Writers and Editors

Updated frequently. Will keep adding entries, not to support sides but to get the big picture. Go to the original articles to get their full story.

• Striking deals to end campus protests, some colleges invite discussion of their investments (Kathleen Foody, Karen Matthews, Mike Catalini, and MIchael Hill, AP News, 5-3-24) Anti-war demonstrations ceased this week at a small number of U.S. universities after school leaders struck deals with pro-Palestinian protesters, fending off possible disruptions of final exams and graduation ceremonies. The agreements at schools including Brown, Northwestern and Rutgers stand out amid the chaotic scenes and 2,400-plus arrests on 46 campuses nationwide since April 17.
    Deals included commitments by universities to review their investments in Israel or hear calls to stop doing business with the longtime U.S. ally. Many protester demands have zeroed in on links to the Israeli military as the war grinds on in Gaza.

  What to know about student protests
---What's happening: Student protests over the Israel-Hamas war have popped up at many college campuses following the arrest of demonstrators in April at Columbia University.
---Why: The students are protesting the war's death toll and are calling for universities to separate themselves from any companies that are advancing Israel's military efforts in Gaza.
---On campus: As students around the country protest, student journalists are covering their peers in a moment of uncertainty.

• 2024 pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses Wikipedia's entry is more thorough than many news stories, trying to cover many aspects of, and angles on, the protests.

• California police move in to dismantle pro-Palestinian protest camp at UCLA (Reuters, 5-2-24)
    "Hundreds of helmeted police muscled their way into a central plaza of the University of California at Los Angeles early on Thursday to dismantle a pro-Palestinian protest camp attacked the previous night by pro-Israel supporters.
    "The pre-dawn police crackdown at UCLA marked the latest flashpoint for mounting tensions on U.S. college campuses, where protests over Israel's conduct of the war in Gaza have led to student clashes with each other and law enforcement.
    "Live TV footage showed about six protesters under arrest, kneeling on the ground, their hands bound behind their backs with zip-ties.
    "Dozens of loud explosions were heard during the clash from flash-bang charges, or stun grenades, fired by police."

    

• DRAD Statement: As a free speech organization, we condemn campus crackdowns (Defending Rights & Dissent, 5-1-24)
   "Defending Rights & Dissent condemns the crackdown taking place across campuses in the United States. Across the country, we have seen protests calling for a ceasefire and end to Israel’s brutal war in Gaza. Increasingly, many of these protests have taken place on America’s campuses. Since the Columbia University occupation began on April 17, protests, including encampments, have spread across college campuses as students link their opposition to Israel’s war with demands for university divestment. In spite of false claims to the contrary, the protests have been overwhelmingly peaceful and nonviolent.
   "The nonviolent nature of the protests has been no protection against police violence. Police have arrested and assaulted both students and professors engaged in peaceful protests. They’ve even arrested journalists covering the protests. Police have shown up to peaceful protests in riot gear or on horseback. They have used tear gas, projectiles, tasers, and batons against the protesters. The situation continues to develop rapidly, but at the time of publication, arrests had taken place on nearly thirty separate college campuses.
   "These violent attacks on protesters have been accompanied by the spread of false information designed to demonize the protesters and facilitate the crackdown against them. Northwestern University allowed the police to break up students protests and arrest 102 students. The university justified its decision by stating one of the pro-Palestine protesters yelled “kill the Jews.” In fact, according to journalists on the ground, a pro-Israel counter protester engaged in what they described as a “provocative joke.” Multiple media outlets repeated a story that a protester stabbed a Yale student in the eye because the student was Jewish. This story turned out to be false. A reporter shared a picture on social media purportedly of a Columbia student protester holding a despicably anti-Semitic sign. Later, it was revealed that not only was the man not a student protester, the picture was not even taken on Columbia’s campus. The individual, who has no connection to advocacy for Palestinian rights, frequently holds anti-Semitic displays across New York City. False stories have been repeated by politicians advocating for a crackdown on student protests.
    Read the full story HERE

• UCLA students describe violent attack on Gaza protest encampment: ‘It was terrifying’ (Dani Anguiano in Los Angeles, The Guardian, 5-1-24)

Slow response from authorities left students shocked as people wearing white masks attacked pro-Palestine protesters
   When Meghna Nair, a second-year student at the University of California, Los Angeles, saw a masked group of people headed toward the pro-Palestine encampment on campus late Tuesday evening, she expected trouble.
   “I knew where they were going. I had an idea what they planned to do,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do.”
   “But the violence that unfolded on the public university’s campus overnight and the slow response from authorities shocked Nair and other UCLA students.
   “Late Tuesday night, a masked group surrounded the encampment in solidarity with Gaza, throwing fireworks and violently attacking students. Students and reporters for multiple outlets said university-hired security forces locked themselves in nearby buildings and police looked on for hours before intervening.
   "UCLA cancelled all classes on Wednesday and with the exception of the central meeting area, the normally lively campus was mostly deserted. A helicopter hovered overhead throughout the morning while groups of security guards and law enforcement stood around the sectioned off encampment. Students slowed as they passed the barricades, taking in the scene." ...
   "Nair said she was sickened by the attacks on students who she viewed as courageous for standing up for what they believe in and advocating for Palestinians.
   “They didn’t start this. This was a peaceful protest,” she said. “What I saw last night, those people, as far as I know, were just random people coming in on to our campus, full grown adults and they started attacking kids.”

