Cinematic treatment of the Great Emancipator offers insights into changing attitudes towards the US presidency and the parallels between its 16th and 44th incumbents
TV series dramatising the rise of department stores highlight a turning point in consumer culture, as entrepreneurs seduced female shoppers into becoming part of the bourgeois set
The once ‘unfilmable’ story of a boy and a tiger stranded together on a lifeboat contains flashes of 3D genius but ultimately proves too tame for Will Brooker
As the Queensland Art Gallery celebrates 20 years of its Asia Pacific Triennials, Peter Hill explores the latest edition of a remarkably pan-national affair
An exhibition foregrounds the people of Dresden and their many and contradictory stories rather than their historical tragedy, discovers Ulrike Zitzlsperger
John Bunyan’s masterwork, which influenced literature, politics and culture for generations, is startlingly modern in depicting a world of greed and inequality
Filled with treasures from around the globe and across the ages, England’s university museums are as varied as their funding, but those of Oxford and Cambridge still take the lion’s share of Hefce cash. Matthew Reisz on the changing roles of these repositories of knowledge
The Inside Out festival aims to fling open the doors of the academy and allow scholars’ work to roam free in London and engage with its many publics, writes Matthew Reisz
Merseyside is the perfect setting for an exhibition that explores departure points, national identity and the fluid nature of ‘British art’, finds Alexander Massouras
The Fifty Shades phenomenon has spawned academic debate, scholarly parodies and now an erotic trilogy starring a dark, brooding, sensual...lecturer. Matthew Reisz reveals all
An exhibition showcasing five decades of Yoko Ono’s work downplays her dark side in favour of more uplifting, regenerative themes, finds Helena Reckitt
Jane's brilliance, John Mullan tells Matthew Reisz, lies not only in her insights and keen eye for detail, but also in an uncanny ability to make her readers feel every bit as clever as her
Three decades after confronting our anxieties about reproduction in Alien, Sir Ridley Scott returns to the universe of his classic sci-fi horror film. Davina Quinlivan considers the franchise and shows that in nightmares, no one can hear you scream
Discussion of the merits of paired works used to be a sociable pastime. Has the fashion for chronological museology narrowed our experience, asks Sheila McTighe