“Over the years, it’s been passed around, first in photocopies and later as a PDF. … It’s made its way onto required-reading lists and been cited hundreds of times.” There has even been a scholarly conference devoted to it. Julius S. Scott completed The Common Wind: Afro-American Currents in the Age of the Haitian Revolution in 1987, and it’s only coming out in print this month. Reporter Tom Bartlett investigates why.
Blog
When Looted Antiquities Turn Up For Sale At Art Fairs, Who’s Responsible?
“What kind of responsibility should fair organizers have to protect the buyers? It would be discriminatory for a fair to restrict the inclusion of a dealer because of past issues and bad press, but at the same time, buyers will assume that fairs are curated to some extent, and that those selling there have been screened by the organizers … In fact, most fairs charge for galleries to exhibit and sell in them, and so there is a financial disincentive to be choosy about who shows.” Noah Charney considers possible solutions.
Does Philadelphia Really Need Another Building For Contemporary Art?
In its two years of existence so far, Philadelphia Contemporary has run a very successful program of exhibitions and performances without any single building or address. (Director Harry Philbrick works out of cafés.) Now the organization has announced not only that it’s getting itself a building, but that it has hired the architect of Houston’s new Menil Drawing Center. The problem? No site and no money. Inga Saffron is skeptical.
Milwaukee Symphony’s Next Music Director Is Ken-David Masur
The 41-year-old maestro — and yes, he is Kurt Masur’s son — is currently the Boston Symphony’s associate conductor and principal guest conductor of the Munich Philharmonic. He’ll take over full-time for the 2019-2020 season, and the following September, he’ll help open the Milwaukee Symphony’s new concert hall.
Baltimore Symphony Suspends Concertmaster After Second Legal Proceeding Against Him
Two months ago, the principal oboist sued the orchestra over what she alleged was persistent harassment by Jonathan Carney; earlier this month, a musician from another group got a restraining order against Carney. Following the latter incident, Baltimore Symphony management has suspended Carney without pay.
Actor Douglas Rain, 90, Mainstay Of Stratford Festival, Voiced HAL In ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’
Even Keir Dullea maintained that Rain-as-HAL was the most compelling character in Stanley Kubrick’s film. Yet few people south of the border knew that Douglas Rain was also one of Canada’s greatest classical actors.
Egypt’s New National Museum Wants Rosetta Stone Back
“Dr Tarek Tawfik, director general of the Grand Egyptian Museum, risked sparking a new row over the prized artefact … The stone fragment, which dates to 196BC, is one of the British Museum’s most popular exhibits. Before it was found by accident by Napoleon’s army in 1799 nobody knew how to read hieroglyphs. Scholars were able to use the Greek inscription on it as the key to decipher them.”
This Filmmaker’s Documentary Landed Him On An Al-Qaeda Death List
To shoot Of Fathers and Sons, about a family of fighters with the Syrian Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front, Talal Derki (a Syrian Kurd)returned home from a safe exile in Berlin and convinced that family and its fellow extremists that he was sympathetic to their cause. Now that the film is out, he’s getting plenty of threats.
Mushrooming Multimedia Company Wants To Be The Russian ‘New Yorker’ (Despite Its Insane Name)
“Yegor Mostovshikov is under no illusions about the names he and his co-founder chose for their media company, Mamikhlapinatana, and their main online news platform, Batenka, da vy transformer. Neither make any sense to the uninitiated, whether they speak Russian or English. … [Nevertheless,] over the last year, Mamikhlapinatana‘s monthly turnover more than doubled and it has grown from a side project, which Mostovshikov and co-founder Anton Yarosh ran in their spare time, to employing over 40 permanent staff.”
A Bizarre Dance Craze Has Taken Over South Africa
Limpopo-born musician King Monada’s hit song Malwedhe, which means “illness” in the Bolobedu dialect of the Sepedi language, has inspired a dance unlike anything we’ve seen before. The dance sees fans falling to the ground at the chorus and words: ke na le bolwedhe bao idibala (I have an illness of fainting).