Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate

Arts & Letters Daily (03 Feb 2012)

Fri, 3 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EDT

Artists in the Arab world tend to be politically engaged, says Adonis, who is no exception. But has the Arab Spring made him irrelevant?... more

Criticism is secondary to writing novels, said Lionel Trilling, who published just one work of fiction. It wasn't great, and he couldn't settle for merely good... more

Touring the Wild West, Oscar Wilde was delighted by a sign on the wall of a saloon, "Don't shoot the piano player, he's doing his best." Alas, far too many pianos now go unplayed... more

Arts & Letters Daily (02 Feb 2012)

Thu, 2 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EDT

Few questions divide the classical-music world as starkly as this: Philip Glass - mind-numbing bore or bliss-inducing genius?... more

What happened to Sinology? Recent books, scholarly and popular, suggest a turn toward rank boosterism, historical whitewashing, and hagiography... more

Orwell called them "disgusting tripe," Camille Paglia considers them a "corrupt practice," Stephen King winces at their "hyperbolic ecstasies" - Book blurbs have been a scandal since antiquity... more

Arts & Letters Daily (01 Feb 2012)

Wed, 1 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EDT

The adolescent brain. Children are reaching puberty earlier and entering adulthood later. The result: Considerable weirdness... more

Film schools are trade schools playacting as art schools and moonlighting in business courses. Their value is dubious, but the demand is insatiable... more

The intellectual glitterati are at it again, pontificating on "G-Zero World" and the "Rise of Regions" (whatever that means) from an otherwise obscure Swiss village. Welcome to Davos... more

Arts & Letters Daily (31 Jan 2012)

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EDT

Liberals are a cloistered moral tribe, deaf to outside arguments, says Jonathan Haidt. Maybe. Where's the biological proof?... more

The wages of modernism. Its inheritance has been enriching or impoverishing or even deadly, but don't look to the academy for a clear-eyed assessment... more

Publishing with Oxford University Press has been likened to marrying royalty—the honor is greater than the pleasure. In India, OUP was revered. Then it started caving to Hindu extremists... more

Arts & Letters Daily (30 Jan 2012)

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EDT

Only dalits handle waste disposal in India. Their ostracization is harsh, but their hold on the housecleaning market is absolute... more

Nietzsche is put to use by his American advocates as a crusader for truth, a debunker of superstition. But what about his penchant for cruelty?... more

Even if we accept the claims of evolutionary psychology, says Roger Scruton, the mystery of the human condition remains. How can we be explained as animals but understood as persons?... more

About Arts & Letters Daily

New material is added to Arts & Letters Daily six days a week. We continually test links for reliability. Despite our best efforts, links may fail (often only temporarily) without warning. We apologize for any inconvenience. Our motto, "Veritas odit moras," is from line 850 of Seneca's version of Oedipus. It means "Truth hates delay." Arts & Letters Daily is a service of The Chronicle of Higher Education.