“As you yourself have observed, Chinua himself repudiated such a tag – he did study literature after all, bagged a degree in the subject. So, it is a tag of either literary ignorance or ‘momentary exuberance’ – ala [Nadine] Gordimer – to which we are all sometimes prone.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Shakespeare’s Sonnets Get Their Own iPhone App
“The free app, which is downloadable from the Apple store, is a multimedia experience that includes short videos of actors reciting the sonnets. New videos will be released on a rolling basis, shot on different locations throughout New York.”
‘Something Monumental Has Been Happening’: The Met’s New European Art Galleries
Peter Schjeldahl: “I had an eerie sense, while surveying the results the other day, that here was a brand new major institution which, somehow, had plundered the holdings of the Met.”
The Dance Company Reality TV Built
“Los Angeles-based contemporary dance company Shaping Sound … [was born] from the Oxygen Network’s All the Right Moves” a docuseries that followed [the four founders] as they endeavored to form their own company.”
‘Muslima’, A New Online Exhibition Of Female Muslim Creativity
Co-founder Samina Ali: “The impression many have of Muslim women is that they have no voice, no freedom – not even a face because they move around behind burqas! … We wanted to help reverse the stereotypes and the best way to do that seemed to present Muslim women speaking to the complex realities of their own lives, through interviews and art.”
The Amazing Ambulatory Art Of Pakistani Trucks
“Showcasing the Pakistani tradition of painting vehicles elaborately, the trucks are covered with everything from detailed arabesques and Urdu calligraphy to portraits of Pakistani pop icons – or some combination of all three.”
Ireland’s Newest Stamp Features An Entire Short Story
“The bright yellow rectangle includes all 224 words of [teenager] Eoin Moore’s short story which strives to capture the ‘essence’ of the capital. It was chosen from a host of works completed by participants in Dublin’s Fighting Words creative writing programme.”
Where Would We Be Without Kierkegaard?
“The great Danish philosopher of subjectivity would have been two hundred years old on May 5th, and, looking back, we can see that ironic, angst-ridden modern literature begins with him. Strindberg, Ibsen, Nietzsche, Kafka, Borges, Camus, Sartre, and Wittgenstein are among his heirs – and without him, where would Woody Allen be?”
The Tyra Banks Matriarchy: A Scholar’s Take On America’s Next Top Model
The Atlantic‘s corrspondent talks with Rhonda Loverude about the series’s recurring archetypes (the Odd and Seemingly Unattractive Woman, the Young Naïve Girl, the Extremely Religious Woman, the Bitch, etc.), the counterintuitive ways the show can boost ordinary women’s confidence, and – because she is a humanities scholar – the subversion of heteronormative patriarchy.
Nearly Half A Billion Dollars: Christie’s Holds Richest Art Auction In History
“Record prices for 12 contemporary artists including Jackson Pollock, Roy Lichtenstein and Jean-Michel Basquiat made history on Wednesday night. The sale of postwar and contemporary art at Christie’s in Rockefeller Center totaled $495 million, the highest sales figure at any art auction.”