38,428 research outputs found
Auditing culture : the subsidised cultural sector in the New Public Management
This article explores the effects of the spread of the principles and practices of the New Public Management (NPM) on the subsidised cultural sector and on cultural policy making in Britain. In particular, changes in the style of public administration that can be ascribed to the NPM will be shown to provide a useful framework to make sense of what has been felt as an âinstrumental turnâ in British policies for culture between the early 1980s and the present day. The current New Labour Government, as well as the arm's length bodies that distribute public funds for the cultural sector in Britain, are showing an increasing tendency to justify public spending on the arts on the basis of instrumental notions of the arts and culture. In the context of what have been defined as âinstrumental cultural policiesâ, the arts are subsidised in so far as they represent a means to an end rather than an end in itself. In this perspective, the emphasis placed on the potential of the arts to help tackle social exclusion and the role of the cultural sector in placeâmarketing and local economic development are typical examples of current trends in British cultural policy making. The central argument purported by this article is that this instrumental emphasis in British cultural policy is closely linked to the changes in the style of public administration that have given rise to the NPM. These new developments have indeed put the publicly funded cultural sector under increasing pressure. In particular, it will be shown how the new stress on the measurement of the arts' impacts in clear and quantifiable ways â which characterises today's âaudit societyâ â has proved a tough challenge for the sector and one that has not been successfully met. The article will conclude by critically considering how the spread of the NPM has affected processes of policy making for the cultural sector, and the damaging effects that such developments may ultimately have on the arts themselves
The Self-DeïŹnition of Hellenic Identity through the Culture of MousikÄ
Altgriechische Quellen sind voll von Verweisen auf die Musik von Völkern, die nicht griechisch sind und deshalb stereotyp als ,Barbarenâ bezeichnet werden. Merkmale wie ,verweichlichtâ und ,wollĂŒstigâ werden dabei oft dem musikalischen Paradigma des Ostens zu-geschrieben, vor allem wĂ€hrend und nach den Perserkriegen des frĂŒhen 5. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. Ziel des Beitrags ist, die Konstruktion hellenischer IdentitĂ€t mit dem Begriff der mousikÄ zu untersuchen, wobei in der Hauptsache diejenigen literarischen und ikonographischen Quellen analysiert werden, in welchen ,griechischeâ und ,fremdeâ Elemente als GegensĂ€tze dargestellt werden. Sie werden versuchsweise als Kennzeichen kultureller und politischer VerĂ€nderungen der Gesellschaft interpretiert
Antares completed: First selected results
In May 2008, the Antares collaboration has completed the construction of the
first deep sea neutrino telescope in the Northern hemisphere. Antares is a 3D
array of 900 photomultipliers held in the sea by twelve mooring lines anchored
at a depth of 2500 m in the Mediterranean Sea 40 km off the southern French
coast. The detection principle is based on the observation of Cerenkov light
induced by charged particles produced in neutrino interactions in the matter
surrounding the detector.Comment: conference proceedin
Sounding board - a matter of value
In recent years, funders, politicians and commentators have emphasised the need to evaluate the impact of arts projects, but often this evaluation has not been as objective as it may appear. Eleonora Belfiore asks whether weve been overstating the case for the arts
Deterministic Dynamics and Chaos: Epistemology and Interdisciplinary Methodology
We analyze, from a theoretical viewpoint, the bidirectional interdisciplinary
relation between mathematics and psychology, focused on the mathematical theory
of deterministic dynamical systems, and in particular, on the theory of chaos.
On one hand, there is the direct classic relation: the application of
mathematics to psychology. On the other hand, we propose the converse relation
which consists in the formulation of new abstract mathematical problems
appearing from processes and structures under research of psychology. The
bidirectional multidisciplinary relation from-to pure mathematics, largely
holds with the "hard" sciences, typically physics and astronomy. But it is
rather new, from the social and human sciences, towards pure mathematics
Economic impact - inconclusive evidence
In Britain, the economic arguments around the value of the arts first acquired popularity in reaction to the cultural policies of the 1980s. Eleonora Belfiore explores some more recent thinking
"Defensive instrumentalism" and the legacy of New Labour's cultural policies
The paper identifies âdefensive instrumentalismâ as a main feature that has characterised New Labour's cultural policies, and which constitutes an important aspect of its legacy. Yet, resorting to instrumental arguments to defend the arts and to make a case for their usefulness is hardly an invention of New Labour. However, in the past, such defensive arguments were built into a more constructive and creative attempt to elaborate a coherent theory of art and an intellectually sophisticated view of the effects of the arts on individual and societies. What the paper argues, then, is that instrumentalism under New Labour has retained its longstanding defensive character, but was deprived of the attendant effort to elaborate a positive notion of cultural value
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