Menu
Aeon
DonateNewsletter
SIGN IN

Culture

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

video

Music

‘Dun dun dun duuun!’ Why Beethoven’s Fifth sticks in the head and stirs the heart

5 minutes

Three motorcyclists are riding on an empty road winding through English moorland beneath a blue sky
Save

essay

Stories and literature

Citizens

Devon, 1970s: I’m a rector’s son, hanging out with Boz the biker. My life is about to open up – what does it promise for him?

Tim Pears

Save

essay

Anthropology

A glimpse of the world’s heart

I wanted to visit Colombia’s sacred mountains. But there are some places we cannot go – and some things we cannot know

Nick Hunt

Save

video

Art

The irreverent duo who thumbed their noses at the Soviet Union and the US art world

11 minutes

Save

video

Future of technology

Is this the future of space travel? Take a luxury ‘cruise’ across the solar system

6 minutes

Save

video

Stories and literature

A French Creole folktale nearly lost to time is given new, gorgeously animated life

6 minutes

Save

video

Food and drink

Is a ‘gastronomic society’ dinner the height of decadence, or an act of artistry?

11 minutes

A man in tradional long shorts and striped shirt holds a huge heavy stone abvove his head as a crowd looks on
Save

essay

Values and beliefs

How traditions progress

The colourful Swiss sport of stone putting illuminates Aristotle’s insights into the shortcomings of conservative thought

Daniel Kranzelbinder

A woman sits alone in a Parisian cafe with a glass of wine, while the neighbouring tables are full of socialising groups
Save

essay

Love and friendship

Loved, yet lonely

You might have the unconditional love of family and friends and yet feel deep loneliness. Can philosophy explain why?

Kaitlyn Creasy

Save

video

Ecology and environmental sciences

From helicopter flybys to trail cameras, there’s no one way to count a wolf

8 minutes

Save

video

Mood and emotion

An Oceanic lullaby, ‘Gimme Shelter’ and more elucidate how music taps into our emotions

58 minutes

Save

essay

Film and visual culture

The truth of photographs

It’s often said that a successful picture ‘captures the essence’ of a subject. But a great photograph does so much more

Daniel Star

Save

video

Art

Why a forcefully phallic portrait of Henry VIII is a masterful work of propaganda

6 minutes

Two sphinx-like statues foreground an intricate formal garden of geometric hedges and a square pond. In the background are cherry trees in bloom
Save

essay

Nature and landscape

The mystic art of gardening

In an era of 20th-century suburban sprawl, the great designer Russell Page infused soulful philosophy into his gardens

Caleb Smith

Save

video

Sports and games

A unique project frames college football as an intricately choreographed mass ritual

7 minutes

Save

video

Mood and emotion

Moments of poetry pierce through the mundane at a small-town grocery

13 minutes

Save

video

Design and fashion

From spark of inspiration to final press – how William Blake built a book of poetry

8 minutes

Silhouetted figures stand beside a car looking up at a starry night sky
Save

essay

Space exploration

Uncertain contact

The detection of alien life won’t be obvious. It’ll be partial and inconclusive: a perfect task for the scientific method

Jaime Green

Save

video

Personality

Why one man spent 15 years in ‘self-imposed’ island exile

7 minutes

A flock of birds fly over a wide expanse of marshland and a river at dusk.
Save

essay

Biography and memoir

Flat places

Whenever I stand in a flat landscape, I feel myself becoming weightless, taken out of my childhood full of painful nothing

Noreen Masud

Save

video

Nature and landscape

Take a serene hike through an ancient forest, inspired by a Miyazaki masterpiece

6 minutes

A close up picture of hands playing a silver brass flute with a shallow depth of field such that the foreground fingers and keys are more in focus
Save

essay

Music

To the tune of dystonia

One day, my hand stopped speaking to my brain. As a doctor and flute player, I had to understand this strange affliction

Lynn Hallarman

Save

video

Design and fashion

The mundane becomes mesmerising in this deep dive into segmented displays

14 minutes

Save

video

Physics

A song of ice, fire and jelly – exploring the physics and history of the trumpet

9 minutes