Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
What Harvard Learned From The Pandemic
Those 17 months—marked by the pandemic, remote teaching, protests against systemic racism and police brutality, and economic hardship for millions of people—made it clear...
How Public Radio Could Help Save Local News
With a vast network of local licensees spread across urban and small-town America, public media stations should serve local audiences and provide a window...
Translating Proteins Into Music
We’re computational biologists who believe that hearing the sound of life at the molecular level could help inspire people to learn more about biology and the computational...
What Is The Solidarity Arts Economy?
Why should culture and economic innovation go together? Because, right now, we have a superstar system in which the winners take all and the...
Seattle Art Museum Appoints Constance Rice As Board Chair
The museum believes she is the first Black woman to chair a board of a major art museum, besides ethnic art museums, in the...
Why All Those Blobby Book Covers?
This design trend, well into its third or fourth year in the major publishing houses, has attracted plenty of nicknames and attendant discourse online—culture...
Jonathan Franzen And His Evil Twin
Sometimes it seems like there are two people called Jonathan Franzen: the successful, acclaimed novelist, and his evil twin. This can be the only...
How Our Brains Prioritize Urgency Over Importance
The “mere urgency effect” describes our tendency to prioritize tasks we perceive as time-sensitive over tasks that aren’t time-sensitive, even when the rewards of the non-time-sensitive...
America As Internet Meme (What Could Go Wrong?)
The ultimate joke of Americancore might be that sense of disillusionment. - The New Yorker
Are Theatre Critics Being Too Kind?
Emerging from its forced hibernation for live performance, theater appears to be in trouble, so our compassionate reviewers/publicists/reporters feel duty bound to come to...
Science Why It’s Difficult To Enjoy Success
We know from research that purchasing an experience leads to more enduring happiness than purchasing a possession. But a study from Cornell found that this bias...
Studies Say Trigger Warnings May Be Harmful
The results of around a dozen psychological studies, published between 2018 and 2021, are remarkably consistent: trigger warnings do not seem to lessen negative...
New Vision For Orchestral Pops?
Orchestral pops programming now ranges from film scores, cartoon medleys and video game music to rap artists and jazz and circus acts. It’s whatever...
Uh Oh – A Looming Book Shortage?
“This fall, the global publishing business can expect disruption in shipping, increases in costs throughout the supply chain, shortages in consumables used for packing...
Why You Shouldn’t Be Defined By Your Work
Just as our entertainment culture encourages us to self-objectify physically, our work culture pushes us to self-objectify professionally. - The Atlantic
Toronto International Film Festival’s Joana Vicente Is New CEO Of Sundance
While in Toronto, she navigated how TIFF will meet the challenge of showcasing Hollywood and world cinema as younger filmmaking talent increasingly opts for...
Jasper Johns – Where Is The Love?
Almost everything you want from art is present: cogent ideas, flawless execution, a sweeping sense of history and a personal stamp that identifies every...
How The Smithsonian Crowdsourced Weather Reports In The 1800s
The Institution handed out weather monitoring equipment to 150 volunteer observers across the country. Each day their reports arrived by telegraph, and the Smithsonian...
Hong Kong’s Art Market Is Flourishing. But New Security Laws Threaten
Never before has the vitality of the market felt so disconnected from the everyday lives of Hong Kong people. - Artnet
Assessing The Pause On Broadway
"I always say the pandemic was the universe telling everyone to go to their room and think about what they’ve done. And while we’ve...
Amazon Wants To Robotize Your Home. Do You Want It?
Science fiction is clearly a leaping-off point for Amazon's next wave of product ideas. Suri Maddhula, director of software for Amazon's Astro, even said as much:...
Netflix Reveals Its Most-Watched Shows
Shonda Rhimes’ “Bridgerton” Season 1 scored as the No. 1 series based on both number of Netflix households and time spent viewing (in the...
TikTok Passes One Billion Users
TikTok’s popularity soared during the pandemic, becoming the most-downloaded app in the world in the first quarter of 2020, with some 315 million downloads in that...
The Case For The Greatness Of “Singin’ In The Rain”
In Singin’ in the Rain, the late Clive James felt he encountered “the absolute concentration of an entire popular culture at its most powerful.” As...
Meet The Boston Symphony’s New Leader
The orchestra has a deep pool of artistic talent, a fiercely devoted following, and Gail Samuel’s predecessor, Mark Volpe, grew the BSO’s endowment to roughly...
