Do People Really Care About the Arts for Future Generations?

Many people argue that public art contains an element of bequest value: value derived by people today from the expected enjoyment of the art by future generations. In this paper, I investigate the existence of this claimed benefit. I employ an intergenerational model of the benefits from government subsidies and private charitable gifts to the arts, and fit it empirically using 1996 US General Social Survey data. The data analysis suggests that people take their life expectancies into account to some extent when giving to the arts or supporting government arts spending. Indeed, we cannot reject the hypothesis that people do not consider future generations in their current support for the arts.     

‘How much does it cost for reason to tell the truth?’ Salman Rushdie and his Confessional Critics

Abstract

The representation of Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses by confessional postcolonial critics is based on a reading that asserts one truth over the rest. I focus in particular on commentaries by two influential postcolonial confessional Muslim reviewers in Britain: Ahmed Akbar and Ziauddin Sardar. Their readings are critically assessed by simultaneously exploring the views of secular postcolonial critics and Muslim modernists who read Islam outside the conceptual framework of orthodoxy, especially Mohammad Arkoun and Abdefatah Kilito. I examine the way in which confessional postcolonial critics have appropriated religious rationalism along with postcolonial vocabulary. In my last section I discuss the ethical limitations of the confessional critics’ readings of The Satanic Verses. In the light of Bataille’s theory of the relation between sacrifice and divine justice as well as Derrida’s reflections on religion, I suggest that the dismissal of Rushdie’s fiction by such eminent commentators is localisable not only in the perception of metaphysics as origin, but also in a strategic reconstruction of an unthematisable sphere of al‐Fitra; that is, the scholar’s actual or imagined birth‐in‐Islam: his experience of circumcision and absolute dependence on faith.     

Mediating Science and Society in the EU and UK: From Information-Transmission to Deliberative Democracy?

In this paper we critically review recent developments in policies, practices and philosophies pertaining to the mediation between science and the public within the EU and the UK, focusing in particular on the current paradigm of Public Understanding of Science and Technology (PEST) which seeks to depart from the science information-transmission associated with previous paradigms, and enact a deliberative democracy model. We first outline the features of the current crisis in democracy and discuss deliberative democracy as a response to this crisis. We then map out and critically review the broad outlines of recent policy developments in public-science mediation in the EU and UK contexts, focusing on the shift towards the deliberative-democratic model. We conclude with some critical thoughts on the complex interrelationships between democracy, equality, science and informal pedagogies in public-science mediations. We argue that science and democracy operate within distinct value-spheres that are not necessarily consonant with each other. We also problematize the now common dismissal of information-transmission of science as inimical to democratic engagement, and argue for a reassessment of the role and importance of informal science learning for the “lay” public, provided within the framework of a deliberative democracy that is not reducible to consensus building or the mere expression of opinions rooted in social and cultural givens. This, we argue, can be delivered by a model of PEST that is creative and experimental, with both educational and democratic functions.     

Determinants of sales and price at auction for three Australian Indigenous artists: to pool or not to pool?

Albert Namatjira (1902–1959), Emily Kame Kngwarreye (c1910–1996) and Rover (Julama) Thomas (c1926–1998) are three of Australia’s best-known Indigenous artists. Each is known for one style of painting—Namatjira for watercolor on paper, Kngwarreye for acrylic (synthetic polymer) on canvas and Thomas for natural earth pigments on canvas. We estimate a sample selectivity model using data from the Australian Art Sales Digest to study the determinants of sales and the hammer price of artworks offered at auction from these artists. The results show that pre-sale information on the artwork and auction effects are significant and that the three artists studied are very different from each other. Thus, data should not be pooled when estimating these models.     

Corporate Support for Artistic and Cultural Activities: What Determines the Distribution of Corporate Giving?

This paper examines the allocation of corporate donations among variouscategories of recipients and the reasons underlying that allocation. Ananalytical model is utilized to determine the importance of profitability,firm size, advertising expenditures and type of business in determining thelevel of support for each activity. The results demonstrate that corporategiving to artistic/cultural activities is correlated with advertisingexpenditures, while donations to educational, civic and health causes are not.Thus, support for culture and the arts is a means of directly promoting thefirm, while giving to other causes fulfills the firm's goals throughalternative means.     

Searching for the remains of an Early Bronze Age city at Tell Qubr Abu al-’Atiq (Syria) through archaeological investigations and GPR imaging

This article presents results of an archaeo-geophysical investigation carried out in a tell site situated in the Syrian Middle-Euphrates valley within the framework of a Syrian-Spanish archaeological project. In the Near East, Tell is a hill formed by accumulation of muddy sedimentary layers mainly due to the decomposition of mud-bricks in ancient towns. First archaeological works (2005–2008) resulted in significant discoveries such as Early Bronze Age (c. 2600–2400 BC) buildings and pottery. In order to map the entire city, an extensive ground-penetrating radar prospection was undertaken in July 2009. GPR images reveal the existence of unknown buildings, streets and the enclosure wall of the city. Such information adds crucial information to understand the importance of the city in the region.     

A high resolution laser scanning model of the Roman theater in Pinara,Turkey – comparison to previous measurements and search for the causes of damage

The archaeological site Pinara, southwest Turkey, which includes several remarkable objects of cultural heritage, has been the focus of several previous archaeoseismic studies. One of these examined the setting of the Roman theater in the east of Pinara by a lidar survey. A gross inclination of the stone rows of the auditorium of 0.81° towards N 314°E was interpreted as a consequence of recent coseismic tectonic movements. A new survey of the theater with a terrestrial phase laser scanner is the basis for a model with 15 times higher resolution and 28 times more data points. Parallel to the fieldwork in this study, the process and accuracy of the leveling of the 3D point clouds produced by the scanner was tested in a series of experiments. Based on the orientation of the blocks forming the seats of the theater, we suggest six sections with changing average inclination of the seats and a fault line separating a northern and a southern section. While the previously found overall inclination of the auditorium is confirmed by the new model and the dip direction agrees, the inclination is 0.58° compared to previously determined 0.81°. The almost perfect increase of inclination with the height of the first 10 entire seating rows and the nearly constant inclination from row 11 onward, makes systematic measurement errors during the construction a possible cause. This is an alternative scenario to the interpretation of a coseismic displacement of the conglomerate block on which the theater was built.     

What does it take to survive in a digital world? Resource-based theory and strategic change in the TV industry

Journal of Cultural Economics - Traditional linear television has been a long-standing success story. However, the digital revolution is rapidly transforming the TV industry, in terms of...