News, reviews, latest trends, breakthroughs, disputes, and gossip in arts and culture http://aldaily.com/ en-us Copyright 2008 The Chronicle of Higher Education Sun, 23 Nov 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 Sun, 23 Nov 2008 00:00:00 EDT <p>The history of the bagel is not just a history of Jews in America - it is a history of America itself. How else to explain a bagel with Swiss cheese and ham?... <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2204140/pagenum/all ">more</a> </p> <p>Flying ducks hung on flocked wallpaper: what do the materials possessions of working-class people of London tell us about them?... <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2008/11/miller-society-contemporary ">more</a> </p> <p>King Lear is one of the darkest plays ever, yet Edgar, Kent, and Cordelia show a miraculous, almost irrational fidelity: they repay brutal rejection with unwavering loyalty... <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/cu/alumni/Magazine/Fall2008/feature3.html">more</a> </p> http://aldaily.com Sat, 22 Nov 2008 00:00:00 EDT <p>"Pick me as a mate," says the peacock. "I must be fit guy, since I can carry this wild, colorful tail around with me and still survive"... <a href="http://harvardmagazine.com/2008/11/animals-speak-color.html">more</a><br> </p> <p>Flying ducks hung on flocked wallpaper: what do the materials possessions of working-class people of London tell us about them?... <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2008/11/miller-society-contemporary ">more</a> </p> <p>King Lear is one of the darkest plays ever, yet Edgar, Kent, and Cordelia show a miraculous, almost irrational fidelity: they repay brutal rejection with unwavering loyalty... <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/cu/alumni/Magazine/Fall2008/feature3.html">more</a> </p> http://aldaily.com Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:00:00 EDT <p>George W. Bush's nostrils always ran ahead of his mind, twitching like a bull in a rodeo or a frisking wild horse, hinting at danger to come... <a href="http://www.economist.com/theworldin/displayStory.cfm?d=2009&story_id=12494723">more</a> </p> <p>Paul Auster's narrative voice is as hypnotic as that of the Ancient Mariner. Start one of his books and by page two you cannot choose but hear... <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22120">more</a> </p> <p>A Wall Street firm pays an ignorant 24-year-old hundreds of thousands of dollars to give stock advice to grownups. That was in the 1980s. Michael Lewis is still watching Wall Street... <a href="http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom?print=true">more</a> </p> http://aldaily.com Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:00:00 EDT <p>In meritocracy - or so it seemed fifty years ago - we would look up to the best of us. It turns out now, however, that we look up to celebrities. A big difference... <a href="http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=10473">more</a> </p> <p>Connoisseurs take serious interest in the high arts of painting, music, and literature. Why is great perfume not seen as in the same class?... <a href="http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article5186909.ece">more</a> </p> <p>Witch hunters in Africa lynch "thieves" who rob men of their masculinity. Many people's grasp of economics is at the same level. The Edge economics course is an curative... <a href="http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kreye08/kreye08_index.html ">more</a> ... <a href="http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/thaler_sendhil08/class1.html">Class no. 1</a> </p> http://aldaily.com Wed, 19 Nov 2008 00:00:00 EDT <p> John Milton, boring? Paradise Lost has a little bit of something for everybody. Hot sex! Hellfire! Some damned good poetry, too... <a href="http://chronicle.com:80/free/v55/i13/13a00104.htm">more</a> </p> <p> Overparenting. Conservatives fear we're turning our kids into pampered ninnies (i.e., Democrats); liberals think we're raising selfish robots (Republicans)... <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2008/11/17/081117crbo_books_acocella?currentPage=all">more</a> </p> <p> Scandal is permanent, frozen before us. Scandals metastasize, ramify, self-replicate, clogging cable news, the blogs, and the bookstores. Scandal everywhere... <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22117">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.