| Type | Title | Author | Date |
| FrontReport | The Edukators | Edward Hudgins | 9/8/2005 |
| Description: The latest leftist export-European, the film ''The Edukators,'' is about radicals who guilt-trip the rich by breaking into their homes, rearranging the furniture and leaving notes like ''You have too much money.'' This flick shows the ocean-wide moral gap that separates America from the Old World. |
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| Article | You Can't Handle the Truth! | Frederick Cookinham | 3/1/2005 |
| Description: Objectivists have defended honesty on the basis of self-interest. Films provide an excellent context for testing this original concept of honesty, because they engage us emotionally and prompt us to take ideas more seriously. |
|
| FrontReport | Scorsese's Aviator Reflects Randian Lessons | Edward Hudgins | 1/17/2005 |
| Description: In The Aviator, a bio-pic about Howard Hughes (1905-1976), director Martin Scorsese projects on the screen a moral message that is rarely found in philosophy books much less in movies: the path to joy in life is loving one's work. |
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| FrontReport | The Incredibles | David Kelley | 11/22/2004 |
| Description: The Incredibles: David Kelley reviews the movie, the many references to Ayn Rand that have been made by reviewers, and the culture of egalitarianism. |
|
| Article | Free Verse | Roger Donway | 9/1/2004 |
| Description: A selection of poetry recomendations--alll about freedom--from Roger Donway. |
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| Article | Poetry of Freedom | John Enright | 9/1/2004 |
| Description: John Enright discusses some of his favorite poems. Included are selections from Byron, Milton, Dryden and others. |
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| Article | Why Art Became Ugly | Stephen Hicks | 9/1/2004 |
| Description: Stephen Hicks shows that approximately a hundred years ago artists started down a road that has led them step by step to today's aesthetic dead-end. Hicks outlines the postmodern philosophy that underlies modern art, reviews famous pieces, and ends with a call for a new aesthetic that will be attuned to the realities of the twenty-first century. |
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| Letters | Letters: Art, Movies, Death (June, 2004) | | 6/1/2004 |
| Description: Art, artists, viewers, and value; The Virtues of Lost in Translation; Euthanasia |
|
| Miscellaneous | June Soundings | | 6/1/2004 |
| Description: Trashing petty regulations; Media refuse subpoenas; Postmodern prostitution in art; Voting on the truth of the Bible. |
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| FrontReport | Report from the Front: Cannes' Cultural Corruption | Edward Hudgins | 5/19/2004 |
| Description: The applause from a crowd of rich elites at the Cannes film festival for a movie bashing the rich is radical chic at its worse, and illustrating the need to reject an altruistic ethics. |
|
| Cultural Calendar | The Lovesong of Alexander Pope | Roger Donway | 5/1/2004 |
| Description: In one astonishing poem, a cool and witty Enlightenment Catholic made eternal a twelfth-century woman's cry for carnal love. |
|
| Review | A Romantic Manifesto | William Thomas | 5/1/2004 |
| Description: Fans of Ayn Rand have long awaited a new novel similar to hers in ideas and idealism. They may well find what they have been seeking in Alexandra York's recently published Crosspoints. |
|
| Perspectives | An Israeli Airman Attains New Heights in Painting | Michelle Fram-Cohen | 5/1/2004 |
| Description: When Uri Gil retired from the Israeli air force, he was the oldest combat pilot in the world still on active reserve duty. He was also an accomplished painter, whose quest for beauty has led him to master the oil-and-tempera technique of Jan van Eyck |
|
| Article | Mozart's Don Giovanni: An Enlightenment Hero? | John Kerns | 5/1/2004 |
| Description: The greatest of the Enlightenment's composers chose as one of his chief protagonists the seducer Don Giovanni. Did Mozart mean to present the Don as a symbol of independent thinking and action? Or is he supposed to be a dissolute roué who gets his just deserts by being dragged down to Hell? |
|
| Miscellaneous | Suggested Readings: The Fine Arts | | 5/1/2004 |
| Description: What Art is By Louis Torres and Michelle Marder Kamhi; From the Fountainhead to the Future, and Other Essays on Art and Excellence By Alexandra York; Human Accomplishment By Charles Murray; Music in Western Civilization By Paul Henry Lang |
|
| Review | The Silver Screen as Philosophic Mirror | Russell La Valle | 4/1/2004 |
