Edward Benjamin Rothstein (born October 16, 1952) is an American critic. Rothstein wrote music criticism early in his career, but is best known for his critical analysis of museums and museum exhibitions. Rothstein holds a B.A. from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

(1973), an M.A. in English literature from

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

, and a Ph.D. from the Committee on Social Thought at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

(1994). In addition, Rothstein did graduate work in mathematics at

Brandeis University Brandeis University () is a Private university, private research university in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States. It is located within the Greater Boston area. Founded in 1948 as a nonsectarian, non-sectarian, coeducational university, Bra ...

. He was at ''The New York Times'' for a long time, but he took a buyout (a cash payout offered to employees, with compensation based on a sliding scale of the number of years they spent working for the employer) from the newspaper and joined ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

''. He wrote in 2020 that "At ''The New York Times'', freedom of speech gave way to group pressure, and debate turned into intimidation". Rothstein was the cultural critic-at-large for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'',Yoe, Mary Ruth
"Everybody's a critic"
'' University of Chicago Magazine'', February 2004 (96:3). Listing for ''Visions of Utopia'' at the end of the ''UCM'' article appears to be incorrect; the corrected listing in this Wiki article is based o
Amazon listing
picture of book cover at Amazon, and internal Wiki links. particularly examining the reach and depth of museums, large and small, one by one. He has worked as a

music critic '' The Oxford Companion to Music'' defines music criticism as "the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres". In this sense, it is a branch of m ...

for ''

The New Republic ''The New Republic'' (often abbreviated as ''TNR'') is an American magazine focused on domestic politics, news, culture, and the arts from a left-wing perspective. It publishes ten print magazines a year and a daily online platform. ''The New Y ...

'' and as the chief music critic for the ''Times''. He worked briefly as an editor at Macmillan's Free Press in the mid-1980s. Rothstein is a two-time winner of the

ASCAP The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadc ...

Deems Taylor Award for music criticism and was awarded a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

in 1991.

Writings

Archive of Rothstein's ''The Wall Street Journal'' articles

Archive of Rothstein's ''The New York Times'' articles

* ttps://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/mozart-in-search-of-the-roots-of-genius-109425513/ "Mozart: In Search of the Roots of Genius" '' Smithsonian'', February, 2006.
"Contemplating Churchill"
''Smithsonian'', March, 2005. * ''Visions of Utopia'' (New York Public Library Lectures in Humanities), with Herbert Muschamp and Martin E. Marty (Oxford University Press, 2004) .
1998 Diary
in ''

Slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

'' * ''Emblems of Mind: The Inner Life of Music and Mathematics'' ( Times Books, 199
University of Chicago Press, 2006
. * Foreword to Arthur Loesser's ''Men, Women and Pianos: A Social History'' (1991).
Archive of Rothstein's essays 1979-90
in ''

The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of ...

References

External links

* American classical music critics Living people 1952 births Place of birth missing (living people) Yale University alumni Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni University of Chicago alumni Brandeis University alumni {{US-writer-stub