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 Cost of Being Decent to Adjuncts

Even if the adjunct movement for better working conditions succeeds, most adjuncts will lose. That’s one bold claim of a recent paper on the costs associated with a number of the movement’s goals, such as better pay and benefits. While activists and scholars have criticized what they call the paper’s inherently flawed logic, the study’s authors say it is a first step toward a more critical dialogue. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)

Abstraction Isn’t Neutral: Sondra Perry on the NCAA, Subjecthood, and Her Upcoming Projects

Earlier this month Ella Coon spoke with the video artist Sondra Perry to talk about recent projects, her upcoming exhibitions, and her thoughts on a variety of other subjects, including the role of generosity in her life and work. (Read more from ARTnews.)

Halting Academic Incivility (That’s the Nice Word for It)

A report published last year in the Journal of Applied Psychology confirms what many might say is obvious: “Incivility … defined as insensitive behavior that displays a lack of regard for others, is rampant and on the rise.” This will not be news for academics. Consider the regular calls for an end to faculty incivility—the rudeness, abusive language, bullying, and general meanness that seem to characterize many of our interactions. (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)

European Museums Adapt to the American Way of Giving

Museums in the United States, helped by favorable tax laws, are sustained by a culture of giving by private donors and a universe of trained development officials. That culture isn’t common in other parts of the world, where governments often support museums. That is changing. (Read more from the New York Times.)

Managing an MOOC

Several years ago I wrote a MOOC, “The Modern Genius: Art and Culture in the 19th Century,” which initially ran through the Canvas network, and then Kadenze. I had never assigned the MOOC course to any of my students, but that changed this January, when my honors modern art students enrolled in the MOOC, and we experimented with a completely flipped classroom. (Read more from Art History Teaching Resources.)

Whither the Digital Humanities?

The digital humanities can be viewed in two ways: as emerging and as emergent. The tension between them is a central force animating the field today. There are two areas—writing and the university—in which this tension is especially apparent, as digital technologies are upending, questioning, or reframing traditional or cherished assumptions. (Read more from Digital Pedagogy Lab.)

Pirating Papers

Peer-to-peer research sharing looks a lot like sharing of other forms of media, a new study suggests. While some researchers are personally opposed to copyright, others pirate research simply for the sake of convenience. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)

Asia Week Raids: New Details on the Christie’s Seizures

Last week, a series of five federal raids during New York’s Asia Week led to the seizure of at least eight looted antiquities and the arrest of at least one dealer. This is the first of several posts that will discuss the alleged smuggling networks disrupted by those raids. (Read more from Chasing Aphrodite.)