Category: issues

“The study finds substantial evidence that performing arts organizations add to both the growth of the knowledge class and to urban economies broadly.”

“We must recognise the value of the esoteric knowledge, technical vocabulary and expert histories that academics produce.”

It started, as so many cool things do, in Canada, with two brothers who liked to play the game and trash-talk in their garage. “At its peak in the mid-aughts, the World Rock Paper Scissors Society was holding championships complete with black-and-white-shirted referees. They had corporate sponsorships from Microsoft and Yahoo! and a pot of $10,000 for the winner. The 2007 championships were televised on ESPN and Fox Sports.”

“In the English-speaking world, over the past half-century, the proportion of students studying humanities at university has hardly changed. … And, very importantly, the rapid expansion of higher education in the world over the past couple of generations means that, in absolute numbers, more people are studying the humanities than ever before. The question is why humanists have not been able or willing to recognise their own sustained success.”

“The all-powerful Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, one of the world’s richest men, announced last year he would push ahead with the introduction of sharia law … Religious leaders in the oil-rich [Southeast Asian] sultanate warned this month that a ban on Christmas would be strictly enforced, for fear that Muslims could be led astray.”

Overall, Scottish Government is reducing spend on culture in 2016/17 from £170.2 million to £154.1 million.

“Until a few years ago, the ancient city wasn’t well integrated with the modern city. Above all, it was as if one city existed below and another above; these cities didn’t create dialogue with one another.”

“An unauthorised demonstration over Geneva budget cuts for alternative culture spun out of control late Saturday, with protesters vandalising much of the centre of the Swiss city … The façade of Geneva’s main theatre, the 19th-century Grand Théâtre, and the sculptures lining its entrance were splashed with black and coloured paint, interspersed with white graffiti.

“Killer Mike took a dim view of the Supreme Court, saying it had gutted the Voting Rights Act. But he held out hope that the justices would treat the violent images in Mr. Bell’s song no differently than they would similar ones in folk, country, reggae — or opera.”

“‘We need to leave some of the objects, and at the same time, we need to make room for the sidewalk, sometimes even the road, so that life can go on,’ said Guillaume Nahon, director of the Paris archives. ‘It’s a day-to-day process, and a contradictory one too, because these memorials are supposed to be ephemeral, but people still need a place to mourn for now.'”