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Bush says U.S. will rejoin UNESCO

In a speech September 12 to the United Nations General Assembly urging action on Iraq, President Bush announced that the United States would return to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). In making the announcement the President said, "This organization has been reformed, and America will participate fully in its mission to advance human rights, tolerance and learning."

In the fall 2001, the Center for Arts and Culture, an independent Washington, D.C.-based think tank on cultural policy, began distributing two series of publications. One consists of commissioned papers, part of the Center's Art, Culture and the National Agenda project. The other documents discussion forums convened by the Center. Publications in both series are small-format booklets. Several landed on our desks in quick succession last fall, but production now seems to be moving at a slower pace, allowing us to keep track of each one a little more easily.

On November 12, 2000, a headline on the front page of the Atlanta Journal/Constitution read, "Study finds Atlanta arts community trailing peers." A full-page story in Section A followed. This one headline challenged the city's cherished self-assessment as "cultural jewel of the South" and quietly affirmed the suspicions of many of its artists and cultural workers.

This is the story about the headline, the study, and the volunteer efforts of an incorporated ad hoc group that calls itself the Atlanta Arts Think Tank and that commissioned the landmark study.

2001, 166 pages. National Arts Journalism Program, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Arts in Education

The following is a short excerpt from a chapter in a new book, Crossroads: Art and Religion in American Life (see "Digest" entry, page 36). The complete essay examines the history of art and religion in this country from the debates of eighteenth-century philosophers through the attitudes of contemporary artists. This excerpt describes only the first few phases in the relationship between the two. It is published here with permission of the author, Neil Harris, and of the Henry Luce Foundation.

The Center for Arts and Culture, an independent think tank on cultural policy, began work on its Art, Culture and the National Agenda project in 2000. Scholars, artists, and practitioners from around the country were commissioned to write background papers on the most pressing concerns facing the cultural sector. With nearly 100 papers submitted to the project, the Center's board, research advisory council, and staff, in discussion with leading policymakers, crafted a set of four structural recommendations for the federal government.

A Report on the Ford Foundation Initiative
Edited by Mindy Levine

1999, 64 pages. Developed by New England Foundation for the Arts, edited and published by Arts International, ISBN 0-9676467-0-7, 212-674-9744

The beautifully-restored Southern Theater in Columbus, Ohio served as classroom May 5 and 6, 2000 for "Going Global: Negotiating the Maze of Cultural Interactions," the fourth Barnett Arts and Public Policy Symposium hosted by the Ohio State University College of the Arts and the Ohio Arts Council. The two-day symposium is named for Lawrence and Isabel Barnett who established the Barnett Endowment at OSU, which funds the biennial symposium.

Throughout human history, certain cities and regions have come to be regarded as pinnacles of human creativity and innovation. Sir Peter Hall, in his landmark book, Cities in Civilization, examines the underlying conditions that led to the emergence of "cultural crucibles" in Athens, Florence, London, Vienna, and Berlin.