Cultural pilgrims who trek to the Dutch city of Maastricht for the European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) every March can find many things. Throughout the mammoth art Mecca, where curators and collectors shop for everything from Greco-Roman antiquities to hometown-favorite Rembrandts to contemporary sculptures and installations, more than...

A painting posted on the official Facebook page of Chabad-Lubavitch, which has been "liked" more than 900 times and has nearly 200 shares, is stirring up controversy on social networks, with some charging that it is racist.

The painting, by Chava Light -- a Connecticut- and New York-based...

Although Hurricane Sandy hasn't exactly unleashed flood waters of biblical proportions -- or at least those that Noah encountered -- some are drawing upon religious terminology when they discuss the storm.

Writes Brendan O'Neill in The Telegraph:

"[T]he impulse behind both forms of finger-pointing, behind both the...

U.S. schools continued to fare well in the World's Best Universities rankings.

In what may be a sign of the growth of science and technology in international education, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology wrestled the top spot in the new U.S. News World's Best Universities rankings...

Shipwreck! Winslow Homer and The Life Line
Sept. 22 - Dec. 16, 2012
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Prints of American painter Winslow Homer's seascapes, children at rest and play, and hunting scenes are almost as frequent fixtures on the walls of bedrooms and college dorms as...

Let me introduce you to someone. In cold blood, this person killed a man -- who, even if he deserved to die, wasn't granted a trial -- and later rallied his followers to murder thousands of people who disagreed with his religious vision. When charged with a leadership role, this...

One wouldn't necessarily expect to find The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) Maastricht to be bursting at the seams with faith. If the art auction and fair worships at any altar, it would be Mammon's rather than Apollo's. The notion that a camel has a better chance of...

Particularly in this era of YouTube and Flickr, it's worth pondering what makes an image or a video clip iconic -- or "go viral," to use the social media lingo?

If the question had an easy answer, of course, Hollywood film...

A character named Me -- who incidentally has been bitten by a rabid bat and is on his way, Wizard of Oz-like, to find an elixir -- is walking in the mountains when he runs into bin Laden.

Speaking in what the stage directions call for as "a deep, gentle...

Applicants should try to visit campuses and prepare, as students, to advocate for their needs.

There are about 1.1 million physically disabled undergraduates in the United States, according to Steve Kaye, research director of the Disability Statistics Center at University of California, San Francisco, citing data...

Ramadan looms on the immediate horizon. The Jewish High Holidays are scheduled to begin shortly thereafter. It is certainly a pensive time for many of the variously faithful across the globe.

Some bemoan "once-a-year Jews," whose synagogue connections are limited to paying dues and filling pews on Rosh Hashana...

I guess I was wrong about Iran.

Back in January 2007, I blogged about the World Award of Monotheistic Religions, which was hosted by Tehran. The third place winner? Michal Jandura of Poland, whose piece showed three interlocking books -- one marked...

It's wholly appropriate that Balaam's legacy -- at least to the few Bible enthusiasts who even know who he is -- is likely to evoke the expression "Balaam's ass."

In fact, the Old Testament narrative about Balaam (Hebrew...

Here's a sad statement about Islamic art as a discipline: a Google news search for "Oleg Grabar" at publication time yields a mere four hits.

This is particularly disappointing since Grabar (pictured), 81, professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study, died...

Five days after he was called "not a simple villain" by a Dec. 21 op-ed in the Washington Post for a recently released 1973 recording of him telling then-President Richard Nixon that Soviets gassing Jews was a humanitarian, not an American, problem, Henry Kissinger penned his...

"I remember being a wee child and having an Advent calendar in my bedroom," says Tyler Green, editor of ARTINFO's Modern Art Notes, Modern Painters columnist and author of a Tumbl'd Advent calendar for art lovers.

...

When Richard McBee talks about Abraham and Sarah's marriage, he calls it "a deeply problematic human relationship," which leads him to ask, "Do we look at biblical figures as paradigms of behavior?"

McBee is not a therapist who thinks he is living in biblical times, nor is he...

Erin Banks (pictured) works in the public relations office at the Church of Scientology. She responded to questions about the intersection of Scientology and the arts.

Menachem Wecker: L. Ron Hubbard is quoted as saying that "art is not just the fodder of a...

When Jean Claude Wouters used to see people hawking Van Gogh postcards, kitchen aprons and other kitsch in tourist traps outside the Louvres, he was almost as thrilled as Jesus was running into the moneylenders outside the temple.

"I used to be upset by...

Citing Luke 9:46-48, Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, recounts the story where Jesus, confronting the disciples and their debate about which one is the greatest, pulls a child beside himself.

"Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me," he says,...