One can only imagine how much nobler and more decent the world might be if it took more notice of Isaiah Berlin
video
Ecology and environmental sciences
Yo-Yo Ma performs a work for cello in the woods, accompanied by a birdsong chorus
4 minutes
essay
Mathematics
Imaginary numbers are real
These odd values were long dismissed as bookkeeping. Now physicists are proving that they describe the hidden shape of nature
Karmela Padavic-Callaghan
video
Archaeology
Ancient Greek sculptures were colourful. Why does the white marble ideal persist?
6 minutes
essay
Love and friendship
The right person
Contemporary wisdom says that happiness is the measure of a marriage. But is that a harmful way of judging relationships?
Joshua Coleman
essay
Subcultures
The great regression
To understand why so many adults are acting just like children, don’t blame Millennials – look to Japan in the 1990s
Matt Alt
video
Personality
Wesley wants to solve the rooftop mystery – but does he have what it takes?
14 minutes
essay
Animals and humans
Semiotics of dogs
In all its baroque and sometimes cruelly overbred forms, the dog is a paramount symbol of both human hopes and foibles
Katrina Gulliver
video
History of ideas
Tantra is, and was, a subversive philosophy of feminine power
19 minutes
essay
Politics and government
What lies beneath government
Buka Town in Bougainville shows how bureaucratic states could be reimagined, not as concrete buildings but as living gardens
Gordon Peake & Miranda Forsyth
video
Rituals and celebrations
From roaring fire and molten glass an artist creates a healing ritual
13 minutes
essay
Religion
The meaning of Purgatory
Think less of a holding pen for Heaven and more as a flow of love from the living, and the weirdness starts making sense
Magnus Course
video
Ecology and environmental sciences
Producing food while restoring the planet – a glimpse of farming in the future
7 minutes
essay
Computing and artificial intelligence
The people of the cloud
Hot, strenuous and unsung. There is nothing soft and fluffy about the caretaking work that enables our digital lives
Steven Gonzalez Monserrate
video
Archaeology
Ancient Greek sculptures were colourful. Why does the white marble ideal persist?
6 minutes
essay
Environmental history
Dancing with water
As storms, droughts and floods become more intense, what can the world learn from Japan’s profoundly wet history?
Giulio Boccaletti
video
Astronomy
From zero to 5,000 – music and visuals express 30 years of exoplanet discoveries
1 minute
essay
History of ideas
Reasons to be cheerful
A cheery mood, you might think, is a terribly self-absorbed response to serious times. But history tells us otherwise
Timothy Hampton
essay
Meaning and the good life
You’re astonishing!
Life can be better appreciated when you remember how wonderfully and frighteningly unlikely it is that you exist at all
Timm Triplett
video
Economics
We all play by economic rules set by men. What could a feminist economics look like?
30 minutes
essay
Love and friendship
The right person
Contemporary wisdom says that happiness is the measure of a marriage. But is that a harmful way of judging relationships?
Joshua Coleman
video
Ecology and environmental sciences
Yo-Yo Ma performs a work for cello in the woods, accompanied by a birdsong chorus
4 minutes
essay
Demography and migration
The ungreat replacement
Workers in the West have indeed been repressed – but not by immigrants. The policies of their own governments are to blame
John Rapley
video
Art
‘Long Live Degenerate Art’ – how a Surrealist group in Cairo defied repression in 1938
4 minutes
essay
Thinkers and theories
Why read Fichte today?
Inspired by Kant, Fichte launched a radical philosophical system based on subjectivity and aspiring to freedom for all
Gabriel Gottlieb
video
Love and friendship
Skiing blind is a challenge – but it helps to have a loved one to guide you
20 minutes
essay
Mathematics
Imaginary numbers are real
These odd values were long dismissed as bookkeeping. Now physicists are proving that they describe the hidden shape of nature
Karmela Padavic-Callaghan
video
Thinkers and theories
Metaphysics and beyond – Martha Nussbaum on Aristotle’s indelible ideas
43 minutes
essay
Ethics
Through the eyes of another
It’s impossible to shed our individual biases. So the best way to establish objectivity is by taking on new perspectives
Heidi Maibom