ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

ISSUES

Towns In Sicily Offered Abandoned Homes For €1. But Can You Rebuild A Town This Way?

Were once-sepulchral towns reinvigorated by newcomers eager to put down roots? Were the new residents integrating into small-town life, or was an influx of new blood bringing unintended side effects? And did a town that drew enough newcomers lose the qualities that had attracted said newcomers in the first place? - Afar

Trying To Find Paths Through Art And Authoritarianism

Maybe this is a time to look for something else in art, to look at art that resonates with this moment on the precipice of authoritarianism, and to learn from it. What can be gleaned by reconsidering art made in similarly dangerous situations in the past. - Brooklyn Rail

Have American Universities Forgotten What, And Whom, They’re For?

For years, the numbers of fully-employed faculty have fallen as universities use poorly-paid adjunct professors instead. Yet tuition prices keep soaring. Why? Because the number of paid administrators keeps soaring, too. Maybe students and faculty should be eliminated so universities can be run by and for their bureaucrats? - The Atlantic (MSN)

UCal Davis Gets $20 Million Gift To Beef Up Arts Programs

"San Francisco philanthropist Maria Manetti Shrem has promised UC Davis the largest gift ever to arts at the school — $20 million to create the multifaceted 'Maria Manetti Shrem Arts Renaissance' program at the College of Letters and Science." - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)

Study: Arts Branding Results Down, Values Up

Arts and cultural organisations that are achieving the strongest audience growth right now are not necessarily those pouring the most money into their branding and marketing campaigns. - ArtsHub

Minnesota Passes “Taylor Swift Law” Protecting Online Ticket Buyers

"The law, prompted by the frustration a legislator felt at not being able to buy tickets to Swift’s 2023 concert in Minneapolis, will require ticket sellers (for live events) to disclose all fees up front and prohibit resellers from selling more than one copy of a ticket, among other measures." - AP

After Recent Events, What Will Academic Freedom Look Like?

Professors and students have a right to express themselves on campuses but universities have restricted when and how they can do so, with limitations on things like amplified sound outside classrooms. But when it comes to punishing or censoring particular ideas "that to me is inconsistent with the First Amendment and academic freedom.” - InsideHigherEd

State Of The Arts In The US: Post-Pandemic, Do Organizations Have Enough Working Capital?

"To explore how organizations’ bottom line and working capital have fared over the last few years, we analyzed data from FY 2019 to 2023 collected from 233 organizations through the Cultural Data Profile." - SMU DataArts

NextDoor: The Art Of Neighborhood Surveillance

Oh, no, there’s no butting out on Nextdoor, only butting in. Somebody posted the other day about the “slow moving vehicle following the school bus every morning.” Alarming! Turned out it was the newspaper delivery guy. - Washington Post

UCLA Faculty Protest At The Hammer Museum Gala

The faculty "protested Saturday night outside the UCLA Hammer Museum’s celebrity-heavy gala, calling for amnesty to be granted to pro-Palestinian students arrested on campus this week and demanding that Chancellor Gene Block resign immediately." - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

Bollywood Increasingly Toes – And Broadcasts – The Ruling Party Line

"Since Mr Modi first came to power in 2014, the Hindi film industry has produced several films referencing government policies. But in the past four years, experts say a lot them have begun to explicitly steer towards propaganda." - BBC

Canada’s Top Documentary Festival Keeps Sending Increasingly Dire Emails About Its Survival

The chaos is "just a symptom of wider uncertainty and a quiet but growing panic in the feature-length documentary world." - CBC

The Crafts Of Making Kilts, Bagpipes, Cricket Bats And Balls Are Dying In Britain

"There’s less support for training, and government-funded apprenticeships are very hard to access in the UK. They’re not set up for our sector – which is ironic, as apprenticeships were developed by craft guilds in medieval times.” - The Observer (UK)

The Company Behind The Coming Army Of Voice Clones

It’s all too “easy to imagine the potential carnage: scammers targeting parents by using their children’s voice to ask for money, a nefarious October surprise from a dirty political trickster.”  - The Atlantic (MSN)

Once Upon A Time The Olympics Awarded Medals For The Arts, Too

"For decades, beginning with the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, the Olympics included competitions in painting, sculpture, architecture, music and literature — a 'pentathlon of the Muses,' as Pierre de Coubertin, the founder and leader of the modern Olympics, called them." - The New York Times

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