| Description: Cultures have a sense of life, just as people do, and that sense of life sets the trends and styles of the culture. With that in mind, it is illuminating to look at the films nominated in the ''Best Picture'' category of the Academy Awards during the last two years. |
|
| Cultural Calendar | Michelangelo's David | Roger Donway | 3/1/2004 |
| Description: Roger Donway celebrates the achievement of Michelangelo's David. |
|
| Miscellaneous | Suggested Readings: Art and Culture | | 2/1/2004 |
| Description: From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life: 1500 to the Present By Jacques Barzun; The Preference for the Primitive: Episodes in the History of Western Taste and Art By Ernst Gombrich; The World of Art By Robert Payne; Art: A New History By Paul Johnson |
|
| Letters | Letters: My Choices, My Critics | Robert Bidinotto | 2/1/2004 |
| Description: Numerous readers of Navigator wrote to comment on the author’s recommendations in 'The Top Ten Films—Objectively Speaking' and 'One Hundred Film Classics.' In this article, the critics have their say, and the author responds. |
|
| Perspectives | Art and Ideals | David Kelley | 2/1/2004 |
| Description: The earliest known paintings and musical objects are approximately thirty to forty thousand years old, a time when man's life was a struggle for survival. Yet, unlike tools, these art objects have no clear survival value. Why, then, did humans begin creating such objects at that point in time? One hypothesis points to the development of man's conceptual capacity. |
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| Review | The Ten Best Films--Objectively Speaking | Robert James Bidinotto | 11/1/2003 |
| Description: To make the author’s list, a film must be technically proficient, advance an unambiguously heroic view of human potential, and manifest one or more of the distinctively Objectivist virtues: rationality, productiveness, intellectual independence, self-realization, and pride. Bonus points go to pro-capitalist movies. |
|
| Center News | David Kelley, Stephen Hicks, and Michael Newberry Addresses Conference of New Art Foundation | | 11/1/2003 |
| Description: The inaugural conference of the Foundation for the Advancement of Art, the mission of the organization is "to establish innovative representationalism as the alternative to postmodern art in the world's leading contemporary art museums." |
|
| Review | One Hundred Film Classics | Robert James Bidinotto | 11/1/2003 |
| Description: Using such categories as "Integrity ," "Justice," and "Grand Passions," Bidinotto compiles a shelf-full of movies for the Objectivist sense of life. |
|
| Letters | Letters: On Fantasy Fiction | | 10/1/2003 |
| Description: Michelle Fram Cohen responds to William Thomas's analysis of fantasy literature. |
|
| Perspectives | The Popular Art of Giuseppe Verdi | Roger Donway | 10/1/2003 |
| Description: Verdi (1813–1901) thoroughly embraced that Italian tradition of going to opera to enjoy it, even as he employed his craftsmanship to enrich it. |
|
| Review | Four Fantastic Sagas | William Thomas | 8/1/2003 |
| Description: A brief review of four fantasy series. |
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| Commentary | The Charms and Enchantments of Fantasy | William Thomas | 8/1/2003 |
| Description: Although fantasy fiction employs anti-Enlightenment trappings, it appeals to a reader's healthy desire to experience extraordinary characters and actions. |
|
| Perspectives | The Generous Imagination of William Shakespeare | Susan McCloskey | 4/29/2003 |
| Description: Shakespeare's characters do not live merely in his work; they are complete human beings. |
|
| Cultural Calendar | The Productive Genius of Johann Sebastian Bach | William Thomas | 3/31/2003 |
| Description: Bach mastered the conventional forms of music, then used their untapped possibilities to create works never surpassed before or since. Today’s composers, rather than seeking to shock audiences, should take a lesson from the master. |
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| Review | Getting It Wrong | Robert Bidinotto | 3/29/2003 |
| Description: Robert Bidinotto dissects William F. Buckley’s fictional history of the conservative and Objectivist movements. Ayn Rand |
|
| Miscellaneous | Suggested Readings: Art and Culture | | 2/28/2003 |
| Description: From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life: 1500 to the Present
By Jacques Barzun; The Preference for the Primitive: Episodes in the History of Western Taste and Art
By Ernst Gombrich; The World of Art
By Robert Payne; Against the Grain: The New Criterion on Art and Intellect at the End of the Twentieth Century
