Author: Ritterbush, Philip C.

Publication Year: 1981

Media Type: Book

Summary:

America has enjoyed a period of unexampled creativity in the arts and sciences, a flowering of scholarship, and an expansion of organizations and audiences that other nations may regard as congruent with their own objectives. This text aims to convey a sense of the context in which this has occurred.

Abstract:

America has enjoyed a period of unexampled creativity in the arts and sciences, a flowering of scholarship, and an expansion of organizations and audiences that other nations may regard as congruent with their own objectives. This text aims to convey a sense of the context in which this has occurred. It cites public documents for the premises of policy pursued by public agencies. It reflects the findings of an inquiry in which many more private than public institutions were visited and consulted. The inquiry was sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and conducted in liaison with the National Endowment for the Arts and the U. S. National Commission for UNESCO. As an historian of science and culture and a student of the policy process in private and public institutions, I have reviewed the commitments of private institutions and their sponsors, the writings of critics and commentators, and the official literature of government agencies, so that this text may be offered as a distillation of their experience.

Cultural institutions specify and pursue their own policies. They do not follow prescriptions by public agencies. Thus the premises of cultural policy must be inferred from what institutions do and what their officers say, and from the commentaries of scholars and observers, rather than from official sources. A section of the text is devoted to each of five principal concerns of cultural policy in the . The way culture is defined and policy is inferred appears in consecutive presentation within. A dialogue over cultural policy has come to engage artists, scholars, critics and officers of agencies and institutions. This text is partly an account of that dialogue and a contribution to its interpretation and enlargement. (Introduction, p. vi - vii).

CONTENTS
1. Advancing the arts: 
         Art in the commercial sector.
         Profitability and the problem of scale.
         Artistic patronage and its effects on culture.
         The audience as a source of artistic freedom.
         Institutional commitments to advancing the arts.
         Audience support afforded an alternative form of patronage.
         The private, nonprofit arts institution invites support.
         Cultural support trends as exemplified in the theater.
         A National Endowment for the Arts to complement private patronage.
         The commitment of the public sector to developing cultural resources.
         Advancing the arts as a premise of cultural policy.

2. More than charity - responsibility and philanthropy:
         Relations of freedom and responsibility.
         Civic and religious aspects of culture in relation to material rewards.
         Charity, philanthropy, and the ideals of civilization.
         Philanthropy and the quality of life.
         Foundations - distinctively philanthropic institutions.
         Corporate contributions and social responsibility.
         Communities of interest and partnerships in support.

3. The Humanities - freedom in a cultural context:
         Contribution of cultural institutions to freedom.
         Academic freedom.
         Guaranteeing academic freedom by voluntary association.
         Civic culture becomes problematic.
         The impairment of cultural institutions by viewing them scientifically.
         Humanism, liberal education, and cultivation of the self.
         The constitution of culture.
         A National Endowment for the Humanities to strengthen American culture.
         Should the humanities be focused on social problems?
         Science and the ideal of a common culture.
         Enlisting wider participation in culture.
         Constituting culture as the context for freedom.

4. The National Government's trust responsibilities for cultural life:
         National cultural resources held in trust for the people by national agencies
         receiving appropriated funds.
         National cultural institutions and trust responsibilities (Smithsonian Institution and
         Library of Congress).
         Broadcasting - private enterprise develops a commercial component of culture.
         Broadcasting - development of the educational component of culture.
         Broadcasting - recognition of a larger public interest in culture.
         Public broadcasting - a commitment to cultural realization.
         Cultural broadcasting - a national trust fulfilled.

5. Bridging cultural differences:
         Civil rights and access to culture.
         A common cultural center becomes a principle of social justice.
         Recognizing other cultures within our borders.
         Recognizing that all other cultures border on our own.
         The commitment of cultural colleges to international understating.
         Structuring mutual understanding in American culture.
         Shaping communications and education for a diverse world.

Arts & Intersections:

Categories: International