"The Cambodians have enlisted the help of the U.S. Justice Department to press for the return of dozens of artworks, basing their claim in part on the account of a reformed looter. ... But the dispute (with the museum) has evolved into something of an odd standoff." - The New York Times
It is not that I think we should scrap existing syllabi, but rather that we must make room for other storytelling traditions in these programs. And this must start with reading... What is being taught as universal rules of good writing in these programs is nothing more than a highly narrow understanding of literary taste. - The Millions
“This is a state-sponsored purging of ideas and identities that has no precedent in the United States of America. We’re witnessing the silencing of stories and the suppressing of information the next generation less able to function in society.” - Washington Post
By adding all of these features, Google has effectively changed the experience from an explorative search environment to a platform designed around verification, replacing a process that enables learning and investigation with one that is more like a fact-checking service. - Wired
For the last few years, I have felt the inescapable disappearance of music from my friends’ lives. Even people with whom I have longstanding relationships that were born from a shared love of music have simply let it go, or let it fade deep into the background. - The Guardian
The feature on the San Francisco mansion of Roger and Sloan Lindemann Barnett includes an image of an interior courtyard with empty pedestals. Those pedestals aren't actually empty: they hold Khmer statuary that the Cambodian government says was looted in the 1990s. Here's how they identified it. - The Washington Post
On Oct. 12, the justices will consider whether he violated the federal Copyright Act by basing a portrait of the musician Prince on a prominent photographer’s work. In the process, they will have to decide whether Warhol’s alterations of the photograph transformed it into something different. - The New York Times
An accusation that Carter handled property “undoubtedly stolen from the tomb” has emerged in a previously unpublished letter sent to him in 1934 by an eminent British scholar within his own excavation team. - The Guardian
“The question we asked most pointedly was: ‘If you can do this all over again, what would you have done differently? And the outcome of that meeting was: We have to disrupt the status quo.” - KUOW
"A recent poll by the American Alliance of Museums asked museum professionals to submit their nominations for best museum bathrooms, and the results prove that Marcel Duchamp was only the first, but not the last, to find art in the commode." Frankly, some of them are beauties. - Hyperallergic
A loose confederation of Indigenous artists is finding a wider audience by working at the fringes of modern music. These musicians and many of their peers are rapidly upending ideas about what it means to sound Native. - The New York Times
For many people, a challenge to their worldview feels like an attack on their personal identity and can cause them to harden their position. Here’s some of the research that explains why it’s natural to resist changing your mind – and how you can get better at making these shifts. - The Guardian
Patterned after the famous "Monuments Men" who tracked down treasures looted by the Nazis, a group of archivists, archaeologists, art historians, and other specialists are training as military reservists, ready to assist during armed conflicts. One specialist described it as "cultural first aid" training. - MSN (The Washington Post)
"Rather than demanding that school boards or librarians remove books, the current case takes the books to court, using an obscure Virginia law that would allow the judge, if she found the books obscene, to ban bookstores, libraries, and even private citizens from selling or sharing them, everywhere in Virginia." - Slate
Back home in Russia (where he spent years under house arrest on trumped-up charges), among culturati in Ukraine, in Europe (where he now lives and works), and especially at Cannes this year, the dissident director opposes the invasion of Ukraine but gets criticism for it nevertheless. - The New York Times Magazine
Tarsila do Amaral's painting Sol Poente (Setting Sun) is one of 16 artworks (not including stolen jewelry and cash) that were conned out of, or simply taken from, the widow of a Rio de Janeiro art dealer by her daughter, working with a bogus clairvoyant and a supposed candomblé priestess. - ARTnews
Extreme heat, flash floods, and, especially, smoke from wildfires — which can affect venues hundreds of miles away — have been the cause of multiple rescheduled and cancelled performances. Leading institutions such as the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Santa Fe Opera are working on ways to adapt. - The New York Times
It’s safe to say that effective altruism is no longer the small, eclectic club of philosophers, charity researchers, and do-gooders it was just a decade ago. It’s an idea, and group of people, with roughly $26.6 billion in resources behind them, real and growing political power, and an increasing ability to noticeably change the world. - Vox
Painters, sculptors and other visual artists stand to get a payout when their work is resold at auction and by galleries, in a government move designed to help sustain thousands of artists currently working below the poverty line. - Yahoo
Values are promoted through cultural strategies where buzzwords chime loudly. Terms like networking, collaboration, common good, connection and cooperation promote an ever-closer union with culture, while the arts are deployed for soft power and propagandist tactics. - The Critic
