“Centennial celebrations for the political theorist Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) are springing up from Lucerne to Lima and Sydney to Seoul. Forthcoming gatherings in Germany, Paris,and New York will successively retrace the geographical arc of this prodigious Jewish émigré scholar’s flight across Europe to America. Arendt probed the roots of totalitarianism, examined reasons for revolution, and showed how evil could wear an ordinary face.”
Tag: 10.04.06
Univeristy of Chicago Has Big Arts Dreams
They include hiring a star architect and building a $100 million arts center. “Citing a litany of star arts alumni – among them novelist Philip Roth, film director Mike Nichols, composer Philip Glass and the writer Susan Sontag – Danielle Allen, dean of the university’s humanities division, said: “We’d like to see a building that will raise the profile of the really exciting – but heretofore stealth – arts world on our campus.”
Of Course, Money Is Only Half Of The Equation
As San Francisco’s arts groups rake in the cash, arts leaders in the wealthy and heavily populated Silicon Valley, less than an hour to the south, are left wondering why their own cultural scene has stalled out. “Generally speaking, people here don’t care about the arts the way people do in San Francisco. The apathy extends into the moneyed community… We probably have the greatest concentration of billionaires on the planet, yet no one steps forward to reward the organizations that are trying so hard to make this a richer, more cosmopolitan, and stimulating place to live.”
Pac-Man To Better Math?
A new study says video games belong in the classroom. “The strategies for successful game-playing are increasingly complex, sophisticated, challenging and cerebral. This edges games towards the very heart of where learning is headed.”
Parsing The Getty Report
So the California Attorney General’s investigation of the Getty is done. But the findings of the investigation are unsatisfactory, contends Lee Rosenbaum.
Measuring The UK’s Worldwide Film Biz
In the first half of 2006, money spent on film production in the UK rose by 76% compared to last year.
New Takes A Pass At NY City Ballet
“Anyway, barring this little piece, there will be no new ballets this season. Given the quality of six of the seven new ballets in last season’s Diamond Project (only Ratmansky’s contribution, Russian Seasons, was a hit) detractors will point out that this may be just as well. But isn’t it a truth universally acknowledged that new choreography is essential to the stimulation of both audience and dancers? What’s up?”
Arizona Actors Talk About Colorblind Casting
“It’s still a new subject area for us in the Valley. Even though across the nation people have been dealing with it for 30 years, here it’s still fairly new.”
Newspaper Readership Soars (What A Great Headline To Write)
Online readership of newspapers is going up. And the readers are younger. “The average number of unique visitors to online newspaper sites in the first half was more than 55.5 million a month, the study said. That compares with 42.2 million a year earlier.”
Forward Thinking – Robertson Wins
Robin Robertson wins the £10,000 Forward Prize for Poetry. “Robertson, 50, from Scone, Perthshire, is the first poet to have won both the best collection prize and the best first collection prize.”