• Noah Goldberg Twitter thread (Noah Goldberg @Noah__Goldberg) on Twitter. "A nugget tucked in mine and @LAcrimes reporting on police response at UCLA last night.
According to three sources, Mayor Bass had to call UCLA Chancellor Gene Block last night to get the chancellor to allow LAPD to deploy on the campus."

• Police move in and begin dismantling pro-Palestinian demonstrators’ encampment at UCLA (Los Angeles, AP/WTOP, 5-24) "Police removed barricades and began dismantling a pro-Palestinian demonstrators’ fortified encampment early Thursday at the University of California, Los Angeles, after hundreds of protesters defied police orders to leave, about 24 hours after counterprotesters attacked a tent encampment on the campus.
     "Police methodically ripped apart the encampment’s barricade of plywood, pallets, metal fences and trash dumpsters and made an opening toward dozens of tents of demonstrators. Police also began to pull down canopies and tents. Demonstrators held umbrellas like shields as they faced off with dozens of officers.
     "The police action occurred a night after the UCLA administration and campus police waited hours to stop the counterprotesters’ attack. The delay drew condemnation from Muslim students and California Gov. Gavin Newsom." 

• Governor @GavinNewsom statement on the violence that unfolded at @UCLA. "I condemn the violence at UCLA last night. The law is clear: The right to free speech does not extend to inciting violence, vandalism, or lawlessness on campus. Those who engage in illegal behavior must be held accountable for their actions--including through criminal prosecution, suspension, or expulsion." ~ Governor Gavin Newsom

• Biden says ‘order must prevail’ during campus protests over the war in Gaza (Chris Megerian, AP News, 5-2-24) The Democratic president broke days of silence on the protests with his remarks, which followed mounting criticism from Republicans who have tried to turn scenes of unrest into a campaign cudgel. By focusing on a law-and-order message while defending the right to free speech, Biden is grasping for a middle ground on an intensely divisive issue in the middle of his reelection campaign.

 
• Student journalists discuss covering the campus protests (PBS NewsHour, 5-1-24)
--- Daily News Lessons (many of them, some on protests, most on issues of the day. From PBS NewsHour)

 
• Student journalists discuss covering the campus protests against Israel’s war in Gaza (Transcript, PBS NewsHour, 4-30-24: reporting: Amna Nawaz, Karina Cuevas, Ethan Dodd, Leila Jackson) News coverage has been "very over the top on the days where there is violence and there is brutality by police possibly, but not so much when there is just peaceful protests that have been happening in the days since." Feedback invited.

• Student journalists are covering their own campuses in convulsion. Here’s what they have to say (David Bauder and Christine Fernando, AP News, 5-2-24) The Columbia-based Pulitzer Prize Board, meeting this weekend to decide on its annual prizes, issued a statement on Thursday recognizing “the tireless efforts of student journalists across our nation’s college campuses, who are covering protests and unrest in the face of great personal and academic risk.”
    The protest movement has become a training ground for students grappling with complicated editorial decisions for some of the first times in their careers. They confront the awkwardness of reporting on their peers and the challenge not to get swept up in emotion.
    On American campuses awash in anger this spring, student journalists are in the center of it all, sometimes uncomfortably so.

    “This is your legacy,” the Spectator wrote — “a president more focused on the brand of your university than the safety of your students and their demands for justice.”
    “This is a moment in our campus’ history,” said Arianna Smith, editor-in-chief of The Lantern at Ohio State University. “Being able to contribute to its coverage is a privilege we don’t take lightly.   We’re under a lot of pressure to get it right, to be accurate, so that’s what we’re striving to do.”
    At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, student journalists are also making difficult decisions about anonymous sourcing. Managing Editor Liv Reilly said photographers are being mindful not to take photos that show faces of people who fear being arrested."

 

• The protests over the Israel-Hamas war put a spotlight on college endowments (Thalia Beaty, AP News, 4-26-24)

    “Divest from death” read the bubble letters written in chalk on the sidewalk on Tuesday outside of The New School in New York City.

    "Campaigns to pressure universities to divest for political or ethical reasons go back decades, at least to the 1970s when students pressured schools to withdraw from investments that benefited South Africa under apartheid rule. More recently, in the early aughts, schools made rules barring investments in things like alcohol, tobacco and gambling, according to a report from the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) and Commonfund.

    "Campus protests are bringing attention to who controls university endowments and how decisions about those investments get made. Endowments usually are managed by a board of trustees at the university and the purpose of any endowment is agreed upon by the donors, usually to benefit the institution. They don’t “belong” to current students, faculty or alumni but rather to the organization itself."  A thoughtful piece.

• US campus protests: hundreds of riot police move in to disperse pro-Palestinian demonstrators at UCLA – live (Gloria Oladipo; Fran Lawther, Amy Sedghi, Hamish Mackay, Jonathan Yerushalmy and Lois Beckett, The Guardian, 5-2-24)
   "Officers in tactical gear moving on to campus in latest flashpoint for mounting tensions over protests at US colleges.
   "As police helicopters hovered overhead, the sound of flash-bangs, which produce a bright light and a loud noise to disorient and stun people, pierced the air. Protesters chanted “where were you last night?” as the officers approached.
   "California Highway Patrol officers wearing face shields and protective vests stood with their batons protruding out to separate them from demonstrators, who wore helmets and gas masks and chanted, “you want peace. We want justice.”
   "Police methodically ripped apart the encampment’s barricade of plywood, pallets, metal fences and trash dumpsters and made an opening toward dozens of tents of demonstrators. Police also began to pull down canopies and tents. Demonstrators held umbrellas like shields as they faced off with dozens of officers."

