Winter/Spring ‘23 Arts & Culture Collection
The following are Arts & Culture-related articles/content of interest from Winter/Spring ‘23. Those of most interest will be detailed in individual postings*.
Spielberg, Who Regrets Cutting ‘E.T.’ Guns, Says Don’t Revise Old Works - “No film should be revised based on the lenses we now are either voluntarily or being forced to peer through,” Steven Spielberg said. (NYT 4/26/23)
Why My New Novel About Racial Conflict Ran Into Trouble - Today’s identity politics has led many in the publishing industry to insist that writers can only tell stories about people like themselves. That’s bad for fiction and for our democracy. (WSJ, 4/21/23)
Italy’s Non-Cancel Culture- My fascist architecture tour of Rome—and what I learned from it. (City Journal, 4/6/23)
Why ‘sensitivity readers’ are bad for free speech, art, and culture by FAIR Advisor Angel Eduardo- The publishing industry’s increasing appetite for “sensitivity readings” is a troubling development for free expression in the arts and our discourse. (FIRE, 3/31/23)
I Did Not Feel the Need to See People Like Me on TV or in Books- As a Black man from a relatively comfortable background, I preferred stories that taught me about other people. by FAIR Advisor John McWhorter (NYT, 3/28/23)
A novelist's ringing defense of fiction against moralism (Chronicle, 3/27/23)
A race-based music program need not be at odds with excellence (City Journal, 3/14/23)
Cancel Culture Comes For Ballet: Choreographer Lincoln Jones’s Problematic Journey (Unspeakable Podcast, 3/13/23)
Words Are the Only Victors: Salman Rushdie’s new novel is a powerful reminder of his vital role in the endless battle for free speech. (Quillette, 2/28/23)
The New, Weirdly Racist Guide to Writing Fiction- The book taking MFA programs by storm preaches ‘separate but equal’ by another name (Tablet, 2/27/23)
The Point of Education Is Not to Reduce Harm: “Blaphemous” Art Show (Chronicle, 2/23/23)— related: Taravat Talepasand’s Art (Chronicle, 2/8/23), Taravat Talepasand’s Art; How “Care” Compromises a Macalester Education — A faculty member at Macalester College takes issue with the administration's decision to "pause" Taravat Talepasand's art exhibit. (Banished, 2/25/23)
Bowdlerizing Roald Dahl (City Journal, Theodore Dalrymple, 2/21/23);
Making White Characters Black Isn't Progress—It's Pandering. And It Insults Black Fans Like Me* (Newsweek, 2/21/23)
Roald Dahl’s Books Are Rewritten to Cut Potentially Offensive Language* (New York Times, 2/20/23)-see related coverage
The Rewriting of Roald Dahl Should Disturb Us All (Spiked, 2/19/23)
America’s Culture Is Booming. Really. (The Free Press, 2/18/23)
What Idris Elba gets right about race* (Spiked, 2/15/23)
Barometer of Hate: A major Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibit rejects beauty and cultivates racial resentment. (City Journal, 2/13/23)
Idris Elba Stopped Calling Himself a ‘Black Actor’ After ‘It Put Me in a Box’: ‘I Don’t Want to Be the First Black. I’m the First Idris’ (Variety, 2/9/23)—Related: Spike 2/15/23
The Blasphemer: Is Taravat Talepasand’s Art too Radical for Today’s Campus? (Chronicle, 2/8/23)— Related: The Point of Education Is Not to Reduce Harm: “Blaphemous” Art Show (Chronicle, 2/23/23)— related: How “Care” Compromises a Macalester Education *— A faculty member at Macalester College takes issue with the administration's decision to "pause" Taravat Talepasand's art exhibit. (Banished, 2/25/23)
How Ideologues Infiltrated the Arts* (The Free Press, 2/1/23)
*[Harvard’s] Henry Louis Gates Jr. on What Makes a “Classic” African American Text- “They reveal the human universal through the African American particular: All true art, all classics, do this.” (Literary Hub, 1/31/23)
