News, reviews, latest trends, breakthroughs, disputes, and gossip in arts and culture http://aldaily.com/ en-us Copyright 2009 The Chronicle of Higher Education Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:00:05 EDT rss@chronicle.com rss@chronicle.com http://aldaily.com/ald01.gif http://aldaily.com 128 70 Today's News http://aldaily.com Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT <p>Dogs do it, lions do it, even babies in the womb do it, and though weird theories abound, nobody really knows why we yawn... <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/steve-jones/6583820/Yawning-is-part-of-what-makes-us-human.html">more</a> </p> <p>Fran&ccedil;oise d'Aubign&eacute;: born in a prison to a murderer, was a child beggar, then later on governess to Louis XIV's children, and finally his mistress and wife... <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/15/books-secret-wife-louis-xiv/">more</a> </p> <p>When Jane Austen doesn't like a character in one of her novels, she ceases to be the subtle, witty ironist everyone adores and turns into a vicious moral harridan... <a href="http://www.nationalpost.com/story-printer.html?id=0e08fba0-1b9c-4e20-9d93-f3833f077fb6">more</a> </p> http://aldaily.com Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT <p>Lew Wallace, General in the Civil War, a man Billy the Kid wanted to kill, wrote a favorite 19th-century novel, made into a 20th-century movie: Ben-Hur... <a href="http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/2009-11/BenHur.html ">more</a> </p> <p>"Earth is the cradle of mankind, but one does not stay in the cradle forever." Space pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovskii had a vision... <a href="http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1508/1 ">more</a> </p> <p>The Mumbai attacks: sixty harrowing hours. Jason Motlagh's minute-by-minute account shows us scenes of great heroism and horrifying cruelty... <a href="http://www.vqronline.org/webexclusive/2009/11/19/motlagh-mumbai-attacks/ ">more</a> </p> http://aldaily.com Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT <p>Should historic art be repatriated to its land of origin? Imagine the Renaissance without the spell of "looted" antiquities from Greece... <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/science/17tier.html">more</a> </p> <p>Friedrich Nietzsche cultivated the alien form of Dionysus on the soil of his native Pietism. In truth, he never overcame his childhood religion... <a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2009/novdec/wasnietzschepious.html">more</a> </p> <p>Louis Armstrong, even as a little boy, "could easily see the ungodly treatment White Folks were handing the poor Jewish family I worked for"... <a href="https://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/satchmo-and-the-jews-15265?page=all">more</a> </p> http://aldaily.com Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT <p>Wherever they go, Michelin guides smile on restaurants that are fussily French. Can they adapt their exacting critical criteria to American fare?... <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2009/11/23/091123crat_atlarge_gopnik?currentPage=all ">more</a> </p> <p>He was a skeptic? Oh, spare us, puhleeze! Arthur Koestler was a man suckered by an endless line of political, intellectual, and paranormal con jobs... <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200912/hitchens-koestler">more</a> </p> <p>Journalism and philosophy: how is it that the two humanistic intellectual activities that most boldly proclaim devotion to truth are barely on speaking terms?... <a href="http://chronicle.com/article/We-Need-Philosophy-of/49119">more</a> </p> http://aldaily.com Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT <p>Religion reduces corruption and acts to increase respect for law in ways that boost economic growth in societies where it is present... <a href="http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/11/15/the_curious_economic_effects_of_religion/?page=full">more</a> </p> <p>Malcolm Gladwell's little cherry-picked anecdotes, post-hoc sophistry, and false dichotomies do annoy. But when he stops playing social scientist... <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/books/review/Pinker-t.html?pagewanted=all">more</a> </p> <p>The Arabian Nights, Brahma, Zoroaster, the Turkish Pasha: Mozart's operatic orientalism was part of a European tradition of tireless intellectual curiosity and scholarship... <a href="http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/50069/sec_id/50069">more</a> </p> http://aldaily.com 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.