• ‘Unacceptable’: Why it took hours for police to quell attack at UCLA pro-Palestinian camp (Noah Goldberg, Richard Winton and Summer Lin, Los Angeles Times, 5-1-24)
   "When dozens of counterprotesters swarmed UCLA late Tuesday night, attacking the Palestinian solidarity encampment at the center of campus, university authorities were quickly overwhelmed.
   "Law enforcement sources told The Times there were only a few UCLA police officers on hand. They tried to stop the violence but were no match for the crowd and had to retreat, having been attacked themselves, the sources said.
   "A group of unarmed private security guards was there as well. But the guards were hired mainly to protect campus buildings, not to break up fights or make arrests. So they observed the scene as it descended into chaos.
   "It would take about three hours for scores of California Highway Patrol officers and police from Los Angeles and other agencies to fully bring the situation under control.
   "The response to the violence is now under increasing scrutiny, with many on campus and outside criticizing UCLA for not handling the violent counterprotest better."

• British Colleges Are Handling Protests Differently. Will It Pay Off? (Stephen Castle, NY Times, 5-11-24) University leaders have so far adopted a more permissive attitude to pro-Palestinian encampments than their U.S. counterparts. Here’s why.

• Where are the US college campus protests and what is happening? (Jonathan Yerushalmy, Helen Livingstone, and Erum Salam, Explainer, The Guardian, 5-2-24) Protest encampments have been set up on about 30 campuses across the US over the Israel-Gaza war, with unrest flaring at some after police moved in to clear out protesters

 

To post a link to another story, be sure to provide an accurate, working URL. The URL for this last item, for example, is

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/may/02/where-are-the-us-college-campus-protests-and-what-is-happening 

Small presses: A troubled sector

• Small Press Distribution (1969 – 2024) "After 55 years, Small Press Distribution (SPD)—one of the last remaining independent book distributors in the US—was shutting down immediately, with no advance notice or transitional support." Against all odds, a tiny distribution service in the back of Berkeley’s Serendipity Books grew to help authors attain some of the literary world’s crowning achievements. Alas, "several years of declining sales and the loss of grant support from almost every institution that annually supported SPD have combined to squeeze our budget beyond the breaking point....Our inventory of 300,000 books is in safe hands, having been transferred to our SPD Next partners Ingram Content Group and Publishers Storage and Shipping (PSSC) over the past several months. You will need to contact Ingram or PSSC to discuss distribution options and the return or disposition of your books."
---“The Small Press World is About to Fall Apart.” On the Collapse of Small Press Distribution (Adam Morgan, LitHub, 4-3-24) "Distributors are perhaps the most opaque and byzantine part of the publishing industry. When you buy a book on Amazon or Bookshop.org, it’s usually the distributor—not the publisher—who ships you a copy from its warehouse. When bookstores, libraries, and schools order books for their brick-and-mortar locations, they use online catalogs populated by distributors. Even further, most distributors (including SPD, before it vanished) employ sales teams that work to get copies in Barnes & Noble, independent bookstores, and other retail outlets like gift shops. Without a distributor, presses like Black Lawrence and Noemi are completely cut off from their main sources of income—and for some, SPD might have been the only affordable option left."
• How to Evaluate Small Publishers—Plus Digital-Only Presses and Hybrids (Jane Friedman, 6-25-18) "Small publishers often have little or nothing in common with each other; each has unique contracts, distribution power, and quality, not to mention title count and revenue. That said, small presses can be alike in that they take pride in their status (and often rightly so) and call themselves “independent publishers,” to emphasize their creativity or more personal approach, and to differentiate themselves from corporately owned behemoths."
• The Key Book Publishing Paths: 2022-2023 (Jane Friedman's excellent chart). Should you self-publish or traditionally publish? This infographic will help you determine the best choice for you and your project. Six categories analyzed: The Big Five, Other Traditional, Small Presses, Self-Publishing and Hybrid, Indie and DIY, and Social (serialization, fan fiction, social media and blogs, Patreon/patronage). A realistic description of small presses (albeit hard to read in small type).

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• Small Presses (Writer Beware) See Submitting to a Small Press: Issues to Consider and Evaluating a Small Press (Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association)
• Small Press Complaints (Writer Beware) Lots of them! Shines a bright light into the dark corners of the shadow-world of literary scams, schemes, and pitfalls.
• Preditors and Editors list of book publishers and distributors lists many small presses and tells you which ones to avoid, and why.

• Publishing With a Small Press: Straddling the Indie-Traditional Gap (Eliot Peper on Jane Friedman's blog, 7-19-23) Small presses often have more flexible contract terms than the Big Five. Small presses run the production and distribution processes for you. Small presses often have more flexible contract terms than the Big Five.

    "Traditional publishers typically offer somewhere between 5-15 percent gross royalty to authors and 25% net royalty on ebooks. I received a 50/50 net royalty split and retained many subsidiary rights to my work. If you have specific priorities you want to negotiate, you’ll probably be able to find a healthy middle ground."
• Better Than Fall Back: The Small Press Option (Shirley Showalter on Jane Friedman's blog, 7-30-13, updated 7-19-23) Several mini-articles, worth a look.
• Small Press Distribution: An Interview with Brent Cunningham (RealPants.com)
• Complete Guide to Small Press Publishing: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Small Presses for Writers (Kate Sullivan, TCK Publishing,
• 3 Unique Research Methods for Identifying Small Publishers (Rosalie Morales Kearns on Jane Friedman's blog, 7-19-23) Browse review venues that specialize in small-press books. Identify awards for small-press books. Check bestsellers and new releases through book distributors that specialize in small-press books. With many useful links.

