Culture
video
Childhood and adolescence
The unique fellowship between teens and young puffins on a remote Icelandic island
20 minutes
essay
Ageing and death
Peregrinations of grief
A friend and a falcon went missing. In pain, I turned to ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’ – and found a new vision of sorrow and time
Emily Polk
video
Animals and humans
Why be dragons? How massive, reptilian beasts entered our collective imagination
58 minutes
video
Rituals and celebrations
Flirtation, negotiation and vodka – or how to couple up in 1950s rural Poland
5 minutes
essay
Stories and literature
Her blazing world
Margaret Cavendish’s boldness and bravery set 17th-century society alight, but is she a feminist poster-girl for our times?
Francesca Peacock
video
Biology
How the world’s richest reds are derived from an innocuous Mexican insect
5 minutes
essay
Music
Folk music was never green
Don’t be swayed by the sound of environmental protest: these songs were first sung in the voice of the cutter, not the tree
Richard Smyth
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
Stories and literature
Robert Frost’s poetic reflection on youth, as read in his unforgettable baritone
5 minutes
essay
Design and fashion
Sitting on the art
Given its intimacy with the body and deep play on form and function, furniture is a ripely ambiguous artform of its own
Emma Crichton Miller
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
Architecture
The celebrated architect who took inspiration from sitting, waiting and contemplating
29 minutes
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
Subcultures
Drop into London’s eclectic skate scene, where newbies and old-timers find community
5 minutes
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
video
Music
The peculiar beauty of a song caught between composition and improvisation
3 minutes
video
Rituals and celebrations
A beginner’s guide to a joyful Persian tradition of spring renewal and rebirth
3 minutes
video
Love and friendship
Love looks a bit different for a chain-smoking couple in a small apartment
11 minutes
essay
Psychiatry and psychotherapy
The therapist who hated me
Going to a child psychoanalyst four times a week for three years was bad enough. Reading what she wrote about me was worse
Michael Bacon
video
Biography and memoir
Passed over as the first Black astronaut, Ed Dwight carved out an impressive second act
13 minutes