| March 2006
Arts Management | Film &
Television | History|
Literature | Visual Arts
Arts Management
G1 - How American Is It?
Tomkins, Calvin
New Yorker; March 13, 2006, v 82, #4, pp46-56
“Will the Whitney Museum ever get it right? Having devoted itself
for seventy-five years to nurturing and celebrating American art,
the museum is now willing -- or almost willing -- to concede that there
is no such thing. Belief in a native American aesthetic has steadily
eroded over the past three decades, as art has become increasingly
globalized. The Whitney Biennial, that often maligned but indispensable
exhibition which serves as the closest thing to a national salon,
has broadened its focus in recent years to include non-American
citizens who work or live in this country, "in recognition
of the increasingly borderless nature of American culture,"
and the 2006 version, which opened last week, includes a short
film by the Italian artist Francesco Vezzoli, who neither lives
nor works here. Recently, (the author) asked Adam Weinberg, the
third Whitney director since 1991, whether he had any clear sense
of what was American in American art. Weinberg … said, "The
more I look, the less I know. I don't think anyone can ever come
to a definition of that." If you assumed that the gradual
disappearance of the Whitney's original raison d'être might be
somewhat unsettling to its director and his staff, you would be
wrong. They look on it as merely the latest challenge in the life
of an institution that has been rethinking itself and weathering
one identity crisis after another for as long as anyone can recall.”
Calvin Tomkins, critic for the "New Yorker". Fulltext
G2 - Building Creative Communities: The Role of Art and
Culture
Eger, John M.
Futurist, Mar/Apr2006, v40, #2, pp18-22
The author argues that aside from investing in information infrastructures,
cities must nurture the creative potential and community engagement
of their citizens in order to reinvent themselves for the postindustrial
economy dubbed as creative economy. At the heart of such an effort
is the recognition of the vital roles that art and culture play
in enhancing economic development. Cities of the future are envisioned
as creative communities in the sense that they recognize art and
culture as vital. John M. Eger, Executive director, International
Center for Communications, San Diego State University. Fulltext
Film & Television
G3 - Inside the Dreamboat Factory – The Fairy Godfather
of Hollywood
Keser, Robert
Bright Lights Film Journal, February 2006, v51
Profile of legendary Hollywood agent Henry Willson who made Rock
Hudson a star. “The tender attentions of Willson, including his
role in shaping gay or bisexual actors into ostensibly straight-arrow
silver-screen idols, were no secret in the business but jealously
kept under wraps from the audiences who bought tickets for the
fantasy played out in fan magazines. Willson was the face of a
cynical system, supported by an unseen infrastructure of fixers
and studio connections who enabled the mythmaking. […] At that
time, coming out was akin to career hara-kiri, and prosecutable
to boot (not just among actors, of course). Lest we smile at yesterday’s
unenlightened practices, it is instructive to ask how many gay
actors were hired to star in Brokeback Mountain.” Robert Keser,
assistant professor in film in the Fine Arts department of National-Louis
University in Chicago, and also teaches film courses at Facets
Multimedia. Fulltext
History
G4 - Memorable Moments in Black History
Ebony, February 2006, v61 #4, pp130-134
This article presents a chronology of historical and memorable
events in the life of African Americans from 1945 to 2005. The
foundation of "Ebony" magazine on November 1, 1945,
marks a new era in Black-oriented journalism. On May 17, 1954,
the U.S. Supreme Court out-laws segregation in the public school
system. Civil Rights Bill, with public accommodations and fair
employment sections, was signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson
on July 2, 1964. And on May 18, 1993, Rita Dove became the first
Black named poet laureate of the U.S. Fulltext
G5 - A Very Living Past
Gibson, Christine
American Legacy, Summer 2005, v11, #2, pp34-42
"Over the past several years, photographer Sarah Hoskins
has been documenting African-American hamlets in the counties
around Lexington, Kentucky, known as the Inner Bluegrass Region.
Founded by newly-freed slaves after the Civil War, several dozen
communities are believed to have once existed in this area; 29
of them remain, and many are threatened by suburban expansion
around Lexington. Most are still populated with the fifth- and
sixth-generation descendants of the original residents. The hamlets
came about when former slave owners gave, or sold at a low price,
land to their former slaves; as recently as the early 1970s, many
of them still worked on the same estates where their great-grandfathers
had been slaves." Christine Gibson is a freelance writer
living in Blacksburg, Virginia. Order Article
G6 - America's Most Famous Letter
Emerson, Jason
American Heritage, Feb/Mar 2006, v57, #1, pp41-49
In a cardboard box in a back office in a house the hills of Vermont,
six letters about Abraham Lincoln's famous "letter to the
Widow Bixby" lay unknown and undisturbed. For how long is
uncertain, although this author's fingerprints made last March
were the only ones visible in the thick chalky dust of years.
