Culture controversy catch-up

Here are a couple of stories I meant to write up more promptly. The first regards the flap over an NPR reporter fired over his coverage of MOMA's role in the dispute over Egon Schiele's Portrait of Wally, alleged to be Nazi loot. Catch up with the story over at ArtNet, with additional commentary over at Slate.

Meanwhile, there's been quite a bit of talk over the revelation that 19th-century author Emma Dunham Kelley-Hawkins, part of the African-American literary canon since the 1950s, was about as white as they come. Catch up on the story over at Cliopatra. It would appear the misidentification arose long after the fact from a racially ambiguous author portrait in one of her books; what is fascinating is how scholars had tied themselves into knots explaining why her books seemed so thoroughly, well, white. Bit of a local angle here, too, in that Kelley-Hawkins lived much of her life in and around northern Rhode Island.

Posted by David on March 18, 2005 12:30 PM