Noting that “many commentators often conflate ‘museum’ with ‘art museum’,” Bob Beatty points out that there are far more history museums than art museums in this country. Oddly, attendance figures broken out for history museums are surprisingly scarce, but Beatty runs the numbers he can.
Category: issues
Chuck Klosterman: The Ways We Look At Culture Have Completely Flipped
“Being smart meant you knew about things that you didn’t experience. If you were a student of history, it meant that you understood the expanse of history. Anyone can know what’s going on right now. To be smart you have to know what came before you, and that no longer seems to exist. Now the belief is sort of: Any of that stuff can be found on the internet in five seconds. I don’t want someone telling me what the past was supposed to mean and have that inform the way I listen to music now or I watch film now. I want to eliminate the past and only exist in this perpetual state of the present.”
New Half-Billion-Dollar Performing Arts Campus For Anaheim
The $500 million, 500,000-square-foot cultural campus will contain three theaters and a range of culture and entertainment program elements, housed within striking buildings inspired by the orange tree.
In Ranking Of The World’s Top Universities, UK Comes Out On Top (Particularly In Humanities)
Seven UK universities lead the world rankings in 10 areas, with the University of Oxford top of the list for four subjects: anatomy and physiology, archaeology, English language and literature and geography. This makes it one of just three universities to perform best in more than one subject, alongside Harvard University, which comes first in 14 subjects, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which comes first in 12 subjects.
How Do You Measure Creativity? (It Ain’t Easy)
The wide range of approaches to creativity—from psychoanalytic, to psychological, to neurobiological—generally reveals the diversity of the field, but has led some to describe it as “a degenerating research program,” as Mark Batey, a senior lecturer in organizational psychology at the University of Manchester, wrote in a 2012 article on measuring creativity.
North Korea’s Capital Isn’t Gray At All. And It Wants To Be A Tourist Mecca
“I have to say [Pyongyang] is honestly one of the most colorful cities I’ve ever been to. You expect a gray, crumbling, 1950s dystopia of decaying concrete, but they’ve made a real conscious effort to try and cheer the place up.” The spit shine is part of North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un’s campaign to make his country the next big tourist destination. The Eternal Chairman hopes to draw 2 million tourists annually by 2020.
Ten Foundation Presidents Release Open Letter About How The NEA Leverages Arts To Strengthen Communities
“Some seven years ago, it was the then Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts who was able to bring us together as foundation leaders because his agency had a strong history of investing in each of our communities. He was also able to bring together senior officials from agencies like the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Environmental Protection Agency because he was their peer in federal government. Together, we have worked more effectively than we could have done alone exactly because the public sector and philanthropy are not meant to do the same thing.”
Thanks To Global Warming, A New Issue In The Illegal Ivory Trade: Mammoth Tusks
Now that the permafrost in arctic and subarctic Russia has started to thaw, huge numbers of tusks from the ancient animals are turning up in the region of Yakutia. “100 tonnes is procured annually, about one-third of it illegally, and 90% of the haul is exported to China” for the ivory-carving industry.
Lyn Gardner: So What If Reviews Give Away The Ending?
There is an undoubted pleasure in watching a classic play unfold to an unknowing audience. I once saw Hedda Gabler in a regional theatre where it was clear from the gasps that most of the audience had no idea that she – spoiler alert – kills herself. But very few people would decide against seeing Three Sisters again because they already know they never get to Moscow – or feel no desire to watch Medea because they are aware she kills her kids.
Rethinking China’s Rote Education System
There are growing complaints – especially from entrepreneurs – that China’s education system encourages emulation rather than innovation. Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, China’s largest e-commerce company, has voiced such concerns. “If we are not innovative…if we are not creative enough it will be very difficult to survive in this century.” As the economy matures, manufacturing shrinks and services expand, these worries will grow.