Psychology
video
Sex and sexuality
After a sextortion scam, Eugene conducts an unblushing survey of masturbation
14 minutes
video
Human rights and justice
A reporter orphaned by night raids in Afghanistan investigates their cruel legacy
17 minutes
essay
Stories and literature
Solace and saudade
In the face of an inscrutable, indifferent universe, Pessoa suggests we cultivate a certain longing for the elusive horizon
Jonardon Ganeri & Sarah Seymour
essay
History of ideas
Disorient yourself
Now associated with childhood fun, the swing has a near-universal history of ritual transgression and transformation
Javier Moscoso
essay
Mood and emotion
In praise of irritation
Unlike anger, irritation has neither glamour nor radicalism on its side. Yet it might just be the mood we need right now
Will Rees
essay
Mental health
Secrets hurt their holders
Holding back the truth can take a huge toll on your relationships and your mental health. Why? And is there a better way?
Michael Slepian
essay
History
The politics of pain
Medical science can only tell us so much. To understand pain, we need the cultural tools of history, philosophy and art
Rob Boddice
video
Dance and theatre
From calluses to burnt shoes, the elegance of ballet is built from the ground up
4 minutes
video
Consciousness and altered states
You need to make friends with pain to run through the Grand Canyon and back
5 minutes
video
Mood and emotion
Alone on a small island in Belgrade, a father grieves his daughter in quiet solitude
12 minutes
video
Wellbeing
A unique theatre performance explores what touch means in an age of lockdown
17 minutes
essay
Music
Music and sex
A song can take you on a journey of ecstatic arousal. Is music imitating sex, inviting it, or something else altogether?
Michael Spitzer
essay
Film and visual culture
Fear not
You might think that horror movies are a delicious, trashy pleasure. But watching them has surprisingly wholesome effects
Mathias Clasen
video
Nature and landscape
An afternoon with hobbyist diamond miners in Arkansas is a thing of rare beauty
16 minutes
video
Sports and games
After a day’s toil in California’s fields, labourers let loose in street races
9 minutes
essay
Pleasure and pain
Apocalypse, please
The COVID-19 pandemic, like other catastrophes before it, got some of us hooked on phobic energy and terror. Why?
Travis Alexander
essay
Mathematics
Mathematics for gamblers
If philosophers and mathematicians struggle with probability, can gamblers really hope to grasp their losing game?
Catalin Barboianu
video
Pleasure and pain
After losing his sight, a skateboarder takes an unexpected path to realising his dreams
12 minutes
video
Love and friendship
After traumatic childhoods, two sisters dedicate their golden years to fun
15 minutes
essay
Neuroscience
The need to touch
The language of touch binds our minds and bodies to the broader social world. What happens when touch becomes taboo?
Laura Crucianelli
video
Pleasure and pain
The ritualised excess of life aboard a cruise ship is tragic and parodic by turns
10 minutes
essay
Neuroscience
Nostalgia reimagined
Neuroscience is finding what propaganda has long known: nostalgia doesn’t need real memories – an imagined past works too
Felipe De Brigard
essay
Pleasure and pain
The hysteria accusation
Women’s pain is often medically overlooked and undertreated. But the answer is not as simple as ‘believing all women’
Elizabeth Barnes
video
Consciousness and altered states
‘It makes sense of everything I am.’ The transcendence of the long-distance swimmer
12 minutes