Culture Watch

The dream of Arcadia, a mythic place of beauty and repose where humankind lives in harmony with nature, has held an enduring appeal for artists since antiquity. With its promise of calm, simplicity, and order, it has served as both an inspiration and as an image of refuge, a place that is distant and seemingly protected from the vicissitudes of life. more »

Doris O'Brien writes: There’s an odd assumption that people tend to become invisible as they grow old ... women, in particular. I figure I could rob a bank and nobody would even notice who done it. But, in reality,seniors are the least likely to break the law, and maybe even the most reluctant to publicly express their opinions on controversial subjects, for fear of refutation, ridicule, or even recrimination. more »

The exhibit draws from the millions of immigration case files in the Archives to tell a few of these stories from the 1880s through World War II. It also ex­plores the attachment of immigrants to fam­ily and community and the attachment of government organizations to immigration laws that reflected certain beliefs about im­migrants and citizenship. These are dramatic tales of joy and disappointment, opportu­nity and discrimination, deceit and honesty. more »

Joan L. Cannon writes: John Irving has attracted plenty of attention throughout his career with his explosive originality and his fearlessness when it comes to convention — from The World According to Garp to the most recent In One Person. Not all his work is created equal, of course, but when I ran across A Widow for One Year, I didn’t expect to be as intrigued as I was. more »