College Presidents Lampooned on Saturday Night Live’s Cold Open

in Comedy, Current Affairs | December 10th, 2023

Ouch!

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Political Scientist Ian Bremmer Breaks Down the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

in Current Affairs | November 9th, 2023

Ian Brem­mer, a polit­i­cal sci­en­tist and pres­i­dent of Eura­sia Group, has an intel­li­gent, fair, and humane way of explain­ing crises around the world. That includes the cur­rent cri­sis in the Mid­dle East. Above, he spends an hour dis­cussing the Israeli-Pales­tin­ian con­flict and its geo-polit­i­cal and his­tor­i­cal con­text. Speak­ing with Big­Think’s edi­tor-in-chief, Robert Chap­man-Smith, Brem­mer delves “into inter­nal pol­i­tics in Israel — includ­ing grow­ing dis­sent against the gov­ern­ment, how the con­flict in Gaza is being han­dled, the influ­ence of hard-right polit­i­cal par­ties, and the impact of these fac­tors on the rela­tion­ship between Israel and the Pales­tini­ans.” Below you can find time­stamps for the dif­fer­ent sub­jects cov­ered.

0:00 Pales­tini­ans for­got­ten
6:30 Israel’s domes­tic insta­bil­i­ty
13:17 Israel and Gulf states
19:28 Hamas’ strat­e­gy
27:06 Social media dis­in­for­ma­tion
37:20 Israel’s strat­e­gy and peace
44:40 U.S. sup­port for Israel
49:32 World War 3?
54:07 Two-state solu­tion

Relat­ed Con­tent 

The Israeli-Pales­tin­ian Con­flict: His­tor­i­cal Primers That Help Explain the Cen­tu­ry-Long Con­flict

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Yuval Noah Harari and Fareed Zakaria Break Down What’s Happening in the Middle East

in Current Affairs | October 15th, 2023

We give you two per­spec­tives on what’s hap­pen­ing in the Mid­dle East this week.

Above, for­eign affairs colum­nist Fareed Zakaria talks with Scott Gal­loway about the con­flict in Israel, pro­vid­ing his­tor­i­cal con­text and explor­ing what’s like­ly to come. And below Yuval Noah Harari (his­to­ri­an, philoso­pher and best-sell­ing author of Sapi­ens and Homo Deus) takes you inside the Israeli response to the mas­sacres, how Israel might respond, and whether the prospects for peace have essen­tial­ly van­ished for quite some time.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Ian Brem­mer on The Israel-Hamas War, and What It Means for the World

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Ian Bremmer on The Israel-Hamas War, and What It Means for the World

in Current Affairs | October 11th, 2023

In the wake of Hamas’ grue­some attack on Israeli civil­ians, polit­i­cal sci­en­tist Ian Brem­mer explains “the his­tor­i­cal con­text of the con­flict, how Israel might respond and what it means for Jews, Pales­tini­ans and the world at large.” The con­ver­sa­tion also cov­ers “how the US may fac­tor into the glob­al response and how to find reli­able infor­ma­tion amid the breath­less media cov­er­age and the fog of war.” Host­ed by TED’s head of cura­tion Helen Wal­ters, this con­ver­sa­tion was record­ed on Octo­ber 9, 2023.

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Neil Gaiman Speaks at the Alternative Graduation Held at a College Resisting Ron DeSantis’ Hostile Takeover

in Current Affairs, Education | May 23rd, 2023

His pres­i­den­tial cam­paign has end­ed before it start­ed. But Ron DeSan­tis is the last to know it. And so he con­tin­ues pan­der­ing to Trump’s base. After ship­ping migrants to Martha’s Vine­yard, the Flori­da gov­er­nor now picks cost­ly fights with Dis­ney, his state’s sec­ond largest employ­er; bans books in Flori­da pub­lic schools; and exerts polit­i­cal pres­sure on the state’s pub­lic col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties.

At the New Col­lege of Flori­da, DeSan­tis is using the cud­gel of gov­ern­ment to trans­form a tra­di­tion­al lib­er­al arts col­lege into a con­ser­v­a­tive-lean­ing insti­tu­tion. If you’re not fol­low­ing what’s hap­pen­ing at New Col­lege, read this pro­file in The New York­er. The arti­cle will help set the stage for the video above.