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• How Small Presses Are Welcoming More Women Into Publishing (Aaron Calvin, Pacific Standard, 12-14-16) Dorothy, YesYes Books, and Graywolf Press have made it their mission to publish more women — and reform an industry that more often celebrates the achievements of men.
• Against Conglomeration: Nonprofit Publishing and American Literature After 1980 (Dan Sinykin and Edwin Roland, Post45, 4-21-21) In 2008, Zadie Smith imagined "Two Paths for the Novel." The next year, Mark McGurl published The Program Era, about how creative writing programs changed American literature.... The editors of n+1 responded by proposing that the two paths for the novel were MFA or NYC: creative writing programs or New York publishing....By missing corporate conglomeration, they miss the whole. The two paths paved by the period — which subsume and reorient realism or avant-garde, MFA or NYC — were commercial or nonprofit. 1980 marked the start of this era. Under tremendous financial pressure, commercial and nonprofit publishers split in their approaches to literariness. Writers of color, who make up a disproportionately small fraction of literary production, do not align easily along the intersecting axes of conglomeration and literariness. This literary order — organized around conglomeration, literariness, and diversity — lasted twenty-seven years, from 1980 to 2007. It ended with the financial crisis and the emergence of Amazon as a major player in publishing....In 2003, Graywolf broke from the indie distributor that connects small presses across the US to partner with Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. "It is a step away from the band of 'small presses' and into that virtually empty gap between us and the substantial independent/literary presses"...
• 5 Ways Small Press Publishers Offer Opportunities for New Authors (Emily Wenstrom, The Write Life, 8-30-16)
• 3 Unique Research Methods for Identifying Small Publishers (Rosalie Morales Kearns on Jane Friedman's blog, 3-19-2020)
• The Big, Big List of Indie Publishers and Small Presses (Nonconformist Authors, The Nonconformist, Medium, 9-14-19) 150+ proofs that indie is beautiful.
• 24 of Our Favorite Small Presses (Powell's Books, 3-14-18)
• 20 Small Press Books You Might Have Missed (Ruth Minah Buchwald, Electric Lit, 8-29-19)

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The following dispatches and quotes about the late beloved Marc Pachter are posted here on my Writers and Editors blog partly to make it easy for Marc's friends and colleagues to post comments. Marc died after a yearlong celebration of his 80th birthday, filled with travels to his favorite people, haunts, and cultural hotspots in Asia, Europe, South America, and the United States.

 

You can watch the Memorial service for Marc Pachter, April 13, 2024 (video online), held at the National Portrait Gallery. 

 

• Marc Pachter, Who Revived National Portrait Gallery, Dies at 80 (Sam Roberts, NY Times, 2-23-24)
     Marc Pachter, who transformed the National Portrait Gallery in Washington from a collection primarily of solemn paintings of old white men into a more up-to-date museum that now includes illustrations and interviews with diverse living luminaries, died on Feb. 17 in Bangkok. He was 80.
     The cause was cardiac arrest, his son, Adam, said. Mr. Pachter, who [after many years of living in Washington DC] lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, died in a hospital while vacationing in Thailand.
     As director of the Portrait Gallery from 2000 to 2007, Mr. Pachter presided over a $300 million renovation that reimagined the museum while maintaining its artistic integrity.

     A memorial service was held at the National Portrait Gallery on Saturday, April 13, at 9 am in the Kugod Courtyard (at 8th and G Streets NW, DC).

     It was a beautiful day in a beautiful setting, and it was particularly nice to hear Marc's son and daughter, Adam and Gillian, talk about life with their delightfully nontraditional father.

 

• Marc's memorable talk on the Living Self Portrait Series (Marc Pachter, Director Emeritus, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution (EG3) February, 2008)

     If you listen to nothing else, listen to this lecture. Marc started to worry about the fact that people didn't get their portraits painted anymore, so he came up with the remarkable Living Self-Portrait Series. As a cultural historian, Marc conducted live interviews with some of the most intriguing characters in recent American history as part of this series created for the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery.  In this talk he reveals the secret to a great interview and shares extraordinary stories of talking with Steve Martin, Clare Booth Luce and more. 

         In celebrating great American lives, Marc preferred sprawling, messy cities like LA and Berlin to beautiful self-regarding ones like SF and Paris, but these portraits were of Americans of a certain age (60s thru 90s), the idea being to sit at the feet of people who "know how the story turned out. It's amazing what people will say when they know how the story turns out."  Marc  is particularly interesting on how to do interviews that are different--that are empathic, that feel like what people want to say.  He talks about qualities in the interview subject that made them more interesting (or boring) and about what his best and worst moments were in creating the series.  In a sense, this is also a living portrait of Marc.

       This is also available as The art of the interview (Marc Pachter, video with transcript, listed withTed Talks, January 2008)

        Marc is profiled here as a cultural historian.

• Marc Pachter: Remembering a Mentor and Friend (Gordon H. "Nick" Mueller, President & CEO Emeritus of The National World War II Museum, 2-23-24) Mueller mourns the loss of friend and colleague Marc Pachter. "A talent in the museum world such as Marc comes along only once in a generation. His passion for history, art, and culture were unmatched, and his exuberance was highly infectious. Mueller writes about Marc's contributions to the museum world.

