Visitors to the site can browse reconstructions that date back as early as 1200 BCE, the Mycenaean period — or Bronze Age — through Classical Athens, featuring the rebuilds made necessary by the Greco-Persian War, and ages of occupation by Romans and Ottomans. Tsalkanis traces the evolution of sites like the Acropolis throughout the ages, the rise and fall of the city walls, the Agora, which served as center of city life, and various temples, libraries, and other fortifications. – Hyperallergic
Author: Douglas McLennan
Shock: Entire Board of French Movie Academy Resigns
The shock announcement by the 21-member board of the Association for the Promotion of Cinema – the organization overseeing the Cesar Academy – comes on the heels of industry-wide backlash following 12 Cesar nominations for Roman Polanski’s “An Officer and a Spy.” The Cesars were also heavily criticised for shutting out feminist personalities such as director Claire Denis and author Virginie Despentes from one of recent gala events preceding the ceremony. – Variety
When The Doctor Called The Star Ballerina With Terrible News
“He said, ‘You have to promise me you won’t go into work today. I just could tell by the tone. I said, ‘I’m going to be able to dance again, right?’ And he said to me, ‘Well, we’re just going to take it one day at a time.’ It was one of the worst days of my life.” – The New York Times
Peak TV? Yes – Here’s How Many Shows Were Available To Watch Last Year
Folks like to joke that there’s just too much TV to watch, but rarely do they back it up with facts. Now, they can. According to new data from Nielsen, there were 646,152 unique programs available in 2019 across network TV, cable, streaming services, and every other kind of outlet. – Wired
Playing Against The Web – How Art Criticism Is Evolving
The web favors certain virtues—wit, weirdness, bombast, and urgency—over others. In real time, we’ve witnessed critics watch their well-crafted essays sink to the internet’s depths like a stone. As our cameras rolled, a critic at one of the nation’s largest newspapers darted from one editor’s desk to another, trying to understand why a blog post was bombing and, eventually, with a moving show of emotion, broke down. – ARTnews
Scottish Conservatory Suspends Teachers For “Bullying” Culture In Course Others Call Visionary
The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland has vowed to act after an independent review of one of its leading degree programmes highlighted allegations of “bullying, favouritism and misuse of authority”. – The Scotsman
Have Economists Led Us Astray About How The World Works?
In the first half of the twentieth century, especially after the calamity of the Great Depression, the conventional wisdom held that the power of corporations must be held in check by other comparably sized organizations—churches, unions, and, above all, a strong national government. But in the decades that followed, a new generation of economists argued that tweaks to how companies operated—more hostile takeovers, more reliance on corporate debt, bigger bonuses for executives when stock prices increased—would enable the market to regulate itself, obviating the need for stringent government oversight. Their suggestions soon became reality, especially in a newly deregulated financial sector, where they precipitated the emergence of junk bonds and other questionable innovations. – Foreign Affairs
How The Novel Lost Its Place In American Culture
The sad truth is that the novel now doesn’t occupy the same cultural high ground, and it doesn’t typically feel to readers like a practical device for addressing problems. The decline of the novel’s prestige reflects a new crisis born of our culture’s increasing failure of intellectual nerve and its terminal doubt about its own progress. – The Spectator
The End Of Music Snobbery
The much-discussed “death of the snob” in the internet era explains part of the shift on display. Even though some High Fidelity–style shops catering to vinyl collectors have survived the extinction of big-box retailers, streaming and downloads have chipped away at the super-listener’s pretexts for arrogance: special knowledge (entire discographies are now explorable with a click), special access (few B sides can hide from Google), and curatorial chops (algorithms can DJ your life). – The Atlantic
What Do We Want From History?
What might I want history to do to me? I might want history to reduce my historical antagonist—and increase me. I might ask it to urgently remind me why I’m moving forward, away from history. Or speak to me always of our intimate relation, of the ties that bind—and indelibly link—my history and me. I could want history to tell me that my future is tied to my past, whether I want it to be or not. Or ask it to promise me that my future will be revenge upon my past. Or warn me that the past is not erased by this revenge. Or suggest to me that brutal oppression implicates the oppressors, who are in turn brutalized by their own acts of oppression. Or argue that an oppressor can believe herself to be an oppressor only within a system in which she herself has been oppressed. – New York Review of Books