For the last couple of decades, we’ve seen a growing assault on critical inquiry, academic freedom, and safety, alongside the casualization of labor, rising tuitions, severe budget cuts to humanities and other non-STEM fields, and the financialization of higher education. - Boston Review
Might London’s most civilised music venue have the answers that classical music needs if it is to claim the audience that is undoubtedly there, as well as the freedom that – for any serious art – is even more vital than subsidy? - The Spectator
According to the Agence France-Presse, “Gelb is actively exploring other sources of raising funds including licensing agreements of its intellectual property, as well as naming rights to the Met building at Lincoln Center.” - OperaWire
Writers aren’t getting this settlement because their work was fed to an AI — this is just a costly slap on the wrist for Anthropic, a company that just raised another $13 billion, because it illegally downloaded books instead of buying them. - TechCrunch
As one of the foremost arts institutions in the US, the Met gets the funds it needs, and its partner gets the imprimatur they seek. But does the “artwashing” undercut the Met’s own principled (and admirable) stands elsewhere, such as its support of Ukraine and against Russian artists who defend Putin? - Parterre
“Government websites are stripping away references to trans people, history, and art. Book bans are targeting trans authors in conservative states, eradicating their work from curricula and library circulation.” And then there’s the NEA. - The New Yorker
“It depicts a judge in a traditional wig and black robe hitting a protester lying on the ground, with blood splattering their placard.” A bit too accurate, perhaps? The courts appear to be covering it already. - BBC
At the Jewish Theological Seminary in Budapest, Hungary, "about 20,000 books and many valuable manuscripts have been missing since the end of World War II.” But some books have, with great effort and care, made their way back. - The New York Times
Sometimes it’s nearly perfect, as with Scorsese’s adaptation of Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence. Sometimes, it’s a full-on career revival, or reversal (Liam Neeson turning into Leslie Nielsen, perhaps?). - NPR
“We don’t judge Elizabeth harshly for going against polite strictures, because she’s often revealing some hypocrisy or injustice. ... Lizzy generally punches up, directing her barbs at and refusing the marching orders given by those more powerful than she is.” - LitHub
Sirât director Oliver Laxe: “One of the first ideas that I had for this film was a sentence from Nietzsche: … 'I won’t believe in a God who doesn’t dance.’” - Los Angeles Times
Ally Fallon, a 27-year-old from Manchester, won the 2025 John Moores Painting Prize for If You Were Certain, What Would You Do Then? The prize has an OK history: "Past winners include David Hockney, Sarah Pickstone and Rose Wylie.” - BBC
