh Traditional Folk Music Could Die Out Within A Generation
The review into the traditional music scene in Wales found traditional music sectors in England, Scotland and Ireland benefited from a "wide range of...
Financially-Troubled Vancouver Art Gallery Will Cut A Third Of Its Staff
There are currently 129 full-time staff, and 29 of the 90 unionized staff will be affected. The cuts come after the VAG’s annual general...
The Perils Of Thinking That Better Design Will Fix Things
Design works best when it knows what it can achieve and what it can’t; the history of design is full of utopian projects that...
Cutting Public Media Funding Means Rural Stations Closing. Here’s What That Means In Louisiana
"There are a couple of parishes in Louisiana that have nothing, not even any kind of newspapers. They're empty completely. And it's just like...
So Just Why Did Prehistoric Humans Decide To “Start” Civilization?
Why did humans spend 50,000 years (or more) in seemingly uneventful prehistory — with hunter-gatherers living the exact same way across thousands of generations...
A Former Museum Director’s Cautionary Tale About Intimidation And Coercion
“There is a kind of performative sheen or a performative element that is not about just the fact of quashing opposition wherever it might...
Even The Most Resourceful Musicians Are Failing To Make A Living
The ongoing health of this ecosystem depends on working artists’ ability to create art. When musicians can afford to pay rent, put food on...
Evidence Of Cognitive Decline After Using AI
A.I. is a technology of averages: large language models are trained to spot patterns across vast tracts of data; the answers they produce tend...
How Manhattan Theatre Club Was Born
"There was a group of writers who were part of something called the New York Theatre Strategy; Sam Shepard and Lanford Wilson and Terrence McNally and Julia...
Chinese Graphic Artists Feeling The Pain Of AI “Averaging” Effect
Chinese graphic artists are rapidly experiencing the impact of image generators on their day-to-day work: the technology enables copycats and profoundly shifts clients’ perception...
Apple Makes A Big Bet On Brad Pitt Movie
“F1” is one of Apple’s biggest entertainment bets since it leapt into Hollywood in 2019 and embodies its unusually lavish and meticulous approach to...
A First: BBC Will Start Charging US Users To Access Content
In the first scheme asking users outside the UK to pay a direct subscription for its news content, US users will be offered the...
Is Podcast Fiction The New Fringe Theatre?
More than a pandemic-era stopgap, fiction podcasts are now emerging as a legitimate artistic medium. With Australian audiences increasingly turning to audio content for...
Strike Two: Judge Rules That Meta’s AI Didn’t Infringe On Writers’ Copyright
This is the second major ruling in the AI copyright world this week; on Monday, US District Court judge William Alsup ruled that Anthropic’s use of...
The End Of The Internet’s Business Model For Publishing
Suddenly, fewer people are traveling outside the generative-AI sites—a development that poses an existential threat to the media, and to the livelihood of journalists...
Are These The Best Movies Of The 21st Century So Far?
To find out, we embarked on an ambitious new project, polling more than 500 filmmakers, stars and influential film fans to vote for the...
