Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
The Right To Culture: Afghanistan Bans Music
The Taliban’s stance on music forbids people from enjoying and participating in cultural activities, and violates the UN International Convention on the Elimination of All...
Why Do We Have Weird Dreams? To Learn Better
More and more, findings in deep learning are inspiring new theories of how our brains work. Neural networks need to “dream” of weird, senseless...
The Crisis In Scientific Publishing
The worry is that scientific processes have been undermined by perverse incentives to the point that it’s difficult to know what to believe. - London...
Netflix CEO’s Chappelle Memo Is A Masterpiece Of Gaslighting
If the LGBTQ community, including members of your own staff, tells you that — even when couched in calling out racism — 70 minutes...
The Folger’s Karen Ann Daniels: Reconsidering Shakespeare’s Legacy
"Within the theatre industry itself, and in education, we’ve elevated him as sort of a pinnacle. We have an opportunity to understand why and...
Australian Theatre In Crisis
COVID-related funding losses have seen drama departments at seven universities either cut completely, or drastically pruned. The loss of these programs will have a devastating...
TV Ads Are Fading. Where Will That Money Go?
Though total TV advertising is set to top $60 billion this year, according to media agency Zenith, the market is expected to shrink by...
Jim O’Quinn, 75, Founding Editor Of American Theatre Magazine
The magazine’s mandate was to cover not only the nation’s nonprofit theatre scene but, as O’Quinn promised in his first editor’s note, to shine a...
How Today’s Environmental Challenges Will Change The Art World
“These crises are emerging out of environmental challenges and social justice challenges that are very present. Going back to business as usual is going...
University Of Hong Kong To Remove Tiananmen Commemoration
The 23-foot tower of naked bodies twisted together, some mid-scream, was created by Danish sculptor Jens Galschiøt and is the last remaining Tiananmen commemoration...
How Your Brain Constructs You
Just as your memory is a construction, so are your senses. Everything you see, hear, smell, taste, and feel is the result of some...
Time To Abandon The Idea Of Generational Cultures
For one thing, there is no empirical basis for claiming that differences within a generation are smaller than differences between generations. - The New Yorker
Stories About Other Worlds Help Imagine Better Futures
Other worlds and other possibilities aren’t just about kind of fantasy possibilities, but actual other worlds that exist alongside us now. And that can...
Netflix CEO Says Net Won’t Remove Dave Chappelle’s Transphobic Special Because It’s Popular
Ted Sarandos wrote that, although some people may find stand-up comedy to be “mean-spirited,” “our members enjoy it, and it’s an important part of...
A Fascinating Group Attempt At Understanding Tolstoy
If the “Internet novel” or “Instagram novel” are ascendant genres in today’s literary marketplace, Tolstoy Together is an impressive nonfiction cousin. It sits merrily on the fence between a type of...
Big Data Research: Left And Right Literally Speak Different Languages
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University collected more than 86.6 million comments from more than 6.5 million users on 200,000 YouTube videos, then analyzed them...
Innovation And The Great Resignation
It wasn’t so long ago that people were worried that automation would put them out of work. Ironically, instead, people chose to quit jobs...
John Killacky: Arts As A Safe Space For Unsafe Ideas
It is a series of meditations on the social role of art, the sometimes dysfunctional structures of the cultural sector, and the effect that...
The Unprecedented Life Of Paul McCartney
He has navigated a life with little precedent, one in which a few home-town friends played a pivotal role in the rise of rock...
James Bond’s Jazz Roots
Ian Fleming, who introduced the Bond character in his novel Casino Royale, back in 1953, was a devoted jazz fan. His tastes were a bit...
The Difference Between Random And Chaos
Randomness, like cards or dice, is unpredictable because we just don’t have the right information. Chaos is somewhere between random and predictable. A hallmark...
The Real Problem Of Instagram
The platform’s erasure of certain kinds of work has the net effect of discouraging the making and exhibiting of that work. It erases art...
What Are The Rules For Politicians Using Music In Their Campaigns?
The campaigns can buy licensing packages from music rights organisations like BMI and ASCAP, that give them legal access to millions of songs. Some,...
One Billion Users: Time To Take TikTok Seriously
It’s not that social-media platforms aren’t newsworthy—Facebook consistently dominates headlines. But TikTok is all too often regarded as an unserious thing to write or read about. That’s...
Our Complicated Ideas About Work And Identity
Why do we continue to cling so hard to our work-based identities, in spite of an inner nature that tells us not to work...