Sunil Iyengar

When I was in elementary school, I had a freakish talent, more like a parlor trick. You could give me any book from the classroom or school library shelves, and I would open it to a random page, take a whiff, and, shutting it, pronounce the year of the print run. More often than not, I got within a year or two. On one occasion, when I hit the bullseye, my challenger stared at … [Read more...] about Indelible Ink: The Lasting Benefits of Print Media for Reading Comprehension

In this episode, we discuss what “engagement” means, in the context of nonprofit arts organizations working with audiences, communities, and civic affairs. A transcript is available on the NEA website. … [Read more...] about Quick Study: Breaking Down Engagement

Spillovers. Multipliers. Ripple effects. Value added. These are a few of the phrases we repeatedly use to discuss the arts’ benefits to commerce and industry. Mark how every one of them denotes a form of transfer—as if the arts cannot be fully appreciated in situ, but must be grafted to another field or domain (e.g., economics) to yield an extrinsic … [Read more...] about The Arts of Innovation

In the May 2023 episode of the NEA’s Quick Study podcast, I alluded to some of the more promising studies about the arts’ positive relationships to social cohesion. While in Boston for a conference, however, I came across an article that made me rethink how the raw experience of arts participation can foster not just togetherness—because of the inherently social quality of … [Read more...] about Community vs. Commodity: Residual Benefits from Purchasing Arts Experiences

In this episode of Quick Study, we discuss findings from two new NEA reports about how adults participated in the arts in 2022—and how these patterns have changed over time. A transcript is available on the Arts Endowment website. … [Read more...] about Quick Study: A Tale of Two Surveys