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Tag Archives: aesthetics and politics
Joan Didion, Californian
Joan Didion seized my attention early, before I wrote for myself. Assigned “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” in high school, I read with amazement her cool, detached descriptions of things I recognized growing up in California. I graduated quickly to “The White … Continue reading
What matters most
A recent opinion article by Roger Cohen about a book and polling data demonstrating a gulf in transatlantic public opinion struck me as a windy but representative example of the unnecessary polarization in our political debate. We find more visceral examples of this bifurcated outrage … Continue reading
What LEGO Taught Me
For my birthday my wife bought me the LEGO kit Benny’s Spaceship. For anyone who’s seen The Lego Movie you’ll get the joke. It’s the outrageous monster outer space cruiser the little blue 1980s LEGO astronaut with the busted helmet … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged aesthetics and politics, architecture, art, engineering, LEGO, The LEGO Movie
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Do We Need A Cultural Foreign Policy?
This month in Bosnia-Herzegovina citizens protested government paralysis in every major city in the country, in some places leading to destruction of municipal government buildings. In Sarajevo, somebody took advantage of the chaos and burned the city archives – a … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Public Diplomacy, The Former Yugoslavia
Tagged aesthetics and politics, Afghanistan, Arab Spring, art, Art Galleries, BiH, Bosnia, current-events, EU, George Clooney, George Stokes, Islamic art, Ma'il Qur'an, Mali, National Gallery of Art, Public Diplomacy, Sarajevo, Sarajevo Haggadah, Smithsonian Institution, The Monuments Men, U.S. State Department, USAID
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Punk Is Not Dead
Today my review essay of Masha Gessen’s latest book, Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot, appears in the Los Angeles Review of Books. The book is a testament to the courage of the members of the group who … Continue reading
The Interpreter of Comedies
The extended appearance of Pussy Riot members Nadya Tolokonnikova and Masha Alyokhina on The Colbert Report Feb. 7 is worth watching for any number of reasons, top among them are hearing two victims of Vladimir Putin’s regime speaking in their own … Continue reading
“We have met the enemy and he is us”
Attending a conference of public diplomacy professionals and academics last week at the U.S. State Department, a particular comment made by a participant during one of the main sessions struck me. He described the positive outcome of a recent YES … Continue reading
Posted in Public Diplomacy
Tagged aesthetics and politics, American culture, Communism, current-events, Hollywood, international relations, propaganda, Public Diplomacy, soft power, State Department, strategic communications, totalitarian regimes, U.S. State Department, United States
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