• Home
  • About
    • diacritical
    • Douglas McLennan
    • Contact
  • Other AJBlogs
  • ArtsJournal

diacritical

Douglas McLennan's blog

Five AJ Highlights From This Week: A Golden Age For Music? An Arts Olympics?

October 9, 2016 by Douglas McLennan 1 Comment

music

This Week: The movie industry is undergoing a top-to-bottom revolution… Claim: teaching humanities fights racism… Outing the identity of Elena Ferrante sparks debate on privacy… Now may be the best-ever time for music… Do we really need an Olympics for the arts?

  1. Big Changes In How Movies Are Being Made: Hollywood had a rocky summer. The studios invested big in blockbusters but they generally failed to deliver the kinds of audiences that were expected. Because there has been such a concentration on making big franchise movies with built-in fan bases, other parts of the movie ecology have withered. Mid-budget movies, for example, have largely disappeared. Some are saying the entire industry has to be remade. Newcomers like Netflix are clearly taking some audience, and last week announced a deal to start showing its original features in theatres. But some observers note that the “movies-are-dying” meme has persisted forever and that while the movie industry might be changing, it’s healthy. “Film is just doing what it’s always done—finding a way to adapt, survive, and serve new audiences.”
  2. Does Teaching The Humanities Fight Racism? John McCumber makes the argument in the Chronicle of Higher Education. “In particular, it is the humanities that teach us how not to be racists, by showing us how to open ourselves up to what is different. Whether a given humanist is a modernist, postmodernist, New Critic, Marxist, or an adherent of any of dozens of other approaches, what she does in the classroom is always the same: She takes some cultural product that seems at first strange and off-putting — a poem by some ancient Greek or Persian poet, a novel by some African or Chinese author, a statue from an indigenous culture whose true name we don’t even know — and, if she is a good teacher, makes it familiar enough to be interesting.” And the evidence?…
  3. A Journalist Outs The Identity Of Elena Ferrante. Debate About Privacy And Anonymity Ensues: Last week a journalist claimed that the pseudonymous author is an Italian. Fans were outraged. On social media, many Ferrante devotees have condemned the journalist who outed the well-regarded yet mysterious writer. “Some were afraid it would stop Ferrante from ever writing again, saying the story had been driven by the ego of the reporter and the New York Review of Books.” Are our expectations about privacy changing in the age of social media? It is interesting that writers cannot “reasonably expect” to keep their names unpublished, given how many have down the years.
  4. Frank Oteri: A Golden Age For Music The well-regarded observer of the contemporary music scene suggests that things have never been better for music fans. “For listeners, there’s more music to hear than ever before–and it’s happening all over the world. Of course, it always has, but nowadays, it’s not limited to “national” “styles.” Also, global travel has become much more convenient, relatively speaking, and so with enough time, money, and overzealousness, a fanatical fan could actually trek the globe to hear extremely exciting music every day of the year. Much easier, we now can also experience a great deal of music happening in all these places without leaving our homes.”
  5. An Olympics For The Arts? Competitions draw attention to the things being competed for. And the original Olympic games included competitions in the arts. So do the arts need an international Olympics-style competition? “Olympic medals for the world’s best art seems an odd thing to revive, but a brave and no doubt well-intentioned Canadian organization is bringing back the idea of an international art competition nominally tied to or modelled on the Olympics. They hope to hold the International ArtsGames in Montreal in 2018.”
Image: Pixabay/Geralt

Share:

  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email

Related

Filed Under: Weekly AJ Top Stories

Comments

  1. Sanketh says

    October 17, 2016 at 11:45 pm

    Yes, for music listeners, there is more music to listen. We can see that in Music paradise pro android app. This is a music search engine. We can search millions of song on this application. If you have ever used it, you will agree with Frank Oteri. These days, Music has no boundaries. It is crossing the borders.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Douglas McLennan

I’m the founder and editor of ArtsJournal, which was founded in September 1999 and aggregates arts and culture news from all over the internet. The site is also home to some 60 arts bloggers. I’m a … [Read More...]

About diacritical

Our culture is undergoing profound changes. Our expectations for what culture can (or should) do for us are changing. Relationships between those who make and distribute culture and those who consume it are changing. And our definitions of what artists are, how they work, and how we access them and their work are changing. So... [Read more]

Subscribe to Diacritical by Email

Receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 3,851 other subscribers
Follow Us on FacebookFollow Us on TwitterFollow Us on RSSFollow Us on E-mail

Archives

Recent Comments

  • David E. Myers on How Should we Measure Art?: “A sophisticated approach to “measuring” incorporates all of the above, with clear delineation of how each plays a part if…” Nov 3, 16:20
  • Tom Corddry on How Should we Measure Art?: “Reading this brought to mind John Cage’s delineation of different ways to experience a Beethoven symphony–live in concert, on a…” Nov 3, 01:58
  • Abdul Rehman on A Framework for Thinking about Disruption of the Arts by AI: “This article brilliantly explores how AI is set to revolutionize everything, much like the digital revolution did. AI tools can…” Jun 8, 03:49
  • Richard Voorhaar on Classical Music has Lost a Generation. Blame the Metadata (in part): “I think we’ve lost several generations. My parents generation was the last that really supported, and knre something about classical…” May 15, 12:08
  • Franklin on How Subsidy for Big Tech Wrecked the Arts (and Journalism): “Language, yes; really characterization. Investments and margins don’t become subsidies and taxes whether or not markets “are working” – I’m…” Mar 8, 07:13
  • Douglas McLennan on How Subsidy for Big Tech Wrecked the Arts (and Journalism): “So what you’re arguing is language? – that investments aren’t subsidies and margins aren’t taxes? Sure, when markets are working.…” Mar 7, 21:42
  • Franklin on How Subsidy for Big Tech Wrecked the Arts (and Journalism): “Doug: You can, if you like, buy a jailbroken Android, install GrapheneOS, and sideload apps from the open-source ecosystem at…” Mar 7, 16:17
  • Douglas McLennan on How Subsidy for Big Tech Wrecked the Arts (and Journalism): “Franklin: Thanks for the response, But a few points: My Chinese solar panel example was to make the point that…” Mar 7, 12:46
  • Steven Lavine on How Subsidy for Big Tech Wrecked the Arts (and Journalism): “Terrific essay, with no prospect to a different future” Mar 7, 09:53
  • Franklin on How Subsidy for Big Tech Wrecked the Arts (and Journalism): “The economics of this essay are incoherent. The CCP was creating yuan ex nihilo and flooding it into domestically produced…” Mar 7, 08:49

Top Posts

  • We Asked: What's the Biggest Challenge Facing the Arts?
  • Creativity Versus Skills
  • The UnderTow: What the new Edinburgh Fringe Tells us about a Post-COVID World

Recent Posts

  • Creativity Versus Skills January 12, 2025
  • How Digital AI Twins could Transform how We Make Art January 7, 2025
  • How Should we Measure Art? November 3, 2024
  • Classical Music has Lost a Generation. Blame the Metadata (in part) May 13, 2024
  • When “Vacuum Cleaner for Babies” Beat Taylor Swift: Fixing the Music Streaming Problem May 6, 2024
October 2016
M T W T F S S
 12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930
31  
« Sep   Nov »

An ArtsJournal Blog

Recent Posts

  • Creativity Versus Skills
  • How Digital AI Twins could Transform how We Make Art
  • How Should we Measure Art?
  • Classical Music has Lost a Generation. Blame the Metadata (in part)
  • When “Vacuum Cleaner for Babies” Beat Taylor Swift: Fixing the Music Streaming Problem

Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in