The wave of articles about “the rise of African SFF” or “the rise of Afrofuturism” sound familiar because they’re almost exact replicas of the same genre of articles from about 10 years ago – and those were similar to the previous wave of articles discussing the same thing. Indeed, the articles are “perpetuators of a gentle literary oppression that keeps African science fiction infantile.”
Author: ArtsJournal2
As New York’s Natural History Museum Tries To Expand, Its Neighbors File A Lawsuit – And The Museum Starts ‘Preconstruction’ Work
The lawsuit should be settled soon, one way or another. But the activists who filed it are furious to find that the American Museum of Natural History has started what it calls “preconstruction work” and what the neighbors and activists call “bullying tactics.” That work includes closing an entry to the park where it plans to expand.
The Job Of An Editor Is To Edit, And Here’s How Ian Buruma Missed It By A Mile
No, Mr. Buruma, it wasn’t that you “blew up” on Twitter when angry readers of your New York Times Review of Books found an essay by an accused – though acquitted – sexual abuser headlining the magazine. It wasn’t even your flippant interview with Slate that sealed your fate. It was the lack of editing. “Accuracy aside, the piece Buruma found so ‘interesting’ is, actually, unbearably trite. As a literary personal essay, it is a failure, written in abstract and bland language, drowning under the weight of vague therapeutic bromides.”
‘The Ring’ Machine Is Getting A (Quite Literal) Retool
The stories of the 45-ton set’s missteps are legion, but, “after spending months in the shop, it should be ready to go for another spin this spring, Met officials hope.”
There’s So Much More To Lorraine Hansberry Than ‘Raisin In The Sun’
As a matter of fact, Raisin has had the odd effect of making the playwright famous, and obscuring the realities of who she was. “She was a feminist before the feminist movement. She identified as a lesbian and thought about LGBT organizing before there was a gay rights movement. She was an anti-colonialist before independences had been won in Africa and the Caribbean.”
The ‘Game Of Thrones’ Baby Name Effect Is Ongoing
The trend, which started when the series gained popularity in 2011, hasn’t really slowed. (And many, many babies from 2017 were named Leia to honor Carrie Fisher.)
Artist Silences Her Show In Reaction To Firing Of Museum Director
At Cal State Long Beach, where the museum just fired director Kimberli Myer, artist lauren wood wasn’t having it. “It was something I felt I had to do. … I don’t want anyone to misconstrue that I’m putting myself at the center of the work, or Kimberli at the center, but without her leadership, I can’t do the work. The university could have made a different choice.”
Why Are Books So Long Right Now?
Let’s be clear: Long books are fine. Long-winded books? Not so much. (Still, the Booker Prize judges have rather a lot to read.)
Tennessee Williams, Painter
Once the playwright started to really make it, he bought a house in Key West, and – along with writing plays – he painted. “Throughout the 1970s, tourists walked past the house, where he sold paintings — sometimes not yet dry — over his fence. More than once, he arrived at a dinner with a fresh canvas under his arm as a gift.”
How Does A Theatre Weather ‘Hamilton’ At A Rival Venue?
Turns out that sales actually go up, at least for this nonprofit theatre in Utah – though that might partly be because, smart move, they “even rode Hamilton’s coattails a bit, staging a concert version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s earlier musical, In the Heights.”