• Marc Pachter, museum chief who led race to save Washington portrait, dies at 80 - The Washington Post
"Marc Pachter, an American cultural historian at the Smithsonian Institution who as director of the National Portrait Gallery led a nail-biting scramble for donors in 2001 that kept a famed painting of George Washington from leaving the collection for possible auction, died Feb. 17 in Bangkok. He was 80. He had a heart attack at an apartment he rented during an extended stay in Thailand, said his son, Adam Pachter.
     "Mr. Pachter described himself as a “a teller of lives” in his roles across the Smithsonian system, including overseeing a top-to-bottom renovation of the Portrait Gallery as director from 2000 to 2007. As director of the National Portrait Gallery in 2001, he hunted for a donor to keep a famed painting of Washington in the collection. He found one."

• In Memoriam: Marc Pachter 1943–2024 (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, 2-21-24) "Marc Pachter's distinguished career at the Smithsonian spanned more than thirty-three years. In addition to being the National Portrait Gallery's director, he served as the museum’s chief historian and assistant director. Marc was the Smithsonian assistant secretary for external affairs, chair of the Smithsonian’s 150th anniversary celebration in 1996, and acting director of the National Museum of American History." And more, about his career with the Smithsonian.

• Q&A with Marc Pachter (C-SPAN, 12-12-07, 58 minutes) A fascinating Q&A. Marc Pachter talked with Brian Lamb about his work at the National Portrait Gallery and the operations of the Smithsonian Institution. He retired in 2007 after 33 years at the Smithsonian, where he served as chief historian and assistant director at the Portrait Gallery, acting director of the National Museum of American History, as well as deputy assistant secretary for external affairs and chair of the Smithsonian's 150th anniversary celebration in 1996.

     Asked about being interviewed: "Well, I just told my son, Adam, that it's the first time I've ever been nervous on stage. It's because, when you're the interviewer, you're in control of the situation and when you're being interviewed, suddenly I realize, or whether you're being portrayed in a portrait or written about in a biography, somebody else is in charge of your life, so it's interesting."

    The worst quality in an interviewee, says Marc: Modesty.

    About his education: 'Berkeley made me lucid.'

    His ex-wife Lisa put his finger on why they never loved Washington DC: "It lacks a sense of healing irony. This is a very literal place." But the opportunities it gave him he would forever be grateful for.

---See Additional C-SPAN interviews with Marc.

 
• “History Is A Construct. A Lot Happened, But What Do We Remember From It?” (Heather Jaber and Nicole Bogart, Salzburg Global News, 1-29-18) As a historian and former museum director of the National Portrait Gallery, Marc Pachter was tasked with signifying achievement in American culture. “This used to be very easy… White men on horses, usually generals or Presidents,” he explains.

     “True history began with thinking of race and gender in general. But... the road was still stopping short of LGBT questions – also part of the reveal of what a culture really is.” During his tenure at the Gallery in Washington, DC, Pachter, a multi-time Fellow of Salzburg Global Seminar, "was involved in introducing the controversial HIDE/SEEK exhibition to the National Portrait Gallery in which homosexuality was depicted as a core theme in the work of many American artists. He believes national museums play an important role in signaling a growing consensus within society to discuss the history of LGBT communities. Moreover, including those exhibitions acknowledge that LGBT rights and visibility are not new issues – they have always existed in history."
---Marc Pachter on history as a construct: What do we remember from it? (YouTube video, Salzburg Global Seminar, 9-30-15) Marc Pachter in conversation with Salzburg Global LGBT Forum Chair Dr. Klaus Mueller on public readiness for using lenses of race, gender, and sexuality on history.

      As explained on the Gallery’s website, the exhibition (developed by a team under his successor), which ran from October 2010 to November 2011, was “the first major museum exhibition to focus on sexual difference in the making of modern American portraiture. HIDE/SEEK considers such themes as the role of sexual difference in depicting modern America; how artists explored the fluidity of sexuality and gender; how major themes in modern art--especially abstraction--were influenced by social marginalization; and how art reflected society's evolving and changing attitudes toward sexuality, desire, and romantic attachment.”

      “It boils down to invisibility; history is a construct; lots happened, but what do we remember from it?” Pachter says. “And that we chose as a nation not to think about it says a lot. The history was always there… People that were not known as gay were living their lives. The nation needed to say: our history telling is incomplete. “We already knew that about race; we already knew that about women… but we needed to think this way [about queer history]. It felt both revolutionary and, happily, in the end ordinary to do this.” (Download PDF of that issue.)

• Smithsonian's Veteran Man-in-the-Middle Stands His Ground (Adam Goodheart, In the Capital, NY Times, 4-24-2002)
     "The tensions at the history museum would test any acting director -- though in some ways Marc Pachter seems the perfect man for the challenge. A 28-year veteran at the institution, he was regarded as a pathfinder through the thicket of the cultural wars of the 90's. Now, his admirers say, he is a lone voice of reason drowned out in the continuing din. The question, they say, is how much any museum director, even a visionary, can accomplish amid the current tensions.
    "Mr. Pachter is, in a sense, the Smithsonian's resident philosopher -- a role that he quickly steps into when we finally reach the ruby slippers. On this afternoon, the slippers' display case is surrounded by throngs of school-age visitors. As Mr. Pachter surveys the scene with satisfaction, I ask him the type of question that the museum's detractors have long raised: isn't Judy Garland's footwear a bit trivial to be given a place of honor in a national museum?
     '' 'They're here because they're important to people,'' he answers. ''It's a touchstone to their childhood, a point of contact with the whole story of 'The Wizard of Oz' and how that came to be created. It's a way of getting them to think of history as including their own lives.'
     "Many of the Smithsonian's critics, Mr. Pachter says, talk as if the museum were faced with a stark choice between academia or Disney World. For Mr. Pachter, the best analogy for a museum's cultural role is another, perhaps slightly old-fashioned, comparison: a cathedral. It's a view he has been preaching for years in a number of well-regarded speeches and articles to the international museum world, and, possibly less effectively, to his Smithsonian colleagues. Indeed, a few days after the Reynolds gift was withdrawn, Mr. Pachter was at Oxford University to deliver a prestigious Slade lecture, a speech he titled ''The Museum as a Sacred Place in a Secular Age.'' 

