essay
Human rights and justice
Did you think you were safe?
When I moved to India for work, I found that rape was a feature of the country, as deeply embedded as caste
Evelyn Fok
video
Spirituality
Through rituals of prayer, a monk cultivates a quietly radical concept of freedom
4 minutes
video
Fairness and equality
‘To my old master’ – a freed slave answers the request to return to his old plantation
7 minutes
video
Design and fashion
A ceramicist puts her own bawdy spin on the folk language of pottery
14 minutes
essay
Poverty and development
Poverty is not permanent
By understanding the pernicious myths surrounding poverty, we can make progress towards a lofty goal: dignity for all
Anirudh Krishna & Dirk Philipsen
video
Animals and humans
Villagers struggle to keep their beloved, endangered ape population afloat
19 minutes
essay
Public health
A very American fear
Moral panics about erotica have coursed through the country’s history. Why do so many Americans think of porn as harm?
Rebecca L Davis
video
Language and linguistics
Why Susan listens to recordings of herself speaking a language she no longer remembers
5 minutes
essay
Nations and empires
Passion and Palestine
More than any other conflict, Israel/Palestine has provoked extraordinarily fervent emotion throughout the world. Why?
Derek Jonathan Penslar
essay
Public health
Hearts and brains
Humans always end up with clogged arteries, right? That’s not what the lives of the Tsimane in the Amazon basin tell us
Ben Daitz
video
Ethics
Plato saw little value in privacy. How do his ideas hold up in the information age?
5 minutes
essay
Biology
In praise of subspecies
To lump or to split? Deciding whether an animal is a species or subspecies profoundly influences our conservation priorities
Richard Smyth
video
Information and communication
‘Astonished and somewhat terrified’ – Victorians’ reactions to the phonograph
36 minutes
essay
Politics and government
The end of neoliberalism?
The case of Mexico shows that, despite a proliferating discourse that it is over, neoliberalism is as relentless as ever
Inés Escobar González
video
Engineering
From simple motors to levitating trains – how design shapes innovation
23 minutes
essay
Religion
Prosperity versus liberation
How Pentecostalism’s prosperity gospel replaced Catholic liberation theology in Latin American life
Elle Hardy
video
Animals and humans
Are zoos and natural history museums born of a desire to understand, or to control?
57 minutes
video
Archaeology
What’s an ancient Greek brick doing in a Sumerian city? An archeological investigation
16 minutes
essay
Stories and literature
Elegance and hustle
How French modernists from Proust to Mallarmé were alarmed and inspired by the voracious dynamism of the newspaper world
Max McGuinness
video
Family life
The migrants missing in Mexico, and the mothers who won’t stop searching for them
21 minutes
essay
Earth science and climate
The planetary fix
Despite decades of inaction we can avert the climate Hellocene and restore the atmosphere to keep our world habitable
Rob Jackson
essay
Global history
There are no pure cultures
All of our religions, stories, languages and norms were muddled and mixed through mobility and exchange throughout history
Inanna Hamati-Ataya
video
Ecology and environmental sciences
The tree frog die-off that sparked a global mystery – and revealed a dark truth
15 minutes
video
History
From Afghanistan to Virginia – the Muslims who fought in the American Civil War
22 minutes