Edited by Hilton Kramer and Roger Kimball |
|
| Article | Where's the Art in Today's Art Education? | Michelle Marder Kamhi | 2/28/2003 |
| Description:
Advocates for art education have made inroads toward establishing the visual arts as part of primary- and secondary-school education. Nevertheless, there is cause for deep concern, for serious art of high quality has been rendered more marginal to the content of these programs. It has been displaced by trivial works of popular art and by cultural artifacts, selected mostly for the hidden sociopolitical messages that can be wrung from them. |
|
| Commentary | Vandal Chic | Heather Mac Donald | 8/30/2002 |
| Description: Graffiti is metastasizing again throughout New York City. But if the New York Times’s culture critics are to be believed, New Yorkers should be thrilled. Every few months, the paper of record disgorges itself of an article breathlessly celebrating graffiti vandalism as a vital urban art form. |
|
| Commentary | The Rachmaninoff Revival | Eric Barnhill | 5/31/2002 |
| Description: The reputation of the great Russian Romantic, who was Ayn Rand's favorite composer, continues to grow. |
|
| Commentary | Switzerland's Most Wanted | Eric Barnhill | 2/28/2002 |
| Description: Just as government has long kept Pierre Boulez's career afloat, so it has finally granted him his lifelong wish to be declared a threat to bourgeois peace. |
|
| Interview | Opera: The Next Objectivist Obsession? | | 2/28/2002 |
| Description: The Objectivist community has thrilled to the novels of Hugo and Dostoevsky, the plays of Wilde and Coward, and teh concerti of Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky. Will the Operas of Mozart and Rossini be next? That's the motive behind John Kerns's summer seminar course. |
|
| Miscellaneous | Suggested Readings: Victor Hugo and Romanticism | | 1/11/2002 |
| Description: Suggested Readings: Victor Hugo and Romanticism, including a biography by Graham Robb, Hugo's poems, 'Romanticism and its Discontents,' and 'Classic, Romantic, and Modern' |
|
| Article | Romanticism is Dead! Long Live Romanticism! | Michelle Fram-Cohen | 1/11/2002 |
| Description: Victor Hugo wrote Ninety-Three to revive Romanticism. A century later, Ayn Rand wrote The Romantic Manifesto for the same purpose, and she included her "Introduction" to Ninety-Three as a key chapter. Michelle Fram-Cohen explains why it was the perfect choice. |
|
| Commentary | The Irrelevance of the Avant-Garde | Eric Barnhill | 11/7/2001 |
| Description: Internationally known concert pianist Eric Barnhill observes that composers can offer us nothing today, musically or intellectually. |
|
| Article | 'It Was Like a Movie':The Atrocity and the Arts | Richard Speer | 10/12/2001 |
| Description: The terrorist attacks reminded many people of contemporary movies. That says worlds about the state of cinema, writes Richard Speer. |
|
| Letters | Letters: Art and Education (Aug 2001) | | 8/10/2001 |
| Description: In response to the Navigator interview with Alexandra York about art, education, and Ayn Rand. |
|
| Interview | Alexandra York and ART | | 6/1/2001 |
| Description: Sidebar to main interview with Alexandra York |
|
| Interview | Art And Education | | 6/1/2001 |
| Description: In this exclusive interview, Alexandra York, president of American Renaissance for the Twenty-First Century, argues that art is fundamental to a well-rounded education. |
|
| Interview | Alexandra York on Ayn Rand | | 6/1/2001 |
| Description: Sidebar to main interview with Alexandra York |
|
| Review | A Philosopher Reads Fiction | William Thomas | 5/1/2000 |
| Description: A review of The Fountainhead: An American Novel by Douglas J. Den Uyl. |
|
| Review | The Author as Craftsman | Russell La Valle | 2/1/2000 |
| Description: A review of The Art of Fiction: A Guide for Writers and Readers by Ayn Rand, edited by Tore Boeckmann. |
|
| Excerpt | How to Read a Novel | Susan McCloskey | 1/1/2000 |
| Description: An excerpt from Susan McCloskey's 1999 summer seminar talk that represents approximately half her lecture. |
|
| Article | Cato and the Enlightenment Mind | Stephen Miller | 12/1/1999 |
| Description: George Washington had it performed
at Valley Forge to inspire the troops. The most memorable words of
Patrick Henry and Nathan Hale are but allusions to its lines. Yet
Joseph Addison's Cato is now all but forgotten. Stephen Miller,
formerly editor of a newsletter on Soviet and East European Affairs
(published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty), tells the story of
the drama's rise and fall. |
|
| Interview | Satisfying the Soul: An Interview with Michael Newberry | | 9/1/1999 |
