The Women’s Prize for Fiction recently debuted an upcoming project which will mark the 25th anniversary of the prize: an initiative called “Reclaim Her Name” (#ReclaimHerName) which republishes famous works by twenty-five female authors who published under male nom-de-plumes in the 19th and early 20th centuries, including George Eliot, George Sand, Vernon Lee, and Arnold Petri. The thing is, the initiative is republishing these books using the authors’ given, female names, rather than their male pseudonyms. Many have applauded this initiative. No. Stop applauding. Stop applauding now. – LitHub
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Four Indiana Cities Sue Netflix For “Cable-Franchise” Fees
The lawsuit was filed against Netflix, Disney, Hulu, DirecTV, and Dish Network on August 4 in Indiana Commercial Court in Marion County. The cities of Indianapolis, Evansville, Valparaiso, and Fishers want the companies to pay the cable-franchise fees established in Indiana’s Video Service Franchises (VSF) Act, which requires payments of 5 percent of gross revenue in each city. – ArsTechnica
What Pro Wrestling Has To Teach Us
We all know that pro wrestling is not a sport in the sense that boxing is. Pro wrestling presents as a genuine struggle between wrestlers for victory, but it does so with a complicit nod to the audience: we realise that what we’re seeing is people playing characters and working together put on a show. As Barthes puts it, this show is often a spectacle about suffering, defeat and justice – or, more brightly, it tells stories of virtue and vice, heroism and villainy. Here we have a reality – the elaborate pantomime and character development behind the constructed reality of the show – and the superficial appearance of a genuine contest. – Psyche
Seattle’s Protest Art In Augmented Reality
The artwork is entirely digital. It’s part of a new, citywide augmented reality art show called Amp’Up Seattle. By downloading a free app with the same name, anyone can access eight virtual artworks that appear layered over the existing cityscape — like Pokémon Go for art. But you won’t be catching Pikachus or other fantasy critters. Instead, you’ll be viewing a different perspective of Seattle, one inspired by the recent protests for racial justice. – Crosscut
Libraries (Re)Ponder Their Role Beyond Books
“A lot of libraries are thinking about their civic role a little more, and how they might help people coming out of the pandemic. They’ve always done that stuff, but will need to do it 10 times more at this point.” – Boston Globe
The Untenable Choices In Today’s Music Education
With fewer or no opportunities to perform live at school, can music degrees live up to their mandate to prepare students for a career? In other words, what is the value of a socially distanced degree in music performance? And if the value is significantly reduced, and given the extraordinary financial stress on young music students and their families, what is the best course of action? – Middle Class Artist
COVID Chronicles: The Band Rescued From Quarantine Hell By A Fishing Boat
The Dunedin Consort, an Edinburgh-based period-instrument group known for its recordings of Bach sacred works and Handel oratorios, had its first engagement since lockdown this past Friday in northern France. The problem: Boris Johnson’s government announced late Thursday night that anyone entering the UK from France after 4 am on Saturday would have to be quarantined for 14 days, and every regular means of transport for late Friday night was sold out. – BBC
How Critic Eric Bentley Rescued American Theatre
He died recently at the age of 103 and his legacy is profound. “Bentley’s legacy in the theater as a pathbreaker is profound. By shining a critical light on the American stage, he exposed the gimcrack that had been fobbed off as treasure and in the process made room for the genuine.” – Los Angeles Times
A TV Critic On The Virtual Democratic Convention’s Opening Night
James Poniewozik: “At its shakiest, it was, like much pandemic-era TV, uncanny, disjointed and unsettlingly weird. (To its credit, though, there were few of the glitches that have riddled so much bandwidth-dependent live television.) At its most engaging, it dispensed with some relics of televised conventions and found faster-paced and more intimate alternatives.” – The New York Times
Why Erdoğan Reclassified Hagia Sophia As A Mosque
It is a gesture aimed at the Christian world, Europe and all international institutions categorically opposed to this act. Everyone is perfectly clear that this is not merely the transformation of a museum into active sacral space. What we are seeing is Erdoğan and the Turkish Republic demonstratively rejecting the direction set by the ‘father of the nation’, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, nearly a century ago. – Eurozine