News, reviews, latest trends, breakthroughs, disputes, and gossip in arts and culture http://aldaily.com/ en-us Copyright 2008 The Chronicle of Higher Education Thu, 3 Jul 2008 07:00:02 EDT rss@chronicle.com rss@chronicle.com http://aldaily.com/ald01.gif http://aldaily.com 128 70 Today's News http://aldaily.com Thu, 3 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EDT <p>The Architect of Bras&iacute;lia? Yes, it was urban planning gone badly wrong, but the city still contains some graceful modernist government buildings... <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/editors-choice ">more</a> </p> <p>Artist of wondrous Vermeers? Except that they were not so wondrous, and they were most certainly not Vermeers... <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/books/review/Julius-t.htm">more</a> </p> <p>Architect of the Houses of Parliament? Every inch of the building's surface, inside and out, was from one man, who spent his last days designing its ink-pots and umbrella-stands... <a href="http://www.rogersandall.com:80/Spiked_Medieval-Spells.php">more</a> </p> http://aldaily.com Wed, 2 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EDT <p>Woodrow Wilson talked of "a common order, a common justice and a common peace" for America and the world. His is an idea ripe for revival... <a href="http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/2008%20-%20Summer/full-Beinart.html">more</a> </p> <p>China: both proud and resentful, open and closed, like us yet not at all like us. Still, the onetime sick man of Asia is in exuberant health... <a href="http://www.tnr.com/booksarts/story.html?id=f48d8fb7-6db3-4279-98a4-0be7964e5909">more</a> </p> <p>As Mill, Engels, and Betty Friedan well knew, the family as an institution has problems. But the state can't simply step in to solve them. Jennie Bristow explains... <a href="http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/reviewofbooks_article/5386">more</a> </p> http://aldaily.com Tue, 1 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EDT <p>Is the golden age of biography now past? What future for a genre where the best subjects have been written about over and over and over again?... <a href="http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/biography/story/0,,2287893,00.html">more</a> </p> <p>"Ay, in the very temple of Delight / Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine." John Keats knew her intimately, and delight as well... <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2008/07/07/080707crbo_books_kirsch?currentPage=all">more</a> </p> <p>Camille Paglia is a pro-sex feminist who's still for porn and prostitution. But champions of chastity, she says, also stand in a great feminist tradition of defying groupthink... <a href="http://www.bu.edu/arion/Paglia%2016-1.html">more</a> </p> http://aldaily.com Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EDT <p>"You just cannot expect to have a country where everybody lives in a nursing home." This is news Europe needs to know... <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/magazine/29Birth-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all">more</a> </p> <p>Readers are incurable fabulists. Take that ordinary chap, Franz Kafka. We prefer him as a man of metaphysical mystery... <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21610 ">more</a> </p> <p>In the 19th century, poetry had a mass audience, says Jay Parini. But in the 20th century, poetry decided to get "difficult," to require footnotes... <a href="http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=knz7d3nc19g60h47flh19j1pn0dxc4sy">more</a> </p> http://aldaily.com Sun, 29 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EDT <p>Tim Berners-Lee made the web because he had a poor memory for some things. John Naughton wonders if it won't give us all a poor memory... <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jun/22/googlethemedia.internet">more</a> </p> <p>Man goes to the doctor and says, "Doctor, my penis is burning." Doctor explains, "That means somebody is talking about your penis." What is it about jokes? ... <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21616">more</a> ... <a href="http://www.city-journal.org/2008/bc0625sk.html">more</a> ... <a href="http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/story/the-science-of-humour">more</a> </p> <p>Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky rattled the role of reason in the pantheon of human motives. For them, homo economicus was ironic, skeptical, almost wickedly complex... <a href="http://www.tnr.com/story_print.html?id=3bc0e959-3b4e-440d-9b99-69078429b82c">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.