There, you will see author Neil Gaiman speak­ing at an alter­na­tive grad­u­a­tion arranged by New Col­lege stu­dents. Not want­i­ng to par­tic­i­pate in the offi­cial grad­u­a­tion archi­tect­ed by the school’s new con­ser­v­a­tive boss­es (the event fea­tured Scott Atlas, the radi­ol­o­gist who became Trump’s con­tro­ver­sial Covid “expert,” how inspir­ing!), the stu­dents arranged an alt grad­u­a­tion and invit­ed Gaiman to speak via video. Through a per­son­al sto­ry, The Sand­man author remind­ed the stu­dents of the lib­er­al arts val­ues that under­gird the school, and left stu­dents with some time­ly advice: “You must fight for what you believe to be right while nev­er los­ing your sense of humor or your sense of pro­por­tion.” Here’s to hop­ing that New Col­lege out­lasts the erst­while pres­i­den­tial con­tender.

via Boing­Bo­ing

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Neil Gaiman Gives Grad­u­ates 10 Essen­tial Tips for Work­ing in the Arts

John Waters’ RISD Grad­u­a­tion Speech: Real Wealth Is Life With­out A*Holes

David Byrne’s Grad­u­a­tion Speech Offers Trou­bling and Encour­ag­ing Advice for Stu­dents in the Arts

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The Seattle Public Library Gives Students Free Digital Access to Books Getting Banned Across the United States

in Books, Current Affairs | May 4th, 2023

Accord­ing to a new report pub­lished by PEN Amer­i­ca, the “2022–23 school year has been marked to date by an esca­la­tion of book bans and cen­sor­ship in class­rooms and school libraries across the Unit­ed States.” PEN Amer­i­ca has tracked “1,477 instances of indi­vid­ual books banned, affect­ing 874 unique titles,” dur­ing the first half of this aca­d­e­m­ic year. That marks an increase of 28 per­cent com­pared to the pri­or six months, Jan­u­ary – June 2022.” The book ban­nings are tak­ing place in con­ser­v­a­tive-lean­ing states (main­ly, Texas, Flori­da, Mis­souri, Utah, and South Car­oli­na), and over­whelm­ing­ly, they’re tar­get­ing “sto­ries by and about peo­ple of col­or and LGBTQ+ indi­vid­u­als.”

For­tu­nate­ly, Amer­i­can pub­lic libraries are push­ing back. As men­tioned last sum­mer, the Brook­lyn Pub­lic Library launched Books Unbanned. This ini­tia­tive pro­vides Amer­i­can stu­dents, no mat­ter where they live in the U.S., free access to 500,000 dig­i­tal books, includ­ing books banned by stu­dents’ local libraries. And now the Seat­tle Pub­lic Library has joined the effort, rolling out its own ver­sion of Books Unbanned. “We believe in your right to read what you want, dis­cov­er your­self and form your own opin­ions,” writes the library. “Teens and young adults ages 13 to 26 liv­ing any­where in the U.S. can access our entire col­lec­tion of e‑books and audio­books.” To get start­ed, stu­dents can fill out the form at the bot­tom of this page (click here), and then explore these curat­ed lists of banned non-fic­tion books and banned fic­tion books.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent 

The Brook­lyn Pub­lic Library Gives Every Teenag­er in the U.S. Free Access to Books Get­ting Cen­sored by Amer­i­can Schools

The New York Pub­lic Library Pro­vides Free Online Access to Banned Books: Catch­er in the Rye, Stamped & More

The 850 Books a Texas Law­mak­er Wants to Ban Because They Could Make Stu­dents Feel Uncom­fort­able

 

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School Principal, Forced to Resign After Students Learn About Michelangelo’s “David,” Visits the Renaissance Statue in Florence

in Art, Current Affairs | May 3rd, 2023

In March, a Flori­da school prin­ci­pal lost her job when 6th graders encoun­tered Michelangelo’s “David” dur­ing an art his­to­ry lesson–even though the school osten­si­bly spe­cial­izes in offer­ing stu­dents “a con­tent-rich clas­si­cal edu­ca­tion in the lib­er­al arts and sci­ences.” Par­ents appar­ent­ly found the Renais­sance sculp­ture, um, “porno­graph­ic.”

