· December, 2007

Stories about Arts & Culture from December, 2007

New Bloggers Use Poetry to Describe Their Communities, Feelings, Friends

The new bloggers of Rising Voices outreach projects in Colombia, Bolivia, and Bangladesh are more than just up-and-coming citizen journalists. They have also discovered the power of prose to reveal glimpses of the human emotions that bring us together and the local differences that make each of our communities unique.

31 December 2007

Ethiopia: Queen of Sheba, Now Available in French

Francophone music blog Roots and Culture interviews Samuel Malher, a religious scholar from Strasbourg who has written the first unabridged French translation of the Kebra Negast, a sacred Ethiopian text. It describes the heritage of the Ethiopian monarchs, who trace their lineage to King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, and how the Ethiopians became God's new chosen people when the Ark of the Covenant was taken from Israel to Ethiopia.

30 December 2007

Jordan: Film Festivals, Citizenship Law and More

From a film festival in Dubai, a Jordanian film maker is making his debut at Sundance. Mohammad Al Azraq reports on that as well as the citizenship law in Jordan, babies born out of wedlock and a book feast in the Netherlands.

29 December 2007

Bahamas: Theatre and Democracy

Nicolette Bethel agrees with artistic director Oskar Eustis that “The same emotion that is required for theatre to work is the emotion that is required for democracy to work —...

27 December 2007

Japan: Learning from the failure of Second Life

Second Life in Japan is virtually dead. While three-dimensional environments such as "meet me" and Hatena World have seen their popularity rise, the most famous virtual environment in the world has seen its virtual space depopulate in Japan. What lessons can be learned from the burst of the Second Life bubble? One blogger offers his thoughts.

27 December 2007

Romania: Dracula

Csíkszereda Musings re-reads Bram Stoker's ‘Dracula’ and writes about his surprising ethnic origins as well as Romania's flourishing Dracula-centered tourism industry.

26 December 2007