Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
Report: Harvard University Holds Remains Of Enslaved People and Thousands Of Native Americans
Harvard University holds the human remains of at least 19 individuals who were likely enslaved and almost 7,000 Native Americans — collections that represent...
Study Of Thousands Of Newspapers: Stories About Humanities Reported Differently Than Stories About Humanities
When we examined articles about the humanities more closely and compared them to articles about science, we were surprised to find that humanities scholarship,...
What The Hollywood Bowl Means To LA
The Hollywood Bowl represents L.A. in all its naked splendor, idealism, commercialism, diversity, communal aspirations toward equality, social division, tackiness and even sordidness. It...
Is Social Media Really Making Us Worse?
There’s so much focus on sweeping claims that aren’t actionable, or unfounded claims we can contradict with data, that are crowding out the harms...
Manhattan Versus Brooklyn: The New Battle For American Culture
New York City’s intellectual landscape is increasingly split between two warring scenes, divided by geography, aesthetics and politics. Which of these prevails could affect...
Is Netflix Pivoting To Studio Dinosaur Status?
For much of its existence, Netflix has thought of itself as a tech company, moving fast and breaking things; now it’s seeking to emulate...
Canada’s Dearth Of Opera
We in Canada are operatically underserved. Our so-called second largest company offers its patrons the grand total of three mainstage productions annually and this...
The Man Who Spent 60 Years Building His Own Cathedral
The cathedral’s crypt would be his burial place. And he’d be buried there because it was his cathedral. He’d designed it entirely in his head, without...
Deconstructivist Legacy In Architecture: Constant Revolution
The idea that a building was a means to solve problems and serve clients, to which postmodernism only added the idea that the results...
Hollywood Makes Progressive Movies? The Data Say Otherwise
I’ll stipulate that the people who make movies may skew progressive in their beliefs, commitments and voting patterns. The movies themselves tell another story....
Not Quite Music, But Sorta? (In An AI Kind Of Way)
James Blake’s new album, “Wind Down,” is created in collaboration with the A.I.-powered app Endel, which collects data on individual users from devices like...
Why People Love Sending Gifts To The Queen
For the last year, we have conducted interviews with people who have given at least one gift to a member of the royal family...
Everyone Is Hating On The State Of Book Reviews. But What Are They Even...
If, in fact, book reviews are on the whole too positive, as some suggest, does this mean that the purpose of book reviewing is...
UK Police Censor Violent Rap Music. Should They?
Even a hardened civil liberties advocate would have to down a stiff drink and say a prayer or two before defending someone’s right to...
Behold The Modern Literary Festival — What An Uncreative Place!
The growth of British literary festivals over the past few decades has been an exponential development. It has also changed the idea of what...
Orchestra League President: There Are Three Issues Going Forward
Simon Woods: "I keep coming back to three defining issues that I believe will fuel our artistic creativity and our financial success." - Medium
What Corrupts The Visual Art World
Institutional bureaucrats, not billionaires, have the power to constrain the possibilities for aesthetic development in the present. The figure of the contemporary artist we...
A Children’s Mental Health Crisis: One Thing We Could Do
We are well past the point of believing that casual or inferred approaches meet the need. With summer programs right around the corner, there...
A New Theatre Festival That Doesn’t Look Like Anything Else
“When communities are allowed to craft their own narrative, that narrative is more complex. We are not imposing on or colonizing them with a...
David Cronenberg On Our Bodies And The Future Of Movies
One of the things that brought me back to moviemaking was Netflix and the idea of streaming and a streaming series. I think theaters...
Africa Is Inventing Its Own Streaming Music Model
With 60 million active users, Boomplay is the most popular music streaming service in Africa. Leading the pack, it is one of a bevy of...
The Culture Behind Paint Color Names
Paint names developed their own poetic style and, like a certain tradition of lyric poetry they make reference to nature to express mood or...
Osmo Vanska Reflects On 20 Years At The Minnesota Orchestra
"I disagree that any orchestra has a maximum quality level that can’t be exceeded... It’s a never-ending task, but if we look at it...
Your Brain Is Begging You: Please Slow Down!
A third of all Americans clock 45 hours or more of work per week, with 8 million reporting 60-plus hours. Compared with 1940, individuals now consume almost 90 times more screen-fed information....
Are Orchestras A Good Model For The Larger World?
In many ways, the orchestra can reflect the society we live in and the teams we inhabit at work or at home. Several parallels...