These books and classes seem to ask an underlying question: Is what the world is experiencing today a replay of the Nazis and Italian Fascists? Probably not. But the parallels these writers see are difficult to deny. Even Francis Fukuyama’s latest books have re-examined democracy in our current age. – Los Angeles Times
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Digital Life Is Changing Our Brains. How You Read Turns Out To Be Important
There are old rules in the brain’s design that do not change: Use it or lose it. I would add, Choose it. A great deal hangs on how we work as a society to choose who we want to be—whether we choose to preserve the use of deep reading processes across every medium in our young and in ourselves as we expand our technologies. The stakes are multiple for our next generation: the capacity to discern truth; to appreciate and create beauty; and to be transported outside themselves—to encounter the thoughts and feelings of others so as to contemplate their own novel thoughts, the basis of our shared future. – Pacific Standard
We Depend On Stories To Explain Why Things Happen. We’re Learning That That’s A Poor Way To Understand The World
“Our new engines of prediction are able to make more accurate predictions and to make predictions in domains that we used to think were impervious to them because this new technology can handle far more data, constrained by fewer human expectations about how that data fits together, with more complex rules, more complex interdependencies, and more sensitivity to starting points.” But with that benefit, we need to give up on our belief in stories and the theory of mind, not to mention our reliance on always being able to uncover knowable laws. – Medium
Why Don’t Men Learn More Languages? It’s Not Masculine?
A study from Canada reveals undergraduates consider language learning to be a feminine pursuit, and that men with traditional beliefs about the proper roles of men and women report less interest in such study if their masculinity has been threatened. – Pacific Standard
Find Yourself Reading Novels Less? Maybe It’s The Way You’re Reading Them…
“John Gardner, the literary critic, wrote that the job of the novelist is to create a ‘vivid and continuous dream’ for the reader, but I’d somehow developed a case of readerly sleep apnea. I’d gotten into the habit of consuming novels so fitfully that I was all but sealed off from their pleasures. It was as if I’d been watching movies in a special buffering-only mode, or listening to music through the world’s balkiest Bluetooth headphones. This style of reading had, I realized, shunted me into a vicious circle.” – The New York Times
After 40 Years, NPR’s Morning Edition Gets New Musical Theme
The original theme – played in many versions since the program’s launch in 1979 was composed by BJ Leiderman. So why the update? The show’s current producers wanted to “freshen” the sound. “I wanted a sound and a mood and a tone and a feel and a vibe all mixed in one,” says executive producer Kenya Young. – The New York Times
As The Met Puts ‘Camp’ In Its Collection, Some Wonder If It Still Truly Means Anything
Camp relies on a sensibility that is deliberately not mainstream. So: “Is camp still ‘lots of fun’ when everyone’s on board, aboveboard? The ‘fugitive sensibility’ Sontag hoped to capture is now enshrined in the museum.” – The New York Times
The Former Heart Of The Confederacy Gets A New Civil War Museum That Refocuses The Lens
It’s got the collection of the former Museum of the Confederacy, so can it ever truly tell all of the stories suppressed and neglected over the years? Well, that’s the plan: “It’s unprecedented in its attempt to tell the entire story of the war, not just from the Northern and Southern [white men’s] perspectives but through the eyes of women, immigrants, Native Americans and enslaved African Americans.”- NPR
OK, What’s Going To Be On Broadway Next Season?
Is it too soon after this year’s Tony nominations came out? So what? Bring ’em on: “When it comes to new musicals, looking beyond Broadway can reveal productions that may yet be players in the coming season. It’s also a reminder of the almost inextricable relationship that now exists between non-profit institutional theatres in the US and their commercial counterparts.” – The Stage (UK)
The Saatchi Gallery Covers Some Art After Muslim Visitors Explain That It’s Blasphemous
The artist was SKU and “the exhibition, Rainbow Scenes, was billed as exploring ‘how we, as individuals, are subjected to wider cultural, economic, moral and political forces in society.'” – The Guardian (UK)