Skip to content

Cluster index: Alana Shilling

The New Republic at 100.

Sunday, 28 December 2014

Alana Shilling-Janoff: ‘If The New Republic recovers in a digital format—as other venerable publications have—will it invent something even more lasting than liberalism? Can it manage to preserve traces of the dialectic between information and reader, reader and idea? Can a form of transmitting information that is ruled by radical mutability become capable of inscribing itself in the record? If so, it might provide another chapter to that historical narrative of radically subjective intellectual development so easily embodied by Tasso and Menocchio: The chapter of how our new technology changed what it meant to be a reader—and to reason.’

Filed in Chronicle & Notices, The press | Also tagged | Comments (0)

Letting down the élites.

Wednesday, 11 September 2013

Alana Shilling: ‘The NYCO’s production did nothing but render Offenbach’s operetta as a thoroughly pleasurable, madcap romp. So we return to the question of why that production inspired such rancor amongst audience members (and orchestra) despite critical acclaim? Why did La Périchole arouse such a resistance to enjoyment? It was not a simple case of latent Puritanism and the vestiges of anti-theatricality, though such prejudices did play a role. It was a matter of an unfortunate collision between inheriting one history too earnestly while rejecting the myths bequeathed by another.’

Filed in Notes & Comment, Theatre in New York | Also tagged | Comments (0)

Out of the past.

Sunday, 21 July 2013

Alana Shilling: ‘Even the most creative of past productions do not sever ties with the values of the masque. One of the greatest innovations in the definitive 1970 Midsummer, is the aforementioned doubling of roles, which brings Titania/Hippolyta and Oberon/Theseus together. The inevitable emphasis on the parallels of the human and fairy lands that this pairing entails is a gesture not unlike the identification between allegorical fantasy and earthly reality so dear to courtly masques. Moreover, Brook aimed to capture the imagination by eroding the boundary between stage and audience. These are principles dear to the masque.’

Filed in Film, Television, Video & Theatre, Notes & Comment, Theatre in New York | Also tagged | Comments (0)

Polis Chrysochous.

Friday, 5 July 2013

Alana Shilling: ‘To be sure, all archaeological sites contain some version of archeology’s own development. In the case of Polis however, this process appears with cinematic magic akin to the kind that can make Technicolor lilacs bud, bloom and wither in milliseconds. Even today, the site retains a certain purity—seek its antiquity as you might, you can find it only in material traces. Were we to rely solely on written sources, the history of Marion and Arsinoe would be consigned to vague references; their very existence would be suspended in the subjunctive.’

Filed in History & Travel, Principal Articles | Also tagged | Comments (0)

The e-Hypnerotomachia Poliphili.

Monday, 17 September 2012

Alana Shilling: ‘Digitization only multiplies possibilities and begs questions that have yet to fully emerge from dusky uncertainty. Before predicting that technology would create a “global village,” Marshall McLuhan wondered how medium determined content. When the physical presence of a book is replaced with a digital version, how does that impact our thought processes, our understanding of what we read and how we read it?’

Filed in Books & Publishing, History & Travel, Principal Articles | Also tagged | Comments (2)
The Fortnightly Review