| Description: An interview with painter Michael Newberry. |
|
| Excerpt | Why Man Needs Art | William Thomas | 8/1/1999 |
| Description: An excerpt from the forthcoming Logical Structure of Objectivism |
|
| Interview | Ayn Rand Swings! | | 1/1/1999 |
| Description: An interview with jazz musician Vincent Herring that includes a discussion of Ayn Rand's influence on his music. |
|
| Interview | The Enlightenment Mind of John M. Ellis | | 8/1/1998 |
| Description: This interview with John M. Ellis focuses on his involvement in fighting the culture wars, the political correctness found on campus, and his most recent book, Literature Lost. |
|
| Article | Wright and Rand | Peter Reidy | 8/1/1998 |
| Description: Peter Reidy examines the personal and intellectual ties between Ayn Rand and Frank Lloyd Wright. |
|
| Review | Brief Review: 'The Librarian Who Measured the Earth' by Kathryn Lasky | Mary Heinking | 6/1/1998 |
| Description: A brief review of "The Librarian Who Measured the Earth" by Kathryn Lasky |
|
| Review | Brief Review: 'The Snow Goose' by Paul Gallico | Arnold Blaise | 6/1/1998 |
| Description: A brief review of "The Snow Goose" by Paul Gallico |
|
| Review | The Beacon at Alexandria, By Gillian Bradshaw | William Thomas | 12/1/1997 |
| Description: William Thomas recommends a novel set in the late Roman Empire and featuring a heroine who disguises herself as a eunuch in order to become a physician--'an exciting tale that celebrates individualism, courage, and professional competence. |
|
| Review | The Last of the Wine, By Mary Renault | Roger Donway | 12/1/1997 |
| Description: Mary Renault brings Plato's dialogues alive in The Last of the Wine. |
|
| Letters | Letters: Libertarianism and Abelard and Heloise (October 1997) | | 10/1/1997 |
| Description: Libertarianism and Nathaniel Branden recommends the play, Abelard and Heloise, which he calls the most magnificent written in this century. |
|
| Review | Brief Review: 'Peter Abelard' by Helen Waddell | Roger Donway | 9/1/1997 |
| Description: A brief review of "Peter Abelard" by Helen Waddell. |
|
| Review | Brief Review: 'Morpho Eugenia', by A.S. Byatt | Michelle Marder Kamhi | 9/1/1997 |
| Description: A brief review of "Morpho Eugenia" by A. S. Byatt. |
|
| Excerpt | Ayn Rand and Tragedy | Kirsti Minsaas | 12/1/1996 |
| Description: At the Institute's 1996 Summer Seminar, Kirsti Minsaas, a graduate student at the University of Oslo, Norway, presented two lectures on Ayn Rand and Tragedy. Following are relatively brief excerpts from the first lecture. |
|
| Excerpt | Concept Formation and the Fiction of Ayn Rand | Kirsti Minsaas | 11/1/1995 |
| Description: An excerpt from a lecture given by Kirsti Minsaas at the 1995 IOS Summer Seminar on the Rand used her theory of concept-formation in her literary theory. |
|
| Excerpt | Structure and Meaning in Ayn Rand's Novels | Kirsti Minsaas | 12/1/1994 |
| Description: Excerpts from Kirsti Minsaas's talk on the Structure and Meaning in Ayn Rand's Novels |
|
| Excerpt | The Literary Achievement of The Fountainhead | Stephen Cox | 9/1/1993 |
| Description: Excerpt from the 50th Anniversary Celebration of The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand |
|
| Excerpt | Was Shakespeare A Determinist? | Susan McCloskey | 6/1/1992 |
| Description: A novel look at Shakespeare's Hamlet |
|
| Audio | The Declaration of Independence as a Literary and Philosophical Work | David Mayer | |
Description: Audio Excerpt. Citing Jefferson's "Summary View of the Rights of British America," Dr. Mayer shows how the American philosophy of government is one premised on individual rights.
Buy the audiotape at The Objectivism Store |
|
| Audio | Odysseus, Jesus, and Dagny | Susan McCloskey | |
Description: Audio Excerpt. To show the depth and striking originality of Ayn Rand's conception of human greatness, Dr. McCloskey compares Atlas Shrugged with Homer's Odyssey as an expression of Greek values and with the Gospels as an expression of Christian values.
Buy the audiotape at The Objectivism Store |
|
| Audio | How to Read A Novel Audio | Susan McCloskey | |
Description: Audio Excerpt. While many people read novels for the pleasure of following a good story, works of literature also offer riches in their use of language, detail, form and context. Using excerpts drawn principally from Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, Dr. McCloskey demonstrates how these elements cooperate with plot, characterization, and theme to express a novel's many layers of meaning.
Buy the audiotape at The Objectivism Store |
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