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Poland’s Formidable Filmmakers Versus The Right-Wing Nationalist Government

The country’s cinema has a redoubtable history (think of Kieślowski and Wajda), famous auteurs at their peak (Paweł Pawlikowski, Agnieszka Holland), and an impressive younger generation. And they’re all facing the culture war being waged by the Law & Justice Party that heads the government. As Pawlikowski puts it, “we have a common enemy, so there’s a sense of common purpose.” – The Guardian

For First Time, Two Women Win Pritzker Prize, Architecture’s Nobel

Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, principals of Grafton Architecture in Dublin, have already racked up some impressive awards in recent years: the World Architecture Festival’s World Building of the Year (for the Università Luigi Bocconi’s school of economics in Milan), the RIBA International Prize (for UTEC in Lima), and this year’s RIBA Royal Gold Medal for Architecture; they also curated the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale. – The Guardian

Computers Are Amazing. They’re Not Intelligent

The amazing feats achieved by computers demonstrate our progress in coming up with algorithms that make the computer do valuable things for us. The computer itself, though, does nothing more than it ever did, which is to do whatever we know how to order it to do—and we order it to do things by issuing instructions in the form of elementary operations on bits, the 1s and 0s that make up computer code. – American Scholar

What We Know About Deja Vu

Scientists do have some hypotheses for what brings déjà vu to the surface of consciousness – from the idea that it might be a built-in processing glitch in the brain, or an indication of healthy memory, to the slightly more puzzling notion that it’s part of quantum entanglement. – Aeon

Nietzsche’s Fascination With Dance

Nietzsche offers an interpretive key: his references to dance (Tanz). Taken together, these references light a path that begins in Nietzsche’s first book, The Birth of Tragedy (1872), and wends through every major work into his final, the posthumous Ecce Homo (1908). These references not only link his ideas and styles, they also shed light on Nietzsche’s enduring motivation: to teach readers how to affirm life here and now on Earth as human bodily selves. Nietzsche’s dance references call attention to the sensory education that he insists is necessary for creating values that ‘remain faithful to the Earth’. – Aeon

Will The Art World’s Growing Rejection Of Fossil Fuel Funders Make Any Difference?

While commentators have often dismissed the interventions of artists on the issue of oil sponsorship as “virtue signaling,” BP’s CEO effectively conceded in his speech that opposition to the company’s sponsorship deals has had a tangible impact. In his statement on the new policy, he addressed protesters directly as he discussed rebuilding the public’s trust. “Many question our motives in supporting the arts,” he said. “I get that.”  – Artnet

A Backlash To Oversharing Our Lives?

Oversharing just doesn’t look like it did before. Like most things on the internet, it too has become commodified. Where we once divulged, without much thought or artifice, the hardships in our marriages or the frustration of a bad-hair day, now this seems a little cheap and amateurish. Professional influencers make a living from their oversharing. Ours doesn’t look as neat, as well thought-out, as supported. Even our connection to oversharing is controlled, manipulated, and artificial. – Wired

‘If You Give A Mouse A Cookie’ — Beloved Children’s Book Or Cautionary Tale About Welfare Dependency?

If you think that’s a ridiculous question, the woman who wrote this article agrees with you. But it became a question nonetheless, thanks in part to (no surprise here) the American Enterprise Institute. Rebecca Christie explains how this happened and (for those who haven’t read the book) just why it’s ridiculous. – Slate