Art
Fraud
A handful
of art historians are accusing Robert Hughes of plagiarism at worst, and
ungraciousness at best, in failing to credit their scholarship in his recently
published epic survey of American art, American Visions. Hughes' book and an accompanying TV series
appeared this spring, and while both were met with enthusiastic reviews, a
couple of critics noted that Hughes, the art critic for Time magazine,
provided neither footnotes nor a bibliography, and made scant mention of
colleagues' work. Now the Chronicle of Higher Education cites complaints
from two art historians, Alan Wallach at the College of William & Mary and
Alexander Nemerov at Stanford University, who claim that Hughes presents, but
fails to credit, their readings of paintings by Thomas Cole and Frederic
Remington. "Hughes, Time-Warner, et al. are making megabucks from your
research," Wallach fumed to other art historians in an online discussion.
Wallach has written a letter of complaint to Knopf, Hughes' publisher.
In
Defense of Cloning
A group of
self-proclaimed humanists--including selfish-gene theorist Richard Dawkins,
novelist Kurt Vonnegut, philosopher Isaiah Berlin, and DNA co-discoverer
Francis Crick--have come out in defense of cloning human beings. Reacting to claims by such figures as
Bill Clinton and the pope that Dolly, the cloned ewe, represents a moral
threat, members of the Amherst-based International Academy of Humanists have
issued a declaration applauding cloning technology and dismissing religious
critics as Luddites. Published in the current issue of the secular humanist
journal Free Inquiry, the declaration asserts that "the moral
issues raised by cloning are neither larger nor more profound than the
questions human beings have already faced." In an accompanying essay, Dawkins
suggests cloning could in fact be fun: "Wouldn't you love to be cloned?" he
asks. "I've never admitted it before, but I think I would."
Pigging
Out
New evidence from pig farms
suggests that eating disorders may be genetic, not cultural, in origin. Social
critics have long accused women's magazines like Vogue and
Glamour of creating unattainable images of female beauty that have led
to rampant anorexia. But according to the Times Higher Education
Supplement , pig farmers, in an attempt to meet increased consumer demand
for lean pork, have over the last few years been breeding thinner pigs--some of
which display symptoms of anorexia. The prevalence of "wasting pig" and "lean
sow" syndromes among skinny swine suggests that self-starvation may be a
recessive genetic trait. "With intensive breeding, an increasing proportion of
defective genes are inherited," reports John Owen, a professor of agriculture
at the University of Wales. Still, in pigs, as in human beings, individual
anxiety may be what triggers eating disorders, even among the genetically
predisposed. Explains Owen: "Stress-induced situations for pigs would include
early separation from the sow and having to mix with pigs from outside their
own group, which leads to bullying until a new social order is
established."
Shakespeare Wars
A previously undistinguished
bit of Jacobean verse has achieved official recognition as the work of William
Shakespeare. Thanks largely to the efforts of Vassar College's Donald Foster,
who speculates about literary authorship using an electronic database of texts
of early modern literature, the 585-line "Funeral Elegy,"
as it's come to be known, appears in the new Riverside and Norton Shakespeare
editions, both released last month. Foster--who also analyzed Primary
Colors last year and accurately identified Joe Klein as the
author--discovered the elegy in 1984 and, in last October's issue of
PMLA , wrote that it "is formed from textual and linguistic fabric
indistinguishable from that of canonical Shakespeare." But many scholars
disagree. The current PMLA contains arguments against Shakespeare's
authorship on both lexical and aesthetic grounds. One critic calls the poem a
"work of unrelieved banality ... lacking a single memorable phrase"; others
suggest other possible authors (such as Elizabeth Cary, a noblewoman who was a
dilettante playwright and Shakespeare fan). Even J.J.M. Tobin, editor of the
Riverside edition, observes in his introduction to the poem that it has "none
of the metaphoric genius that makes Shakespeare Shakespeare."
Witch
Hunt
An English professor who has
openly admitted to instructing undergraduates in pagan rituals is no longer a
candidate for a deanship at State University of New York's New Paltz campus.
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education , Rosemary Keefe Curb was
one of three finalists for a job as dean of the college of arts and sciences
until a local New Paltz resident acquired a copy of Lesbian Nuns: Breaking
Silence , a book Curb co-edited that contains such statements as: "I've
never been initiated into a coven, but I like to call myself a witch." In May,
after receiving negative coverage from the local press, the university scrapped
its search without making a hire, announcing that none of the finalists met
"current institutional needs."
