EducationObituaryRuth FrankenbergSociologist whose work on race helped define a new field of 'whiteness studies'The British-born sociologist Ruth Frankenberg, who has died aged 49 of lung cancer, did groundbreaking research on how race shapes people's lives in the US. Her first book, The Social Construction of Whiteness: White Women, Race Matters (1993), focused on the advantages that whiteness carries for women rather than just the disadvantages suffered by non-white women, and so changed the approach of American social scientists to the ways racial inequalities endure even when white people regard themselves as anti-racist. Read More...
Border citiesCitiesIt was a £250m project to strengthen China’s bond with its isolated neighbour. But two years on from its expected completion, the bridge joining Dandong and Sinuiju remains unfinished: an emblem of an uneasy alliance gone sour
From Dandong, the largest Chinese city on the border with North Korea, it’s just a short hop to the Hermit Kingdom – or rather, a short swim. In summer, bronzed Chinese bathers wade into the Yalu River and paddle 400 metres to the opposite bank, where armed North Korean soldiers watch from turquoise guard towers over women washing clothes along the muddy bank. Read More...
MusicalsReviewPershing Square Signature Center
Amy Heckerling has brought her 1995 comedy classic to New York with lively choreography but a disappointing lack of charm
The best thing about Clueless: The Musical is that it sometimes reminds you what a fresh, flip delight Clueless the movie was and is. Amy Heckerling’s 1995 comedy, a clever update of Jane Austen’s Emma, buzzes around a high school queen bee. This adaptation, also superintended by Heckerling, is all drone. Read More...