Fast for­ward two months, and the for­mer prin­ci­pal Hope Car­rasquil­la has now trav­eled to Flo­rence and vis­it­ed Michelangelo’s “David” in per­son. This came at the invi­ta­tion of the may­or of Flo­rence, Dario Nardel­la, and the direc­tor of the Gal­le­ria dell’Accademia, Cecilie Holl­berg. Above you can see Holl­berg on the left, and Car­rasquil­la on the right.

On Insta­gram, Car­rasquil­la com­ment­ed:

I’m very impressed. The thing that strikes me the most, and that I did­n’t know, is that this whole gallery was built for him [Michelangelo’s “David”]. I think it’s beau­ti­ful, it looks like a church. And to me, that just rep­re­sents real­ly the puri­ty of this fig­ure and you see his human­i­ty.  There is noth­ing wrong with the human body. Michelan­ge­lo did noth­ing wrong. He could only sculpt it like this. It could­n’t be oth­er­wise. He’s won­der­ful and I’m real­ly hap­py to be here.

In her own state­ment, Holl­berg said:

I am delight­ed to wel­come her and show her the mag­nif­i­cence of our muse­um, as well as per­son­al­ly intro­duce her to David, a sculp­ture that I reit­er­ate has noth­ing to do with pornog­ra­phy. It is a mas­ter­piece rep­re­sent­ing a reli­gious sym­bol of puri­ty and inno­cence, the tri­umph of good over evil. His nudi­ty is an out­ward man­i­fes­ta­tion of Renais­sance thought, which con­sid­ered man the cen­tre of the uni­verse. Peo­ple from all over the world, includ­ing many Amer­i­cans, make the pil­grim­age to admire him every year. Cur­rent­ly, more than 50% of vis­i­tors are from the Unit­ed States. I am cer­tain that Ms. Car­rasquil­la will receive the wel­come and sol­i­dar­i­ty she deserves here in Flo­rence.

Flori­da may be can­cel­ing clas­si­cal art and thought. Flo­rence is decid­ed­ly not.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

How Michelangelo’s David Still Draws Admi­ra­tion and Con­tro­ver­sy Today

Michelangelo’s Illus­trat­ed Gro­cery List

Take a 3D Vir­tu­al Tour of the Sis­tine Chapel, St. Peter’s Basil­i­ca and Oth­er Art-Adorned Vat­i­can Spaces

Leonar­do da Vinci’s Hand­writ­ten Resume (1482)

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Pussy Riot Sends a Powerful Message to Vladimir Putin: “You Have Already Lost. You Know It.”

in Current Affairs | April 27th, 2023

Speak­ing at TED, Nadya Tolokon­niko­va, found­ing mem­ber of Pussy Riot, has a pow­er­ful mes­sage for Rus­sians today: Resist­ing the author­i­ty of Vladimir Putin is an option. It’s a choice. Of that, Tolokon­niko­va has already pro­vid­ed ample proof. For more than a decade, the mem­bers of Pussy Riot have staged high-pro­file protests in Rus­sia … and paid the price, with time served in prison. As she puts it, “Courage is an abil­i­ty to act in the face of fear. And some of us have cho­sen to live coura­geous­ly.” That exam­ple is what makes her a threat:

The rea­son why I became a threat to the sys­tem, not because of any actu­al phys­i­cal pow­er that I have, but because courage is con­ta­gious. And any act of speak­ing the truth can cause incal­cu­la­ble trans­for­ma­tions in social con­scious­ness. And we all have this pow­er. It’s a moral act to use this pow­er. You may or may not achieve the results that you want­ed, but there is eter­nal beau­ty in try­ing to find truth, in risk­ing every­thing you’ve got for what’s right…

As always, she saves choice words for Putin: “Vladimir Vladimirovich, the Krem­lin walls became your prison walls. You have already lost. You know it. That’s why you’re so afraid. You lost in spir­it.” Now we just need Rus­sians at home, and Ukraini­ans on the bat­tle­field, to make the implic­it explic­it.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent 

A His­to­ry of Pussy Riot: Watch the Band’s Ear­ly Performances/Protests Against the Putin Regime

Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokon­niko­va Tells Pro­tes­tors What to Do–and Not Do–If Arrest­ed by Author­i­tar­i­an Police

Slavoj Žižek & Pussy Riot’s Nadezh­da Tolokon­niko­va Exchange An Extra­or­di­nary Series of Let­ters

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