      "For Mr. Pachter, such ecclesiastical comparisons don't suggest aloofness and sterility, but rather the opposite: an experience that combines both theatricality and reason, both rapture and contemplation. In other words, both Disney World and academia. It's a dualism that, he says, goes all the way back to the origins of modern museums in the 18th century."

 

      The tensions at the history museum would test any acting director -- though in some ways Marc Pachter seems the perfect man for the challenge. A 28-year veteran at the institution, he was regarded as a pathfinder through the thicket of the cultural wars of the 90's. Now, his admirers say, he is a lone voice of reason drowned out in the continuing din. The question, they say, is how much any museum director, even a visionary, can accomplish amid the current tensions. Mr. Pachter is, in a sense, the Smithsonian's resident philosopher -- a role that he quickly steps into when we finally reach the ruby slippers. On this afternoon, the slippers' display case is surrounded by throngs of school-age visitors.

 

• Portrait Gallery Director to Retire in '07 (Jacqueline Trescott, Washington Post, 12-11-2006) "As director, Pachter was a key part of the team that redesigned the Portrait Gallery and refocused and expanded its view of history and art. The gallery was closed for a longer-than-expected six years for a top-to-bottom renovation; since reopening in July, it has had record crowds visiting the building it shares with the Smithsonian American Art Museum. About 30 percent of the visitors are coming after 5 p.m.; the decision to extend the museum's hours till 7 p.m. was made to fit "the vibe" of the revitalized Gallery Place neighborhood, Pachter said."

• American Flâneur (Instagram) Photos and reels. (I passed, then kept flunking, Instagram's test, but maybe it will work for you.) Maybe it will come back. Maybe you need to be a member of Instagram. See also Barge rehearsal in Thailand (Reels) Scroll down for more photos of Marc.

    Good luck getting on Instagram. I routinely fail their tests for getting on, clicking on photos of buildings with stairs, etc.. They asked for my cell phone number, and after I sent it, I filled in that number and they said "Try another number. That doesn't work."

• Marc had a few words to say in 2016 about Trump’s election, by way of boosting morale.
       "This is not the first setback in our political history as a nation. It is important to remember that in a democracy there are always different views as to the direction the nation should take. Every major body of opinion gets a shot at Presidential leadership. And it's also important to remember that our system never allows a President complete authority. In fact the system is set up to frustrate authority. When the person you support has been elected you often see the limits of what he (and someday she) can do. Obama had his successes but was often blocked. The same will happen to the President-elect.
       "What we are now obligated to do is monitor the new administration and if we disagree with its policies to make our opinions known and to expect our representatives and the judiciary to reflect on these issues. The American system is not meant to be efficient or to support only one set of views. It is meant to check and balance. This is a loud, messy and very American process."

• Marc Pachter (Wikipedia entry) Marc Pachter (born 1942 or 1943) is an American museum director who headed up the United States National Portrait Gallery from 2000 until 2007 and was the acting director (after coming back out of retirement) of the National Museum of American History between 2011 and 2012, both at the Smithsonian. While at the NPG Pachter played an instrumental role in acquiring the Lansdowne portrait for the...

• Marc Pachter and the Washington Biography Group The Washington Biography Group was inspired by Marc Pachter, then chief historian of the National Portrait Gallery, who organized an all-day symposium on "Biography: Life As Art" at The Smithsonian Institution's Baird Auditorium. Held December 6, 1986, the symposium was attended by 325 people. Three biographers talked about their work: David McCullough, Phyllis Rose, and Marc Pachter. After the event, Marc Pachter, Judy Nelson, and others wondered if members of the audience would like to continue meeting, so Marc announced at the end of the day that those interested in meeting to discuss biography writing should send him a postcard and he would schedule a meeting. In February 1987, about 30 people attended the first meeting, at Chick and Judy Nelson's home. During the pandemic the group has met on Zoom.

     It was through the WBG that I got to know Marc. WBG survived Marc's post-retirement move to New York and his peregrinations through the world, but he always stayed in touch. He will truly be missed.

• Washington Biography Group

• Marc's two books:

     Telling Lives: The Biographer's Art

     A Gallery of Presidents (National Portrait Gallery)

________________

What should it be? Black and white?  Black and White? black and white?

A few well-expressed opinions, handy for classroom and copy desk arguments.

Frequently updated and as of 2-24-24 there is clearly no concensus on which of the two words (black, white) to capitalize or why.

• Capitalization Style for Black and White as Race Terms (Right Touch Editing's useful chart of various organizations preferences, as of 10-26-21)

• Why we will lowercase white (AP) "[P]eople who are Black have strong historical and cultural commonalities, even if they are from different parts of the world....White people generally do not share the same history and culture, or the experience of being discriminated against because of skin color."

