Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
The Artistic Influences That Made Paul McCartney
The context in which McCartney was exposed to both King Lear and Edward Lear is vital to an understanding of his achievement. - The Guardian
A Book That Promises To Challenge Everything We Think We Know About Human History
“There’s a whole new picture of the human past and human possibility that seems to be coming into view. And it really doesn’t resemble...
Art (And Artists) Are Fleeing The Taliban
There has been a concerted campaign to remove artworks from all aspects of life, in an attempt to make society more Islamic, the Taliban have...
Why The Aspen Ideas Festival Is A Bad One (Idea, That Is)
If we’re to have ideas, let’s have fewer ideas, better ideas, and ideas more likely to annoy the sort of people who bankroll Ideas...
How The Humanities Make Better Thinkers
Henry Adams once wrote that “nothing in education is more astonishing than the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts.”...
K-Pop Is Big. So It’s Getting Its Own 20,000-seat Arena
Backed by CJ Live City, a subsidiary of Korean entertainment conglomerate CJ ENM, the venue is designed for mega-scale concerts with 20,000 indoor seats, and...
Whitney Houston Is Back. Singing! Dancing! Are These DeepFake Holograms Creepy Or Cool?
The show in many ways shatters the norms of techno-illusion. A two-minute deep fake is one thing. The dead dancing for us is another....
The Dance That Didn’t Get Made During Lockdown (Sorta)
Choreographer Madeline Hollander has brought together New York City dancers, from big and small companies and from Broadway shows, and given them a task: to perform...
Ai Wei Wei On Being Ai Wei Wei
Ai’s trajectory is impossible to understand without knowing about his late father, Ai Qing. Regarded as one of China’s greatest poets, Ai Qing was...
Do Buildings Have “Moral Purpose”? Jacques Herzog Thinks Not
“They do congresses and symposia and they speak about this and that. I have to say that I have huge doubts. Architecture is the art of...
Can This New Movie Pass Save Art House Theatres?
Mubi, which caters to cinephiles seeking an eclectic mix of films, has begun offering a membership program: A well-stocked streaming service that movie lovers...
We Need A New Way Of Studying Literature
“There is no such thing as an individual work in literature.” The work is always part of a “system of literature,” in which the...
Soprano Designs A Better Mask For Singers
What was wrong with ordinary masks? "They were really close to the lips and you would breathe in and you would suck the fabric right...
The 1619 Project Debate Is Still Roiling The Historian World
As an interpretation not only of the founding moment but of the whole of U.S. history the project involved major scholarship. Yet it didn’t...
Why “Star Trek” Has stood The Test Of Time
From the beginning it had a mission, not just to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, and boldly go...
Architect Quits Over Dismal Mega-Dorm Project
The dorm, on the UC Santa Barbara campus would be an "11-story, 1.68 million-square-foot building with just two entrances. The massive dorm would house...
The Golden Globes Want To Present Awards Again. Hollywood Takes A Pass
Despite the public silence, according to those involved in the response discussions, there is a broad “consensus” across the entertainment industry to withhold submissions...
Intact Ancient Roman Busts Found During UK Train Excavation
In a small village in southeast England, at an abandoned medieval church along a high-speed railway, archaeologists have made what they call an “astonishing”...
Elizabeth Zimmer: Noticing Dance Is Getting Harder And Harder
If dance artists turn on the critics who take the trouble to notice them, artists will have an even harder time trying to connect...
Old Movies Have Never Been So Available. So Why Are We Worried?
There was a time when you couldn’t see even towering classics, other than at the odd repertory showing. Now, those films are just a...
Will Workers Return To The Office? This Expert Says No
My prediction? Absolutely not. If companies make employees who can do their jobs at home go into the office, it will be harder for...
A Critique Of Modern Progressivism?
Modern progressivism is in danger of becoming dominated by a relatively small group of people who went to the same colleges, live in the...
How I Reframed The Dentist’s Drilling Into Music
Perhaps as a coping mechanism... I trained myself to turn my dental saga into a cycle of musical encounters, and to revise my role...
A New “Golden Age” For Horror Fiction?
“There’s this fantastic description of the gothic – that it is not a genre at all, but a virus that attaches itself to genres...
Surge In Visitors at Chinese Heritage Sites. And Concerns…
According to a national survey in 2012, mainland China has more than 766,000 sites of immoveable cultural relics but only around 130,000 designated custodians....