CAA News Today

Each week CAA News publishes summaries of eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.

The Benefits of No-Tech Note Taking

The moment of truth for me came in the spring 2013 semester. I looked out at my visual-communication class and saw a group of six students transfixed by the blue glow of a video on one of their computers, and decided I was done allowing laptops in my large lecture class. “Done” might be putting it mildly. Although I am an engaging lecturer, I could not compete with Facebook and YouTube, and I was tired of trying. The next semester I told students they would have to take notes on paper. Period. (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)

Net Neutrality and the Arts

Last month, the Federal Communications Commission approved new rules for enforcing net neutrality. Independent agency rulemaking might sound like a sleepy topic, but over 4 million people—a record-setting number—sent in comments. What does the rule mean for artists and arts organizations? (Read more from ARTSblog.)

The Forgotten Masterpieces of African Modernism

In the 1960s and 1970s, countries across Africa celebrated their independence with astonishingly avant-garde architecture. Oliver Wainwright reports on a fascinating attempt to chronicle this forgotten history. (Read more from the Guardian.)

$5,200 or $5.2 Million? It’s All in How It’s Framed

When Lady Hambleden moved from her stately manor to a cottage in a village outside London, she had little room, and even less desire, for the Aubusson carpets, Louis XV chairs, Regency girandoles, and lesser English paintings that populated her estate. So, in 2013, she held a kind of Downton Abbey tag sale at Christie’s in London. Among the three-hundred-plus items she put up for auction was an oil sketch that copied Salisbury Cathedral From the Meadows, one of the best-known works of the great nineteenth-century English landscape painter John Constable. (Read more from the New York Times.)

Alt-Ac or Bust

The busy season of tenure-track hiring is winding down, and those many candidates who were unsuccessful on that front are now waiting for the visiting professorships and postdoctoral fellowships to shuffle through the rotation. They’re also pondering their nonfaculty options. (Read more from Vitae.)

Why Has the Scholarly Journal Endured?

Last week marked the 350th anniversary of the first publication of a scholarly journal: Philosophical Transactions, edited by Henry Oldenburg and published, then as now, by the Royal Society. This publication “pioneered the concepts of scientific priority and peer review which, together with archiving and dissemination, provide the model for almost 30,000 scientific journals today.” Given how much change is happening in the world of scholarly communication, we wondered: Why has the journal endured as a form of scholarly communication, and will it continue to thrive? (Read more from Exchanges.)

Study Discovers Power of Art Making on Mood

For people who work with textiles to create art, whether it’s knitting, quiltmaking, or needlework, it is likely no surprise that the activities aid in relaxation and improve mood. Ann Collier, assistant processor of psychological sciences, has first-hand experience with the phenomenon and the research to explain it. After having three children in about a year, Collier turned to making textiles as a means of coping. “It was the only relief I had, the only part of my life where I could finish something beautiful and have control,” Collier said. (Read more from Phys.Org.)

Navigating the Academic Conference with Social Anxiety

Academic conferences can be one of the most enjoyable experiences that you can have during graduate school. A paid-for trip, usually somewhere at least semiexotic, to allow you to talk about the kind of work that you are personally interested in—what’s not to like about that? Well, for those of us who deal with anxiety in unfamiliar situations, attending an academic conference alone in a strange place without knowing anyone can be a difficult and demanding experience. (Read more from GradHacker.)