Author: Douglas McLennan

In Search Of Literary Fame

“Young man, literary glory, or the fame that comes from learning and then writing, is one of the very few forms of glory presently available to the commoner. Admittedly, it’s not as impressive or satisfying as the glory that derives from public service, since action is much worthier and nobler than thinking or writing, and more natural. We weren’t made to spend our lives sitting at a table with pen and paper, and doing so can only be detrimental to your health and happiness. All the same, as I said, this is a glory that can be achieved without initial riches and without being part of a large organization. Theoretically.”

Study: Superhero Stories Help Inspire Altruism

“Heroes loom large as exemplars of morality. They often embody virtues that we wish to express in our lives,” writes a research team led by psychologists Daryl Van Tongeren of Hope College and Jeffrey Green of Virginia Commonwealth University. Their findings suggests that subtle reminders of the superhero ethos can inspire us to emulate their selfless behavior.

Cognitive Scientists Explain Why Two Heads Are Better Than One

“One reason is that our senses are unreliable. Often, we have to make decisions on the basis of what we’ve just heard or seen. But these sensations can be noisy. How can we be sure of what it was we just heard or saw? Think of radar operators who have to hunt for weak signals and decide if this is an incoming missile or a flock of birds. The wrong decision could start World War Three.”

Jerry Saltz’s 33 Rules For How To Make It As An Artist

How do you get from there to making real art, great art? There’s no special way; everyone has their own path. Yet, over the years, I’ve found myself giving the same bits of advice. Most of them were simply gleaned from looking at art, then looking some more. Others from listening to artists talk about their work and their struggles. (Everyone’s a narcissist.) I’ve even stolen a couple from my wife.

V&A Museum Will Now Let You Go Inside Its Trajan’s Column

“Once you step inside the cast of Trajan’s Column, it’s Victorian engineering meets ancient Rome,” says Angus Patterson, the V&A’s senior curator of metalwork. The museum purchased the plaster cast—one of a set made from a metal electrotype of a mould commissioned by Napoleon—in 1864. The cast, which fits together like a giant jigsaw puzzle, was built around a brick core. Wooden beams, acting as stabilisers, crisscross the column’s interior, and holes for the wood scaffolding that was erected inside the column during its construction can still be seen. Long used for storage, the column’s interior now contains benches, so visitors can contemplate this Victorian feat of engineering, as well as interpretative texts related to the cast and the ancient Roman monument.

What One Theatre Learned About Engaging Audiences

Our big takeaway from the project was finding a common point of interest and building engagement with groups around that. If we started with people who were too far removed from the work, we failed. We had to be realistic about the learning journey audiences were on, given that we were only performing in venues for one or two nights, with an eight to ten week lead-in. We thought creatively about the elements of the production that the groups we hoped to engage might connect with. That could be anything from the politics, to the music or props, to the feel of the show (more like a gig or cabaret).

The DC Museum And Its Exploration Of Gentrification

Last month, at a day-long symposium sponsored by the museum, the rise of Chocolate City was contrasted with the city’s more recent gentrification. In 2011, the percentage of Black residents in Washington fell below 50 percent for the first time in over half a century. Howard Gillette, professor of history emeritus at Rutgers University, observed that in many respects the District of Columbia has become “ground zero for gentrification and social justice issues that are going on nationally.”

Rethinking Plagiarism (Or At Least How We Think About It)

“I recognize that when students plagiarize they often do so not because they have some nefarious agenda but because they feel enormous pressure to succeed or are confused, uncertain, forgetful, exhausted, or pressed for time. But I am optimistic that at least some students walked away from the class feeling empowered as scholars and thinkers, that they began to see citation as a means of bringing different voices to bear on critical conversations from which they’ve been consciously or unconsciously excluded, and that they carried this knowledge to other classes and spaces where the representation of voices is not always equitable or even. Most simply, I wanted them to leave as active participants in an ongoing conversation about plagiarism and citation rather than as passive onlookers.”