The early parts of the story of how the humanities turned against “the human” are well told in two intellectual histories. - Hedgehog Review

A belief that what is good will be paid for by consumers, and that the state should stand back and play as small a part as possible. Applying this to the arts means that they are not a public good but instead a sector that should be shaped by market principles, competition, and measurable returns. - The Big Idea

The research demonstrates that our “semantic knowledge”, the internal cognitive map of how concepts connect and apply to one another, is the absolute precondition for meaningful invention. - Neuroscience

Machine learning represents a seismic shift, both in society and in the arts, and we need storytellers, artists, teachers and thinkers in this space to help determine the direction of that shift and help us navigate this unfamiliar territory. - The Guardian

Computers talk to computers, producing information to train computers to sound more like humans or to better engage them. Humans type into the box, scroll, and wait. - The Atlantic

“The Town has seen its homegrown talent reach new levels of success on the global stage, from figure skater Alysa Liu earning Olympic gold in Milan to filmmaker Ryan Coogler winning four Oscars for his blockbuster Sinners and R&B powerhouse Kehlani receiving two Grammy Awards.” - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)

Our survey found that 79% of Americans believe that cities investing in colleges dedicated to the creative industry will be more successful economically in the future than those that do not. - Fast Company

“(An internal) memo states staffers must immediately change email signatures, letterhead, and other documents ‘to reflect the name as ‘The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,’ or ‘Kennedy Center.’’ This also includes voicemails, social media accounts and press releases.” - Politico

The festivals involved in the plan, including the main international festival, will soon invite bidders to investigate how to merge the ticketing operations and data of all 11 events, which in 2024 sold nearly 4m tickets in total. Others include the book festival and the film festival. - The Guardian

“Senate Bill 133 creates Colorado Artist Companies, or A Corps, a new subset of limited liability corporations that guides artists through the complexities of setting up a business while ensuring they retain creative control over their work, which can include everything from songs, paintings and poems, to less obvious output, like creative coursework.” - The Colorado Sun

The New School will employ 65 fewer full-time faculty members in the fall than it did last year, Kessler said. Based on the most recent federal data, that reduction would amount to roughly 36 percent of its 2024 full-time faculty work force. - Chronicle of Higher Education

Yale University’s master’s programs in visual arts and music would fail. Harvard University’s master’s degree in museum studies would fail. The Juilliard School’s undergraduate and graduate programs in music would fail. - The New York Times

The industry is not short of superfans. It never has been. It is short of the infrastructure and the will to treat them as customers. - Music Business Worldwide

The National Symphony Orchestra’s upcoming season is in jeopardy because the Kennedy Center has not approved its budget, according to officials familiar with the situation, depriving the ensemble of the money it needs to book venues and soloists, announce its season and sell subscriptions. - The Washington Post

“The (latest) funding round” — a sale of stock which raised $400 million — “comes just six months after Suno previously announced a $250 million funding round that had valued the company at $2.45 billion.” - The Hollywood Reporter

Manfred Gurlitt was reluctant to leave Germany when the Nazis came to power, but he ultimately had to flee and ended up in Tokyo. By 1941 he was music director of the Tokyo Philharmonic; a decade later, he had founded his own opera company and taught most of Japan’s opera singers. - Bachtrack

The NSO doesn’t even know if it has a home, given the previously announced two-year closure of the Kennedy Center. This is a very bad sign. Further, the tools for survival are entangled in the Kennedy Center’s legal and financial troubles. - Variety

"We started programming SHIFT because there is a bit of a crisis in the performing arts with regards to machine learning. There's absolute panic. And in fact last year, when we announced it, some leading people in the arts were describing AI as evil and as the devil." - The Independent

“Among the hundreds of objects already found: a fourth-century coin stamped with the face of the Emperor Constantine, and shards of medieval pottery painted on the inside with marks no expert has yet deciphered — like a modern Da Vinci Code.” - AP

“Philippe Vergne, the former director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Dia Art Foundation in New York, has been named to the newly created position of Artistic Director and Chief Curator and will work alongside Executive Director Silvia Karman Cubiña … as her ‘thought partner’.” - The Miami Herald (MSN)

