Category: issues

“We didn’t just copy European institutions when we adopted the model of the German research university in the 19th century. We improved on them, welding their focus on scholarship to our egalitarian spirit. We can expect that our 21st-century competitors will be similarly adaptable. They’ll take what’s worked for us and do better.”

“The majority for women in doctoral degrees is slight — 50.4 percent. But the shift has been steady and significant. As recently as 2000, women were earning only 44 percent of doctoral degrees. In master’s degrees, where women have already accounted for a majority of degrees, their share now stands at 60 percent.”

“Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover, the Conservative peer and former chairman of the supermarket chain, has made a £25 million donation to the British Museum.”

“All have made difficult decisions over the past couple of years. And though in some cases performances have been curtailed, most of the cuts have been on the administrative, rather than the artistic, front.”

“The Royal Opera House has been forced to apologise to a theatre blogger after its head of legal and business affairs threatened to sue her for breach of copyright and ban her from attending Covent Gard.”

“As the government is encouraging us all to get engaged and create a ‘Big Society’, we believe it is important for those people who care about the arts to get involved in the decision-making about what their communities will look like.”

The first Israeli-built cultural center in the West Bank will soon open in the settlement of Ariel. Scores of Israeli artists – with the public support of a large group of Western colleagues, some quite famous – are refusing to perform at Ariel, saying that their presence would legitimize an occupation they oppose. Meanwhile, many West Bank settlers are outraged at the boycott, and Prime Minister Netanyahu is backing them.

The presence of the Muslim holy book in the US goes back at least to 1683. New England Puritans studied the Quran; Cotton Mather quoted it. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams had their own copies (which survive today); Benjamin Franklin even “argued that Muslims should be able to preach to Christians if we insisted on the right to preach to them.”

“Anatomist Frank Rühli and ethicist Ina Kaufmann of the University of Zurich, Switzerland, argue that this is disturbing because research on mummies is invasive and reveals intimate information such as family history and medical conditions. And, of course, the subjects cannot provide consent.”

Zoroastrianism, possibly the world’s oldest surviving religion (and the faith that gave us the Mehtas, the Tatas, and Freddie Mercury), is down to 140,000 adherents worldwide. They don’t accept converts or intermarriage. In an attempt to keep from disappearing, the Parsi community in Mumbai has launched a campaign that includes speed dating and fertility clinics.