Alan Sokal Is Back

“British psychologist Nick Brown and two co-authors have just published an astonishing demolition of a top-ranked paper in the field of positive psychology … One of the authors of the critique is Alan Sokal, the physicist who, in 1996, famously wrote a parody of then-fashionable postmodernist theorizing and had it published as a serious paper in a sociology journal, thus sparking years of controversy.”

Listen Up, You Naysayers: Alan Gilbert Has Been Terrific For The New York Philharmonic

There’s a sizable contingent that thinks Gilbert’s interpretations of the standard rep are dull. Anthony Tommasini counters that Gilbert is a hard worker, innovative programmer and dedicated public face of the orchestra – and that anyone who can sell out programs of Ligeti and Stockhausen in the U.S. must be a kind of genius.

Australian Theatremakers Begin Looking At Race-Blind Casting

“Theatre should never be about quotas, but it is odd that people who are neighbours, family and workmates – whether of European descent, or Aboriginal, Chinese, Vietnamese or Indian – are so rarely seen on stage. A nation as multicultural as Australia – the population comprises people from 250 different ancestral backgrounds – is conspicuously monocultural in the mainstage theatre.”