Culture Watch

Julia Sneden writes: One of the great strengths of this book is Dr. Mukherjee's willingness to detail the theories and politics and failures and frustrations that have accompanied this War On Cancer. After many years of emphasis on possible treatments for various cancers, it is only in the last years of the 20th century and these first years of the 21st century that the researchers realized they needed to go back to the very nature and core of what cancer really is, in order to understand and possibly manage or cure it. more »

The artist's ambitious mirror sculptures, known as 'geometric families,' which she produced in the last decade since reinstating her studio in Tehran, are on view. Indigenous art forms such as Turkoman jewelry and clothing, coffee house paintings (a popular form of Iranian narrative paintings), and the technique of reverse-glass painting influenced her work. more »

Mourning garments, heavily beaded with jet, contrast with delicate bridal gowns originating from the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as christening robes crafted from cascades of handmade broderie anglaise lace. A tablecloth embroidered with the names of colleagues and friends of an American soldier who took part in the D-Day landings is incomplete. His British fiancée stopped embroidering the cloth when she heard he had been killed in action. The stitched decoration remains unfinished, the needle still in the cloth. more »

Joan L. Cannon writes: In spite of everything, there's pressure to let something loose that I might know that someone else has still to learn, or something I've noticed that someone else hasn't thought of, and that might tickle the imagination or stimulate the intellect or conjure a useful memory and make someone’s else's day a tiny bit brighter. more »