“The whole art gallery art system became too big, too commercial, too impersonal and too corporate,” Marc Glimcher, the chief executive, said in an interview this week.  - The New York Times

Triumphal arches are thuggish. They’re the architectural equivalent of a domestic abuser standing, arms crossed, legs athwart, in front of the bedroom door. I prefer the democratic, American tradition of modest, respectful, open-air monuments.  - The Atlantic

The complex case revolves around a 2004 transaction, in which Monet’s great-nephew agreed to relinquish a rare Monet painting depicting the artist’s father, Adolphe, to the internationally renowned Wildenstein gallery, in exchange for several paintings of lesser value. - ARTnews

More than 100 artists are threatening legal action against the Venice Biennale Foundation for ignoring their demands that the foundation withdraw their names from consideration for the “Visitors’ Lion” awards at the current edition over the inclusion of national pavilions by Israel and Russia. - ARTnews

“Among 40 organizations in 19 states, (the) recipients of grants ranging from $40,000 to $500,000 include the National Book Foundation, which oversees the National Book Awards; the North Carolina Writers’ Network; Graywolf Press, Copper Canyon Press and other publishers; and the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop.” - AP

Rebecca Makkai has judged six major awards in the past eight years (a pace she does not recommend), and she shares some things she’s learned that she thinks most people don’t realize. For instance, she explains, the process is both purer and more random than you’d guess. - SubMakk

The two women lived openly as a same-sex couple from 1807 to 1851 in Weybridge, VT, where they ran a successful tailoring business. Despite some local misgivings, they were largely accepted. Neighborhood children apprenticed with them, and Sylvia served as a deacon in the local Congregational Church. - ArtsFuse

"These books may have inspired more than their share of hot takes ... but the conversations around them allow us to question where we are and what our feminist ideals have become … (now that) so many of the problems that felt like they were somehow close to being solved … have become drastically...

“The Star Tribune employs 495 people and cuts will be made across every department. The newsroom has just under 200 journalists and will decline to 175 while remaining one of the largest between the coasts. Just last year, 125 employees were laid off when the company ... closed its ... printing plant.” - The Minnesota...

Nobody would patronize a best-seller–only shopping mall kiosk called We Bet We Have That Book You Want, even though best-sellers are most of what anyone buys. People want to walk into stores with lots of books which they have no interest in even looking at. - Republic of Letters

"I don't know Bari Weiss' motivations, but it's hard to imagine that you would create so much turmoil in such a profitable show if what you really cared about was the bottom line." - The Wrap (MSN)

Dan Lin’s instructions at Netflix are to spend less money on fewer, better movies.  - The New York Times

“The state’s public television commission agreed Thursday to pay PBS dues and undo its effort to cut ties from the national network. Arkansas had been set to become the first state to cut off from PBS, but paused the move earlier this year following an outcry from donors and viewers.” - Arkansas Advocate

“Television and movie actors on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to ratify a four-year contract with studios and streaming services, a month after their union leaders negotiated a deal they say provides protections against synthetic actors created by artificial intelligence.” - AP

The AI revolution in Hollywood is not just real, but taking form in tangible projects that people can now see. Whether it's animated shorts, experimental theatrical projects or full-blown movies and shows, AI is showing that it can not only cut down on costs and production time, but push the boundaries of storytelling. -...

If Bilton stays, as he presumably will, the organization will try to muddle its way forward, damaged and listing and leaking to the gossip columns. Meanwhile, no answers were forthcoming about why Weiss was so determined to burn "60 Minutes" down. - The Wrap (MSN)

"I love Russian ballet and always wanted to become a dancer, but there is no national ballet school in Japan, so I chose Russia," says his compatriot Haruka Takemi, 20, who has lived in Russia for six years. - AFP (MSN)

Managers of smaller venues fear that they would lose too much money presenting unfamiliar performers in an unfamiliar genre, said the report, which also flags the lack of university- or conservatory-level training in South Asian classical dance forms in England. - Hyphen (UK)