• Uppercasing ‘Black’ (New York Times, 6-30-30) 'The Associated Press and other major news organizations have recently adopted “Black,” which has long been favored by many African-American publications and other outlets. The new style is also consistent with our treatment of many other racial and ethnic terms: We recently decided to capitalize “Native” and “Indigenous,” while other ethnic terms like “Asian-American” and “Latino” have always been capitalized.
      We will retain lowercase treatment for “white.” While there is an obvious question of parallelism, there has been no comparable movement toward widespread adoption of a new style for “white,” and there is less of a sense that “white” describes a shared culture and history. Moreover, hate groups and white supremacists have long favored the uppercase style, which in itself is reason to avoid it.'

    The term “brown” as a racial or ethnic description should also generally remain lowercase and should be used with care.

• Capitalizing for Equality (Conscious Style Guide) The New York Times, Poynter, and Columbia Journalism Review "have argued for capitalizing black and white when used as racial terms, for the sake of respect, equality, and typographical integrity. Other groups are entitled to the visibility conferred by a capital letter—Hispanic, Native, Asian American—and despite the lack of consensus that any of these are one people, these overly broad and arbitrary labels endure."
       However, "If your editorial directive is to call people what they want to be called—including names, pronouns, and labels—then look to Black media outlets like Ebony and Essence for accepted usage and avoid overriding their terminology. By capitalizing black and white, we also make necessary distinctions between color and race—black hair and Black hair—similar to distinguishing between native and Native. Don’t wait for your style guide to catch up, because it’s waiting for you to demonstrate sufficient usage."

• Why we capitalize ‘Black’ (and not ‘white’) (Mike Laws, Columbia Journalism Review, 6-16-20) "For many people, Black reflects a shared sense of identity and community. White carries a different set of meanings; capitalizing the word in this context risks following the lead of white supremacists." "...as my CJR colleague Alexandria Neason told me recently, “I view the term Black as both an ethnic identity in the States that doesn’t rely on hyphenated Americanness (and is more accurate than African American, which suggests recent ties to the continent) and is also transnational and inclusive of our Caribbean [and] Central/South American siblings.” To capitalize Black, in her view, is to acknowledge that slavery “deliberately stripped” people forcibly shipped overseas “of all other ethnic/national ties.” She added, “African American is not wrong, and some prefer it, but if we are going to capitalize Asian and South Asian and Indigenous, for example, groups that include myriad ethnic identities united by shared race and geography and, to some degree, culture, then we also have to capitalize Black.”

• The Case for Capitalizing the B in Black (Kwame Anthony Appiah, The Atlantic, 6-18-2020) Black and white are both historically created racial identities—and whatever rule applies to one should apply to the other.

• Why ‘White’ should be capitalized, too (Nell Irvin Painter, Washington Post, 7-22-20)

 

•  After a long discussion on the Copyeditors' listserv, participants tended to agree that at the moment the best thing is to follow the style guide of your publisher or publication, because there are reasons, many of them good, to capitalize both Black and White, to capitalize only Black, and to capitalize neither. (H/T Jeannette de Beauvoir)

 

• James McBride, in The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, uses lowercase for both black and white.

• The Washington Post announces writing style changes for racial and ethnic identifiers (7-29-20) 

      "The Post to capitalize Black to identify groups that make up the African diaspora."

      "[P]olitical terms used to promote racist ideologies or to advocate ethnic superiority or separation should remain lowercase (i.e. white supremacist, black nationalist). And in crime stories, where cultural and historical identity aren’t key to a suspect’s actions, use the lowercase versions of black, white and brown as race descriptors."

• Ask a Radical Copyeditor: Black with a Capital “B” (Alex Kapitan, “Black” vs. “black,” Radical Copyeditor, 9-21-16) In his book Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness?: What It Means to Be Black Now, author Touré explains: 'I have chosen to capitalize the word “Black” and lowercase “white” throughout this book. I believe “Black” constitutes a group, an ethnicity equivalent to African-American, Negro, or, in terms of a sense of ethnic cohesion, Irish, Polish, or Chinese. I don’t believe that whiteness merits the same treatment. Most American whites think of themselves as Italian-American or Jewish or otherwise relating to other past connections that Blacks cannot make because of the familial and national disruptions of slavery. So to me, because Black speaks to an unknown familial/national past it deserves capitalization.'
      'I choose to use Black and white in my own writing out of a dedication to centering the leadership, authority, and truths of the people I’m writing about—particularly when those people are marginalized. Although all people of African descent by no means agree with each other on everything, in the United States the Black press and many Black authors use Black and white.' [It is worth reading this full entry.]

• A Debate Over Identity and Race Asks, Are African-Americans ‘Black’ or ‘black’? (John Eligon, NY Times, 6-26-2020) The push to capitalize black to refer to African-Americans is far more than a typographical change.

• Recognizing Race in Language: Why We Capitalize “Black” and “White” (Ann Thúy Nguyễn and Maya Pendleton, Center for the Study of Social Policy, 3-23-20)

• Why We're Capitalizing Black (NY Times, 7-5-2020) The Times has changed its style on the term’s usage to better reflect a shared cultural identity. Here’s what led to that decision. Here's Tony Mancini's good argument against it.

• Why hundreds of American newsrooms have started capitalizing the ‘b’ in ‘Black’ (Elahe Izadi, Washington Post, 6-18-2020) A good overview of why it's changing.

Expect to hear continuing controversy about the 2023 Hugo Awards, awarded at the Worldcon convention held in Chengdu, China. Several authors who should have qualified for the science fiction awards were disqualified without any explanation, including R.F. Kuang, author of Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence, Xiran Jay Zhao, author of Iron Widow, and Paul Weimer, who would have been eligible for Best Fan Writer as well as an episode of Netflix's The Sandman series.

