Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
Texas Proposes Law To Punich Bookstores For Selling “Unsafe” Books
Specifically, the bill, HB 1375, authored by state Rep. Nate Schatzline, R-Fort Worth, would hold bookstores legally liable for the "distribution, transmission, or display...
Is It Ethical To Buy Used Books?
Used-book stores or vintage-record shops, where hidden gems lurk like geodes waiting to be split open, play a role, too. Such venues don’t just...
Why We All Need To Study History
When students, and school boards, ask, Why history? What are we supposed to be getting out of this? the best answer is still that...
The Oscars Want To Make Voters See Movies They Vote On. But How Do...
That might seem like an obvious rule for voters of any award: View the works you’re judging. But when I recently spoke with several...
Republican Tax Bill Would Allow President To Kill Non-Profits
Among those amendments, buried on page 380 of the draft, is a section that would enable Trump’s secretary of the Treasury to denounce any...
Broadway’s Back Baby! Box Office Exceeds Pre-Pandemic Take For The First Time
Last week, Broadway grosses for the season-to-date surpassed 2018-2019’s record season-to-date box office for the first time. - The Hollywood Reporter
A Growing Number Of Foreign Musicians Are Canceling Performances In The US
A growing wave of performers — like German pianist Schaghajegh Nosrati and Canadian folk singer Bells Larsen — have canceled shows in the States, either in protest of...
BBC Chief: Disinformation Is A Big Threat
“The future of our cohesive, democratic society feels for the first time in my life at risk. We have so much to be proud...
Argentine President Is Waging War On History And Closing Arts Speaces
In an ongoing attempt to erase victims’ stories of Argentina’s dictatorship under Jorge Rafael Videla, President Javier Milei has started closing art spaces. -...
Why Do All Our Movies Seem To Have The Same Plot?
The formula is particularly repetitive in cinema. As it happens, aspiring screenwriters in 21st-century Hollywood are following a rubric set out in the 4th century...
National Constitution Center Gets Its Biggest Gift Ever
The $15 million donation from billionaire hedge fund manager Kenneth C. Griffin will support the creation of two new galleries focused on America’s founding...
Why America Needs The NEA More (Not Less)
We are in a cultural moment where critical thinking has become synonymous with cynicism. Our government and larger media have spent decades telling us...
College Students Are Using AI To Do Their Assignments. Is It Cheating?
When he started at Columbia as a sophomore this past September, he didn’t worry much about academics or his GPA. “Most assignments in college...
How Is It Legal That AI Can Appropriate Artists’ Styles?
The technology has given ChatGPT users control over the visual languages that artists have honed over the course of their careers, potentially devaluing those...
Has American Popular Culture Stagnated?
For what it’s worth, most Americans share this sense of declinism when it comes to movies, music, and TV, telling pollsters that these things peaked somewhere...
Dancers Sue Shen Yun Over Working Conditions
The complaint itself alleges that children as young as 13 years old worked grueling 15-hour training schedules at least six days a week, in exchange...
Canada’s Founding Document May Be Sold At Auction
Experts, historians, and Indigenous groups argue the item isn’t just surplus inventory but part of the country’s origin story. They are calling for its...
Artist Suppliers Struggle With Tariffs And Uncertainty
Some arts suppliers have been preparing to pass the costs of tariffs on to their consumers. Canal Plastics Center, a plastics fabrication company in SoHo,...
Trump’s Movie Tariffs Are More About Cultural Protectionism Than Money
Amid an ongoing tariff war, Trump’s proposal — which may ultimately remain an empty threat — goes beyond economic protectionism. It is cultural protectionism. It also...
Why Culture Has Always Been At The Center Of North American Trade
Free-trade agreements radically reshaped the economies and public understandings of the western hemisphere in the late 20th century. Political scientist Guy Poitras argues that North...
As The 300+-Year-Old Hudson Bay Company Dissolves, What Should Be Done With Its Art...
Some HBC records have provided a window into Canada’s climate history and ecology, offering valuable long-term data to environmental researchers. Others show evidence of Indigenous...
It Is, After All, The Library Of <i>Congress</i>: Lawmakers Push Back Against Trump Takeover
On Capitol Hill, Democrats said Tuesday they did not believe that Blanche was the acting librarian — and Republicans, who have repeatedly deferred to...
Trump Escalates Punishment Of Harvard
Harvard quickly responded Tuesday evening, filing an amended complaint in its lawsuit against the Trump administration, objecting to numerous actions federal officials have taken...
This Is What The Power Shift At The Kennedy Center Really Looks Like
Probably the most searing impact of the takeover has been the exclusion of small, local groups for whom the Kennedy Center gig was the...
Big Fight Over UK AI Copyright Transparency Bill
An amendment to the data bill requiring AI companies to reveal which copyrighted material is used in their models was backed by peers, despite...
