Thursday's Notes

The University of Virginia has released an internal audit of the Virginia Quarterly Review. It is critical of Ted Genoways' management of the journal, but stops short of citing him for bullying. Here are the Daily Progress's story and the audit.

Geraldine Fabrikant,"Hunting for the Dawn of Writing, When Prehistory Became History," NYT, 19 October, reviews"Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond," an exhibit at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute.

"Pretty as a picture," The Economist's Prospero, 13 October, and Jonathan Jones for the Guardian, 15 October, review"Venice: Canaletto and His Rivals," an exhibit at London's National Gallery.

Garry Wills,"Chicago's Magnificent Macbeth," NYRBlog, 18 October, reviews the Chicago Lyric Opera's production of Verdi's"Macbeth."

Robert Douglas-Fairhurst reviews a new edition of Henry Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor (1861-62) for the Guardian, 16 October.

Kevin Sieff,"Virginia 4th-grade textbook criticized over claims on black Confederate soldiers," Washington Post, 20 October, exposes unlikely claims. See: Cynic,"Understanding Virginia's History Textbook Lie," T-N C at The Atlantic, 20 October; and Kevin Levin,"Black Confederates on the Retreat?" Civil War Memory, 20 October.

Finally, Caleb McDaniel,"Teaching with Blogs," Offprints, 13 October, is an outline of his"brown-bag" presentation at Rice. Caleb's work is always worth reading.