“Dozens of artists participating in this year’s Venice Biennale contemporary art show are threatening legal action if their names are not removed from the ballot allowing visitors to vote for the best national pavilion and overall participants in the absence of a jury” — they all resigned — “to award the prestigious Golden Lions.” - AP

“That’s the entire mission of the school Not ‘You come to us’ but ‘We bring dance to you.’ And we want people in the room who can say, ‘I was just like you and now I’m out in the world dancing.’” - The New York Times

Peter Veth has never studied in Cambodia — only in his hometown of Lowell, Mass., a center of the diaspora. But from sixth grade on he took classes with visiting Cambodian masters and at Lowell’s Angkor Dance Troupe, where he now teaches the art form to younger dancers. - Dance Teacher

“It was six weeks of being unable to move, ... to participate in life at all, before she could get out of bed. And then Lauren Cuthbertson, the biggest British dance star since Darcey Bussell, … had to persuade her useless limbs, now stripped of their strength, to listen to her brain again.” - The Times...

“The program, Next Stage Chicago, will provide a maximum of $50,000 to up to eight nonprofit theater companies that have been in business for at least three years but no more than 10.” - WBEZ (Chicago)

“The program … faces criticism from budget watchdog groups, state lawmakers, and even theatrical insiders who say the tax credits don’t support shows most in need of financial support. Many that have received state aid had the backing of major production companies,” including Disney. - Bloomberg Law News

The Health Alliance for Chicago Comedians is building a pilot program to help 10 comics pay insurance premiums through the Affordable Care Act’s next open enrollment period. Stand-up comedians, especially early in their careers, often take gigs and side jobs which offer no insurance. - WBEZ (Chicago)

“Maybe it was very important, and maybe you’re a doctor, and you’re saving someone’s life, and I hope you are, but we do see these, we do feel them. I’ve got you, I feel like I’ve got to hold you all, so when I feel that and see it, it’s hard.” - The Guardian

Designed by award-winning architects Studio Gang, the 451-seat Scripps Theater Center — in Garrison, NY, 60 miles north of New York City — is a curved mass-timber structure with open sides, set on 98 landscaped acres overlooking the Hudson River. Year-round facilities will let the festival expand beyond a summer schedule. - Time Out...

“The Book of Mormon, one of Broadway’s biggest hits, resumed performances on Wednesday night after a three-week shutdown prompted by a damaging three-alarm electrical fire at the theater where the musical comedy has been running for 15 years.” - The New York Times

“The 81-year-old actor was found in the front yard of his home in Tarzana, California, at 9.30am on Wednesday. ... He was unconscious and had multiple stab wounds to the chest. The actor’s girlfriend’s son, Michael Gledhill, 44, has been arrested and charged on suspicion of murder, with bail set at $2 million.” - The...

She achieved international fame for the graphic memoir of her girlhood in Khomeini’s Iran, and then for co-directing the animated film adaptation. Based in Paris, she went on to direct other films, animated and live-action, and publish graphic works, and remained a lifelong advocate for the rights of Iranians, particularly women. - Deadline

His groundbreaking work as a music theorist primarily advanced Schenkerian theory by integrating rhythmic, metric, and harmonic dimensions into linear voice-leading analysis, while emphasizing how these elements interact to form structural coherence in tonal music. - The Violin Channel

As Martha, he hosted a highly popular monthly cabaret and collaborated with, among others, the Philadelphia Orchestra and Opera Philadelphia. He also had a notable career, under his own persona, as an actor and theatermaker, most notably as a cofounder of Pig Iron Theatre Company. - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)

Over his 31 years as general manager, he made the company into one of the most respected in the country and, said some observers, the Wagner capital of the U.S. It’s easy to forget that he began his career as a New York music critic and hosted Met Opera telecasts. - MyNorthwest.com

Adelaide Wisdom Benjamin, a queen of Carnival who became a lawyer and philanthropist whose gifts of money, determination and leadership helped save New Orleans’ symphony orchestra, died Saturday in her sleep at her New Orleans home. - NOLA.com