 

• Worldcon in the news Charlie Stross, Charlie's Diary, 1-26-24) "The important thing to note is that the 'worldcon' is *not a permanent organization. It's more like a virus that latches onto an SF convention, infects it with worldcon-itis, runs the Hugo awards and the WSFS business meeting, then selects a new convention to parasitize the year after next.
     Charlie's takeaway: "The world science fiction convention coevolved with fan-run volunteer conventions in societies where there's a general expectation of the rule of law and most people abide by social norms irrespective of enforcement. The WSFS constitution isn't enforceable except insofar as normally fans see no reason not to abide by the rules. So it works okay in the USA, the UK, Canada, the Netherlands, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and all the other western-style democracies it's been held in ... but broke badly when a group of enthusiasts living in an authoritarian state won the bid then realized too late that by doing so they'd come to the attention of Very Important People who didn't care about their society's rulebook.
      Immediate consequences:
    "For the first fifty or so worldcons, worldcon was exclusively a North American phenomenon except for occasional sorties to the UK. Then it began to open up as cheap air travel became a thing. In the 21st century about 50% of worldcons are held outside North America, and until 2016 there was an expectation that it would become truly international. But the Chengdu fubar has created shockwaves. There's no immediate way to fix this..."
    Check out the 200+ comments.

• Resignations, Censures Follow in Wake of Hugo Awards Controversy (Sophia Stewart, Publishers Weekly, 2-1-24) "Two leaders of Worldcon Intellectual Property (WIP), the nonprofit that holds the service marks of the World Science Fiction Society, have reportedly stepped down from their posts following accusations of censorship in the voting process for the 2023 Hugo Awards.

     "The Hugo Awards are the most prestigious honors in the sci-fi/fantasy community. The awards, administered by the World Science Fiction Society, are awarded annually at the group's global convention, Worldcon. Last year's Worldcon was held for the first time in China, in Chengdu. "The resignations and disciplinary actions come after the nomination data for the 2023 awards was made public on January 20 and it was revealed that certain authors and books—including R.F. Kuang's hit novel Babel—had been inexplicably deemed "not eligible" for the Hugo. Kuang is Chinese American, and her work draws heavily from Chinese culture and history. Many fans and authors have speculated that state censorship—or self-censorship under the state's watch—was the reason for the opaque ineligibility rulings by the Chengdu–based committee."

 

• Inside the Censorship Scandal That Rocked Sci-Fi and Fantasy's Biggest Awards (Adam Morgan, Esquire Magazine, 2-2-24) Insiders tell Esquire what really happened when the Hugo Awards melted down over unexplained disqualifications—and what it could mean for the future of literary awards.

• Genre Grapevine on the Hugo Awards’ “not eligible” problem (Jason Sanford, Genre Grapevine, January 2024) Once again, the Hugo Awards are making international news. And once again, not in a good way. The "Hugo Award stats revealed that a number of writers and works were kept off the award’s final ballot for no valid reason. One of the biggest shockers was that Rebecca F. Kuang’s acclaimed fantasy novel Babel, which won the Nebula Award for Best Novel, was left off the final ballot despite earning 810 nomination votes, enough to place it third on the list of nominated novels."

     See also Worldcon Intellectual Property Announces Censure of McCarty, Chen Shi and Yalow; McCarty Resigns (Mike Glyer's News of SF Fandom, 1-30-24) and Hugo Award nominations raise questions Jane Friedman on The Hot Sheet, 1-31-24) Others also listed as ineligible for Hugo Awards: Xiran Jay Zhao, Neil Gaiman, and Paul Weimer.

The Hugo Awards controversy goes back a few years:

 

• Attack the Bloc: The Hugo Awards Controversy (Emmaline Soken-Huberty, Gildshire, 8-28-19)

 

• Sci-fi’s right-wing backlash: Never doubt that a small group of deranged trolls can ruin anything (even the Hugo Awards) (Arthur Chu, Salon, 4-6-15) Lazy democracy is like an open comments section -- left unmoderated and unguided, the worst people take over.

 

• The Sad Puppy Takeover (Brooke Gladstone interviews Arthur Chu, On the Media radio, 4-17-15) The Hugo Awards are science fiction writing's highest honor, and this year conservative fans, concerned with the liberal leanings of recent awards, banded together to nominate their sci-fi ideals. Brooke speaks with actor and writer Arthur Chu about how the awards controversy reflects a larger history of cultural backlash.

 
• The Hugo Awards Were Always Political. But Now They're Only Political. (Charlie Jane Anders, Gizmodo, 4-4-15) Last August, the Hugo Awards for science fiction and fantasy were swept by a younger group of women and people of color. At the time, we said "This was really a year that underscored that a younger generation of diverse writers are becoming central to the genre." So maybe it's not surprising that there was an organized backlash....When the nominees are mostly white men, as they have been during most eras except for the mid-1990s and the past five years, it does send a message about whose work is going to be considered valuable.

 

• Freeping the Hugo Awards (Susan Grigsby, Daily Kos, 4-12-15) "The Nebulas are awarded by the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). The Hugos are nominated and awarded by fans of the genre who are members of Worldcon, making them basically a popularity contest." This piece is about how a group of conservative people ("Sad Puppies"--and not necessarily sci fi readers) gamed the system, stacking the ballot for Hugos with some unlikely candidates with acceptable attitudes toward white males (and fewer heroes who are woman or people of color).

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