Art and Museums
The Bowes Museum's Treasures Includes Textiles ... and a Silver Swan Automaton
‘I watched the Silver Swan, which had a living grace about his movement and a living intelligence in his eyes-watched him swimming about as comfortably and unconcernedly as it he had been born in a morass instead of a jeweller’s shop - watched him seize a silver fish from under the water and hold up his head and go through the customary and elaborate motions of swallowing it...' Mark Twain more »
The English Prize at the Ashmolean; Other Oxford Museums to Visit
“British tourists in Italy in the 1770s were time-travellers, imagining themselves in the classical past amidst the landscapes and ruins they encountered on their journeys. The maps, books and antiquities that they purchased and works of art they commissioned were imbued with meaning and memories." Tourists today can experience scientific discoveries in Oxford museums and their shops. more »
Pen to Publisher: The Life of Three Sendak Picture Books
Outside Over There features a powerful Sendakian heroine, but the adventure here is more perilous, the style of artwork more inventive; the story is full of allusions to Romantic-era painters and musicians. This book also tapped into dark memories from Sendak’s childhood and proved to be one of his most labor-intensive books to write and conceptualize. more »
"Torches of Freedom": How Big Tobacco Targets Women and Adolescent Girls
Cigarette advertising has suggested that smoking will make women thinner, more self-confident and independent, and more fashionable, sophisticated, and cool. These tricks of the tobacco trade have remained surprisingly consistent despite changing beliefs about smoking and women’s rights. more »