Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
What’s Wrong With “Extreme Audit Culture”
Scholars around the world are concerned about the effects of an extreme audit culture in higher education, one in which researchers’ productivity is continually...
The American Right Attacks Wikipedia
While most of the planet sees Wikipedia as a generally reliable source for basic facts on everything from Ansel Adams to ZZ Top, it...
Today’s AJ Highlights
Good morning: Here are today's top five stories from the past day. As usual, the rest of the stories we have collected are down...
Actor James Earl Jones, 93
The actor amassed nearly 200 screen credits during his brilliant 60-year career. - Deadline
Montreal Closed Streets To Cars. Pedestrians Came. The City Was Enlivened
As of this summer, eleven streets in total have been transformed into seasonal pedestrian-only destinations, creating almost ten kilometres of walkable car-free surfaces across...
Charles Ives Was Born 150 Years Ago. Why Are We Conflicted About His Music?
Even our orchestras and instrumentalists perform him far less than they should. If it follows that the present Ives sesquicentenary is insufficiently observed, that...
Can Language Unify Black Culture?
Everyone knows what it means to capitalize “Black.” But how does it feel? On your tongue, on the page? If we act like affect...
How To Keep A Community’s Soul While It’s Under Gentrification Pressure
In order to be successful, any urban regeneration has to tap into the local culture and heritage of a place. This means embracing what...
Nabokov Said Rereading Distinguished Who The Real Readers Are. He Was Wrong
The correct and virtuous way to read, according to those who knew about reading and writing, was to reread. Rereading was that which separated...
Just How Terrible Is The Art Market Right Now?
For market participants who entered the game after 2020, all this turbulence may come as a surprise. Auction prices for some young artists have...
Internet Archive Ruling On Fair Use Is A Disaster For Libraries, Writers And Readers
Even though this outcome was always a strong possibility, the final ruling is just incredibly damaging, especially in that it suggests that all libraries are bad...
Brexit Has Been A Disaster For UK Musicians Wanting To Tour In The EU....
Since Brexit, musicians touring the EU have faced barriers introduced in the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA). They can work up to 90...
How Mick Herron Went From Obscurity To The World’s Top Spy Fiction Writer
“I was only ever a hair’s breadth away from being exactly as much of a failure as the people I write about,” he said...
Today’s AJ Highlights
Here are your morning highlights to start the new week:
Little Free Library Fights Book BansLittle Free Library is launching a new map to distribute...
This Week’s AJ Highlights
Here's your weekend AJ newsletter. This week we're adding a new feature -- five don't-miss stories from the 125 or so we've collected. To...
Today’s AJ Highlights
Happy Saturday. So you thought debates about high and low culture were long settled? David Brooks believes American culture generally - high and low...
Is There Any Such Thing As An Objectively Beautiful Building?
The current state of our knowledge on aesthetics, and specifically what we consider beautiful, is a mosaic of empirical discoveries. For over 150 years,...
If Literary Theory Seems Too Abstract For You, Let’s Consider The Power Of A...
If faith in something as abstruse as literary theory seems absurd, consider a more familiar vehicle of human knowledge: the novel. As a form,...
The City Of Birmingham Is Bankrupt. But It Has A Half-Billion-Pounds Collection Of Artworks…
Birmingham City Council owns an artwork collection valued at almost half a billion pounds, a BBC investigation has discovered. But none will be sold...
La Scala Subtitles Go Multi-Lingual
The mini-screens used until July could only show two languages. The new system will offer five languages – Italian, English, French, German and Spanish...
Scottish Government Orders Reassessment Of Embattled Arts Funder
“We continue to see unprecedented levels of demand for the Open Fund for Individuals and will process the high volume of applications we have...
Why We Should Value Awkwardness
We often joke about awkwardness; it’s a staple of contemporary comedy. The exclamation ‘Awkward!’ functions as a light-hearted deflection, defusing social tension. The reality...
Yuval Harari — The Guru We Need?
Harari is to the tech CEO what David Foster Wallace once was to the Williamsburg hipster. This is a surprising role for someone who...
Why American Culture Has Become “Junkified”
Our dopamine-driven brains drive us to choose cheap distraction over entertainment and art. A 15-second video causes a dopamine release in the brain, which...
Seattle Theatres In Disarray And Downsizing
There’s been a lot of bad news: Seattle theater companies are launching emergency fundraisers, exploring mergers, furloughing or laying people off, and cutting back on — or...