The letters, received and written by Robert Todd Lincoln within
a span of eight weeks in late 1925, point to a son's knowledge
— and a friend's knowledge — about who really wrote the Bixby
letter...Abraham Lincoln signed it. A lot of scholars say he didn't
write it. Now, newly discovered evidence helps solve an enduring
mystery. Jason Emerson, an independent historian in Fredericksburg,
Virginia, is currently at work on a biography of Robert Lincoln. Fulltext
G7 - The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire
Niderost, Eric
American History, April 2006, online edition
"In the spring of 1906 San Francisco was a city boasting
410,000 inhabitants -- a world-class metropolis whose citizens,
at the dawn of a new century, looked forward with a sense of civic
pride and growing confidence...The massive earthquake that shook
San Francisco to its core in the early hours of April 18, 1906,
ignited a howling blaze that threatened total destruction of the
city. Action intended to save the city may have added to the chaos,
injuries, deaths and damage." The articles features more
than 10 photos showing the effects of the earthquake on San Francisco.
Eric Niderost teaches U.S. history at Chabot College in Hayward,
Calif., and is a regular contributor to a number of popular history
magazines. Fulltext
Literature
G8 - From “The Poem That Changed America: "Howl"
Fifty Years Later”
Shinder, Jason (editor)
American Poetry Review, Mar/Apr 2006, v35, #2, p3-10
Allen Ginsberg's “Howl” is arguably one of the most influential
poems in American poetry in the last 50 years: "Celebrated
by many writers at the time of its publication, including Jack
Kerouac, Denise Levertov, and William Carlos Williams (and dismissed
by many critics including Lionel Trilling and Mark Van Doren),
the poem gained national recognition when it became the focus
of proceedings brought against it by the San Francisco Juvenile
Department for obscenity in 1957. Although the presiding Judge
Horn dismissed the charges by quoting the motto, "evil to
him who thinks evil," the trial was the beginning of one
of the most public and influential poetic journeys of any single
poem. The trial, and the publicity it garnered, helped confirm
not only the poem's literary and social significance. It also
helped to root the poem's opening line (one of the most famous
lines of poetry in world literature) in our collective consciousness:
'I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,
starving, naked, hysterical…' This article presents an excerpt
from a recent book. Jason Shinder collected 26 essays that document
the poem's stormy reception to the canonical status it enjoys
today. As one reviewer said, 'Though everybody gives the poem
its due as an American classic, personal reactions dominate, and
nearly everyone has a Ginsberg story to tell, even if it's just
about being blown away by hearing him read.' This article includes
excerpts from selected contributions." Poet Jason Shinder
teaches in the graduate Writing Seminars at Bennington College.
He is the founder of YMCA National Writer's Voice and Sundance
Institute's Arts Writing Program. Fulltext
G9 - Fear of Narrative and the Skittery Poem of Our Moment
Hoagland, Tony
Poetry, March 2006, v187, #6, p508-, 14p
Hoagland explains why poetry has become fashionable, celebrated,
taught, and learned in the last ten years. He observes that “American
poetry has seen a surge in associative and ‘experimental’ poetries,
in a wild variety of forms and orientations. Some of this work
has been influenced by theories of literary criticism and epistemology,
some by the old Dionysian imperative to jazz things up. The energetic
cadres of MFA grads have certainly contributed to this milieu,
founding magazines, presses, and aesthetic clusters which encourage
and influence each other's experiments. Generally speaking, this
time could be characterized as one of great invention and playfulness.
Simultaneously, it is also a moment of great aesthetic self-consciousness
and emotional removal.” Tony Hoagland teaches at the University
of Houston and in the Warren Wilson MFA program. Fulltext
G10 - "Seeing the Possibilities": Learning
From, With, and About Multilingual Classroom Communities
Van Sluys, Katie & Linda D Labbo
Language Arts, March 2006, v83, #4, p321-, 11p
"Come with me, to the quiet minute. ..." These opening
words to a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye caught the attention of Sara,
a sixth grader, who copied the poem over and over again in her
writing notebook. As an Algerian immigrant and new member of an
intermediate multiage classroom community, Sara was a quiet newcomer
who transformed into a vocal and valued class member over the
course of a year…” In this article, the authors explore what is
possible when learners become literate by weaving together their
resources and engaging in complex, collective and critical literacy
learning.” Katie Van Sluys is assistant professor of literacy
in the Department of Teacher Education at DePaul University in
Chicago. Rise Reinier teaches in a multiage classroom at Templeton
Elementary School in Bloomington, Indiana. Fulltext
Visual Arts
G11 - Standing Out
Fauntleroy, Gussie
Southwest Art, March 2006, v35, #10, pp114-120
"When Navajo artist R. C. Gorman died on Nov 3, 2005 at age
74, he left behind an immense body of work more diverse and historically
referencing than many are aware. He left a larger-than-life-size
hole in the soul of the Taos art scene and, beyond that, in the
world of contemporary American Indian art. The author features
Gorman and his works." Santa Fe-based Gussie Fauntleroy
also writes for Art & Antiques, New Mexico Magazine, Native
Peoples, and the Santa Fean. Fulltext
|
