The development of South Broad Street into a performing arts destination has been widely considered a success, but in 2023, visitor numbers remain roughly half their pre-pandemic levels. Authorities are considering a number of redesign options, particularly to "reduce the power differential between pedestrian and vehicular traffic." - MSN (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
"The Museu de l’Art Prohibit … aims to explain how censorship works by exhibiting artworks that have been subject to prohibitions (successful or merely attempted), and detailed documentation on how and why administrations, religious or cultural authorities have sought to curtail artistic expression." - MSN (The Telegraph)
"The Freedom of Expression Award invites applicants to write about one banned book that changed their life and why. The $10,000 (£8,168) prize will be awarded to a high-school student planning to attend university in 2024." - The Guardian
Hampshire High School in the Chicago suburbs had been planning to stage "The Prom" — about, ironically, a school that tries to cancel a dance rather than letting a gay couple attend — when district officials "postponed" the show for "safety" reasons. The ensuing uproar changed their minds. - MSN (Chicago Tribune)
"The educational company, which both publishes and distributes books, waded into hot water last month after it confirmed that it was changing its policy for its middle school book fair offerings, … putting most of the titles dealing with race, gender and sexuality into their own collection." - NPR
Jill Medvedow, who in 1998 took over a small museum in a former police station with 20,000 visitors a year and turned it into a major institution in a new 65,000-square-foot building with 300,000 visitors a year, will step down at the end of 2024. - MSN (The Boston Globe)
Hollywood hoped SAG-AFTRA and studios would resolve their contract negotiations by the end of October. But the strike drags on, preventing major stars from promoting their new films and adding to exhibitors’ anxieties about the upcoming holiday season. - Variety
In a “major milestone” for the library, which holds the world’s largest surviving collection of Chaucer, it is hoped the digital platform will enable new research into the 14th-century poet, courtier, soldier, diplomat, and MP who is most famous for his Middle English epic, The Canterbury Tales. - The Guardian
Unlike other influencers who might give a peek at what they’re eating for breakfast or what products they recommend, Swift gives fans insight into her personal life and even her vulnerabilities and private thoughts through her music, social media presence, and other interactions. - Fast Company
"You have to consider the fact that he was in his 80s working on a musical about going into a room that you can't get out of. And I think that subconsciously it must have preyed upon him." - NPR
"In moments of doubt, I think of Gertrude Stein’s infamous line, “A rose is a rose is a rose.” Isn’t a word a word — still a word — regardless of who, or what, wrote it? … And how do we evaluate if a machine’s work is worth reading?" - Boston Review
The reasons for the stepchild status of criticism are as manifold as are their concatenations, not the least of which is the problem of identifying a shared idea or point of orientation when it comes to the practice. - Eurozine
Without getting overly nostalgic, it is almost impossible not to notice that the country, which for a good two decades on either side of the millennium produced some of the most striking, innovative and experimental architecture in the world, is now building a lot of boxes. - Dezeen
Itumbaha, one of the oldest monasteries in Kathmandu, has not only received statues returned from the Rubin Museum and the Met. The Rubin is helping Itumbaha to catalog hundreds of items that have languished in storage there and to open a museum for them on the monastery's grounds. - CNN
