Word: moderners
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...French have pronounced The Kindly Ones (the phrase refers to the Furies of Greek myth) a modern masterpiece. In the U.S., the reception has been mixed at best; the New York Times called it "an odious stunt." That it is not. It's far from perfect: Littell has that maddening Continental contempt for paragraph breaks, and he details Max's neuroses with dismaying thoroughness--Max is gay and obsessed with sodomy, which he used to practice with his twin sister, for whom he still yearns (lusty twins being the last resort of the lazy novelist). Above all, there...
Today's revolution is more vibrantly Islamic than ever. Yet it is also decidedly antijihadist and ambivalent about Islamist political parties. Culturally, it is deeply conservative, but its goal is to adapt to the 21st century. Politically, it rejects secularism and Westernization but craves changes compatible with modern global trends. The soft revolution is more about groping for identity and direction than expressing piety. The new revolutionaries are synthesizing Koranic values with the ways of life spawned by the Internet, satellite television and Facebook. For them, Islam, you might say, is the path to change rather than the goal itself...
Traditional clerics deride al-Shugairi, 35, and other televangelists for preaching "easy Islam," "yuppie Islam," even "Western Islam." But his message actually reflects a deepening conservatism in the Islamic world, even as activists use contemporary examples and modern technology to make their case. One of al-Shugairi's programs on happiness focused on Elvis Presley, a man with fame, talent and fortune but who died young. Life without deep spirituality, al-Shugairi preaches, is empty...
...Islam's role in the 21st century. This is perhaps the most intellectually active period for the faith since the height of Islamic scholarship in the Middle Ages. "There is more self-confidence in the Islamic world about dealing with reason, constitutionalism, science and other big issues that define modern society," says Ibrahim Kalin of the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research in Ankara. "The West is no longer the only worldview to look up to. There are other ways of sharing the world and negotiating your place...
...animated films made him a favorite of the art-festival circuit and he began designing opera productions in Europe and the U.S. But the sober-minded man we meet in "William Kentridge: Five Themes," a survey of his work that just opened at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and will travel to seven cities, seems especially pertinent these days. The question at the center of so much of his work--What do you do when the world breaks your heart?--is one that a lot of people are asking themselves lately...