From American Arts Quarterly, Frederick Turner (Texas): Abundance and the Human Imagination; Steven W. Semes (Notre Dame): New Buildings Among Old Historicism and the Search for an Architecture of Our Time; Robert Proctor on The Fine and the Liberal Arts: A Vision for the Future; and Tom Jay on The Necessity of Beauty; and a review of Why Art Cannot Be Taught by James Elkins. John Updike on American Art: The writer brings a life of creative and critical labor to the examination of American masterworks. From The Atlantic Monthly, Intolerant Chic: The new “white people” are bigoted, but not the way you think — or they’ll admit; and is pornography adultery? It may be closer than you think (and an interview with Ross Douthat). Love is in the air: Maybe it’s fucking that’s in the air, and we just call it “love” because, under ideal circumstances, fucking ends up identified with love, the way coal may become a diamond if conditions are just so. When did voting become like dating, and when did it become like dating yourself? From LRC, a review of An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarian Action in the Twenty-First Century by James Orbinski and Cambodia Calling: A Memoir from the Frontlines of Humanitarian Aid by Richard Heinzl. More on Simon Critchley's The Book of Dead Philosophers. Jonathan Wolff on how statistics can play mean tricks.
