Culture
video
Family life
One family’s harrowing escape from postwar Vietnam, told in a poignant metaphor
10 minutes
essay
Stories and literature
Laboratories of the impossible
By testing the boundaries of reality, Spanish-language authors have created a sublime counterpart to experimental physics
Joshua Roebke
video
Film and visual culture
Our world has very different contours when a millimetre is blown up to a full screen
8 minutes
essay
Dance and theatre
Why the old man dances
Religious ritual to appease the gods or free expression of human agency? For the ancient Romans, dance could be both
Karin Schlapbach
essay
Education
A valiant experiment
The progressive and remarkably innovative Woodmead School briefly flourished amid the viciousness of apartheid South Africa
David Dyzenhaus
video
History of technology
Replicating Shakespearean-era printing brings its own dramas and comedy
19 minutes
essay
Future of technology
A linkless internet
In creating anonymous summaries, AI flattens out all the fascinating architecture of thought that makes the internet hum
Collin Jennings
video
Animals and humans
The wild tale of a young animal keeper, an angry tiger and a torn circle net
10 minutes
essay
Home
How to lose your home
In a changing climate, the instinct is to save everything you can. But maybe letting go is braver – and better for the future?
Dan Hancox
video
Beauty and aesthetics
Can you see music in this painting? How synaesthesia fuelled Kandinsky’s art
10 minutes
essay
Biography and memoir
A grief with no name
As a child, I was torn from a culture that I never knew. It is a loss that defines me, even as I struggle to define the loss
Jelena Markovic
essay
Philosophy of religion
Compassionate time
On his final journey through Asia, Thomas Merton found some peace in the dialectic between refusing the world and loving it
Drew Calvert
video
Knowledge
Why it takes more than a lifetime to truly understand a single meadow
11 minutes
video
War and peace
‘She is living on in many hearts’ – Otto Frank on the legacy of his daughter’s diary
12 minutes
video
Art
Why Diego Velázquez needed a lifetime to paint his enigmatic masterpiece
31 minutes
essay
Food and drink
The flavour of mechanisation
Olive oil was revered and cherished by the ancients. But its distinctive peppery taste is really a modern invention
Massimo Mazzotti
essay
Beauty and aesthetics
Is beauty natural?
Charles Darwin was as fascinated by extravagant ornament in nature as Jane Austen was in culture. Did their explanations agree?
Abigail Tulenko
video
Technology and the self
A haunting scene from ‘Minority Report’ inspires a voyage into time and memory
7 minutes
essay
Physics
The city of wisdom
Don’t be intimidated by physics: it is made of stories and metaphors. Learn these and the field will open up to you
Jamie Zvirzdin
video
Family life
The stream-of-consciousness thoughts and memories that emerge while cooking a meal
5 minutes
essay
Food and drink
The fermented crescent
Ancient Mesopotamians had a profound love of beer: a beverage they found celebratory, intoxicating and strangely erotic
Tate Paulette
video
Film and visual culture
A lush animated opus evokes the frenzied pace of modern life
4 minutes
video
Family life
The precious family keepsakes that hold meaning for generations
10 minutes
essay
Sex and sexuality
Sex and death
Our culture works hard to keep sex and death separate but recharging the libido might provide the release that grief needs
Cody Delistraty