essay
Nations and empires
A United States of Europe
A free and unified Europe was first imagined by Italian radicals in the 19th century. Could we yet see their dream made real?
Fernanda Gallo
essay
Stories and literature
On Jewish revenge
What might a people, subjected to unspeakable historical suffering, think about the ethics of vengeance once in power?
Shachar Pinsker
video
Film and visual culture
‘Bags here are rarely innocent’ – how filmmakers work around censorship in Iran
8 minutes
essay
Consciousness and altered states
Acid media
How perforated squares of trippy blotter paper allowed outlaw chemists and wizard-alchemists to dose the world with LSD
Erik Davis
video
Language and linguistics
Closed captions suck. Here’s one artist’s inventive project to make them better
8 minutes
video
Thinkers and theories
A rare female scholar of the Roman Empire, Hypatia lived and died as a secular voice
5 minutes
essay
The environment
Decoupling
We need to find a way for human societies to prosper while the planet heals. So far we can’t even think clearly about it
Ville Lähde
essay
Archaeology
Why make art in the dark?
New research transports us back to the shadowy firelight of ancient caves, imagining the minds and feelings of the artists
Izzy Wisher
essay
Stories and literature
Do liberal arts liberate?
In Jack London’s novel, Martin Eden personifies debates still raging over the role and purpose of education in American life
Nick Romeo
video
Anthropology
Why are witchcraft accusations so common across human societies?
4 minutes
essay
Politics and government
India and indigeneity
In a country of such extraordinary diversity, the UN definition of ‘indigenous’ does little more than fuel ethnic violence
Dikshit Sarma Bhagabati
essay
History of ideas
Reimagining balance
In the Middle Ages, a new sense of balance fundamentally altered our understanding of nature and society
Joel Kaye
essay
History
What would Thucydides say?
In constantly reaching for past parallels to explain our peculiar times we miss the real lessons of the master historian
Mark Fisher
video
Wellbeing
Born in China, Zee seeks a gender-affirming life in the American Midwest
11 minutes
essay
The environment
Emergency action
Could civil disobedience be morally obligatory in a society on a collision course with climate catastrophe?
Rupert Read
essay
Home
Return of the descendants
I migrated to my ancestral homeland in a search for identity. It proved to be a humbling experience in (un)belonging
Jessica Buchleitner
video
Rituals and celebrations
A whale hunt is an act of prayer for an Inuit community north of the Arctic Circle
8 minutes
essay
Economic history
Credit card nation
Americans have always borrowed, but how exactly did their lives become so entangled with the power of plastic cards?
Sean H Vanatta
essay
Human rights and justice
My elusive pain
The lives of North Africans in France are shaped by a harrowing struggle to belong, marked by postcolonial trauma
Farah Abdessamad
essay
Religion
Conscientious unbelievers
How, a century ago, radical freethinkers quietly and persistently subverted Scotland’s Christian establishment
Felicity Loughlin
video
Politics and government
How it looked to Afghan women to see the Taliban return to power
33 minutes
essay
History of technology
Why America fell for guns
The US today has extraordinary levels of gun ownership. But to see this as a venerable tradition is to misread history
Megan Kang
essay
Ethics
The scourge of lookism
It is time to take seriously the painful consequences of appearance discrimination in the workplace
Andrew Mason
video
Biography and memoir
Passed over as the first Black astronaut, Ed Dwight carved out an impressive second act
13 minutes