Do artists cross ideological lines these days, in their fan bases? It’s hard to think of someone, maybe Marilynne Robinson’s novels? What about movies or music; has aesthetics been colonized by partisanship?
A pretty good report on how higher education is an engine for moving people into the middle class. They still think that this is a solid fact about higher education: that it is a serious positive good. However, they noticed that in the new economy, economic security is harder to come by and more people are precariously placed.
We find that overall middle-class stability falls over time, and that college education does not necessarily cushion against instability within the middle class.
In this setting, higher Ed isn't as useful or as guaranteed away into a middle-class life. This is especially true for minority populations, particularly Black people.
A brief essay, excerpted from a book, by Marjorie Garber about Theophrastus, the student of Aristotle who wrote The Characters, a classic literary sub-text.
Populism is being hurt, one may hope very badly, ideally mortally, by the way populists have cocked-up their response to the Coronavirus.
Nice article about Hans Blumenberg. And another one!
A piece by a classicist about becoming an expert in ancient pandemic literature, and then discovering that when COVID-19 hit, he “had nothing to say,” as Marlowe says in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. He’s still not saying it in this piece, to be honest.
Quite a serious study of where things stand in terms of gender equity these days:
Progress toward gender equality over the last 50 years has been so dramatic that the changes are sometimes referred to as the “gender revolution.” However, since about the turn of the century, progress has slowed and, on some indicators, completely stalled. Here we describe trends in women’s employment, whether men or women are more likely to get college and doctoral degrees, how segregated fields of study and occupations are, and the gender pay gap. We then consider what needs to change if we want to reinvigorate progress toward gender equality.
Cool piece about Kathleen Edwards, indy music singer who walked away from it all, now maybe she’s coming back.
Well, this isn’t very surprising:
In an email to The Washington Post, Bartels described anti-democratic sentiment in the Republican Party as “grounded” in this sort of skepticism about or hostility to non-White Americans.
“Even in analyses including elaborate measures of partisan attitudes, views of President Trump, economic conservatism, cultural conservatism, and political cynicism," he wrote, “ethnic antagonism stands out remarkably clearly as the most powerful factor associated with willingness to resort to force in pursuit of political ends and support for ‘patriotic Americans’ taking the law into their own hands and ‘strong leaders’ bending rules.”
Wash those hands, people. Wear a mask.