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The People Who Lived Before Pompei

Archaeologists have found a prehistoric village under Pompei. “Carbon dating shows that the finds are from prehistoric times, that is, from 3,500 years BC,” Leander Touati said. It was until now believed that Pompei was first inhabited during the Bronze Age. The group of archeologists – part of a larger international project – were mapping a Roman neighbourhood of Pompei when they made the discovery.”

Back To The Human Figure

Only a few years ago, the idea of artists gathering to paint from a model would have seemed impossibly old-fashioned and hokey – and if the model was female and nude, sexist to boot. Yet for nearly three years now, a number of artists – not students putting charcoal to paper for the first time, but successful artists with established styles and audiences of their own – have flocked to weekly invitation-only sessions. ‘There’s something kind of fun about doing something so geeky, so nerdy, so traditional. To do something so anti-conceptual and anti-Modernism feels really good, as if it were going to lead to helping you express things’.”

Looking For Innovation In Australia

Australian arts are stagnant, writes Robyn Archer. “Is there still space in this world for the individual who is not at the top of the hierarchy? What, indeed, of the weirdo who simply wants to pursue the work, outside of the mainstream of fashion? Will it mean that such an artist is again destined for a lifetime of neglect, with the possibility of being rediscovered in a hundred years’ time?”

Why We’re Drawn To Screen Violence

“Why are audiences simultaneously drawn to, and seriously disturbed by, gruesome portrayals of torture? There is something so compelling about the psychosis driving those scenes. They tend to take place in close-up and are often about a conversation. There’s a lot of dialogue — not the quips you would get from an Arnold Schwarzenegger or a Bruce Willis. There’s often this element of `How much can they withstand before they lose touch with who they are — their psychic identity?’ which can be a much scarier concept than the violence. In other words, depictions of torture have an uncanny way of tapping into our most suppressed fears.”

An Amazing Breakthrough: Scholars Decode Sophocles, Euripides…

For a century, scholars have been trying to read a vast trove of ancient Greek and Roman texts. “Now, in a breakthrough described as the classical equivalent of finding the holy grail, Oxford University scientists have employed infra-red technology to open up the hoard, known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, and with it the prospect that hundreds of lost Greek comedies, tragedies and epic poems will soon be revealed. In the past four days alone, Oxford’s classicists have used it to make a series of astonishing discoveries, including writing by Sophocles, Euripides, Hesiod and other literary giants of the ancient world, lost for millennia.”

The New Face Of Iowa Writers’ Workshop

Lan Samantha Chang will take over running the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop in January. “Ms. Chang will teach a graduate fiction workshop, choose students for the fiction program (poetry students are chosen by the poetry faculty) and will consult on hiring, among other duties. The two-year program, which leads to a master’s in fine arts, has no specific academic course requirements. The fiction workshop, which became a full-fledged program in 1936, receives 750 applications for 25 places, and there are 450 poetry applications for 25 places.”