Philosophy Science Psychology Society Culture

DonateNewsletter

Culture

Essays and videos on the arts, literature, travel, rituals and celebrations

Architecture Art Biography and memoir Dance and theatre Design and fashion Film and visual culture Food and drink Home Music Nature and landscape Rituals and celebrations Sports and games Stories and literature Subcultures Travel

LatestPopular

Photo of an elderly man with a bald head and moustache wearing a suit and tie, smiling against a light-coloured, blurred background.

video

War and peace

‘She is living on in many hearts’ – Otto Frank on the legacy of his daughter’s diary

12 minutes

A painting depicting a group of people in a room, with a man painting and a young girl in the centre, dressed in ornate clothes.

video

Art

Why Diego Velázquez needed a lifetime to paint his enigmatic masterpiece

31 minutes

A person’s hands pouring olive oil into a row of wine glasses with people blurred in the background at a tasting event.

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

Painting of two anthropomorphic peacocks in 18th-century attire in front of a stately home surrounded by trees.

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

A man views a holographic projection of a child in shorts running in a forest setting; office equipment surrounds him.

video

Technology and the self

A haunting scene from ‘Minority Report’ inspires a voyage into time and memory

7 minutes

Illustration of a person reading a book with glowing hot air balloons and mountains emerging from the pages.

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

Illustration of a saucepan on a stove with raw meat and ginger, a pot lid is nearby on the right.

video

Family life

The stream-of-consciousness thoughts and memories that emerge while cooking a meal

5 minutes

Ancient mosaic depicting two figures with instruments on a blue stone background.

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

Painting of people playing dodgeball around a square pool with ripples in vibrant colours, long shadows cast on the ground.

video

Film and visual culture

A lush animated opus evokes the frenzied pace of modern life

4 minutes

A painting of two girls with long hair each holding peacock feathers standing in front of a textured, muted background.

video

Family life

The precious family keepsakes that hold meaning for generations

10 minutes

Blurry photo of a person lying back with head tilted, set against a red and dark background.

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

A smiling elderly man in a cluttered electronics shop with various gadgets and boxes surrounding him.

essay

Home

The joy of clutter

The world sees Japan as a paragon of minimalism. But its hidden clutter culture shows that ‘more’ can be as magical as ‘less’

Matt Alt

Close-up photo of a wooden mask with fur eyebrows, hollow eyes, a rounded mouth opening and long black hair against a dark background.

essay

Anthropology

Witches around the world

The belief in witches is an almost universal feature of human societies. What does it reveal about our deepest fears?

Gregory Forth

Vintage advertising poster for ‘Cocaine Toothache Drops’ featuring two children playing happily, building a house from sticks, in front of a house with a wooden fence.

essay

Subcultures

An undulating thrill

Once lauded as a wonder of the age, cocaine soon became the object of profound anxieties. What happened?

Douglas Small

Close-up of a man smiling and interacting closely with a puppet of an old man wearing a black beret, both faces nearly touching.

video

Art

A puppeteer makes sense of an overwhelming world by shrinking it down to size

5 minutes

Photo of a person wearing large sunglasses with outdoor scenery reflected, resting their fingers on their chin in a thoughtful pose.

essay

Ethics

Main character syndrome

Why romanticising your own life is philosophically dubious, setting up toxic narratives and an inability to truly love

Anna Gotlib

A child peeking over the back of a horse in a grassy open field with a distant horizon and a slightly cloudy sky.

video

Anthropology

Does Mogi’s future lie with her horses on the Mongolian steppe, or in the city?

16 minutes

Photo of people in a forest, some kneeling and examining plants, others standing and walking, all surrounded by lush greenery.

essay

Food and drink

The joy of foraging

Offering an escape from industrial foods, foraging nourishes the soul and body, but it needs democratic access to the land

Nikita Sud

A colourful mural depicting a Mexican American family, a Mexican American woman being tackled by a white policeman, and a stadium resembling a U F O descending from the sky.

video

Art

The sprawling mural that depicts an unflinching people’s history of Los Angeles

7 minutes

A woman in casual attire walking by a large weaving loom with black threads in a bright, clean room

essay

Design and fashion

When luxury is good

The waste and exploitation of fast fashion shouldn’t blind us to the joys of making beautiful clothing with care

Roger Tredre

Black-and-white drawing of labourers working in a warehouse, overlaid with the text “Marks of weakness, marks of woe” in yellow.

video

Art

In his poem ‘London’, William Blake crafted a bleak vision of the city he loved

9 minutes

Photo of a doll with curly red hair, blue eyes, and a large maroon hat, wearing a double string of pearls and a red dress.

essay

Rituals and celebrations

Tender, yet creepy

Dolls help children create wonderfully vivid and imaginative worlds, while also serving as unsettling reminders of the abyss

Tishani Doshi

Black-and-white photo of a woman holding her child on a stone pier, with small wooden boats and a shoreline in the background.

essay

Film and visual culture

The risk of beauty

W Eugene Smith’s photos of the Minamata disaster are both exquisite and horrifying. How might we now look at them?

Joanna Pocock

Painting of a rural street on a dark night featuring a two-storey white farmhouse, a red barn, powerlines, and a bright light in the centre.

essay

Sleep and dreams

Spinning the night self

After years of insomnia, I threw off the effort to sleep and embraced the peculiar openness I found in the darkest hours

Annabel Abbs