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Culture

Essays and videos on the arts, literature, travel, rituals and celebrations
Jelena’s song | Aeon
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Wellbeing

Through a poetic account of childhood trauma, one woman reclaims her past

28 minutes

Under the mkone tree | Aeon
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Mental health

Under the mkone tree

When I returned to Kenya, where I grew up, I found biomedicine and traditional medicine in conversation about mental health

Priya Basil

My blackness | Aeon
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Biography and memoir

My blackness

At times I’ve tried to escape it. Other times I’ve embraced it. But at all times, people have attempted to define me by it

Colin Grant

Deerwoods deathtrap | Aeon
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Family life

Fifty years ago, a train collided with Jack and Betty’s car. Here’s how they remember it

9 minutes

Violator | Aeon
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Virtues and vices

From violent criminal to loving parent – a son’s story of his father’s transformation

23 minutes

The temple of knowledge | Aeon
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Teaching and learning

Ronald grew up in a New York City library. It was as strange and wondrous as it sounds

3 minutes

Obon | Aeon
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Biography and memoir

What Akiko saw at the centre of the Hiroshima blast, and the indelible mark it left

15 minutes

Great art explained: Rothko’s Seagram Murals | Aeon
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Art

Can art in a swanky restaurant ever be transcendent? On Rothko’s Seagram Murals

15 minutes

Ed and Pauline | Aeon
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Film and visual culture

At the movies with Pauline Kael – in the arthouse cinema where she got her start

19 minutes

Nadia’s songs | Aeon
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Music

Nick ponders the life of the mysterious girl whose used CDs shaped his teenage years

5 minutes

Nature does not care | Aeon
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Nature and landscape

Nature does not care

Too many nature writers descend into poetic self-absorption instead of the sharp-eyed realism the natural world deserves

Richard Smyth

My God, it’s full of stars | Aeon
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Knowledge

A poet’s ode to the Hubble Telescope – and to her father, who helped to build it

2 minutes

The Black cop: a villain, a victim and a hero | Aeon
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Gender and identity

What happened when a gay Black man joined the Metropolitan Police in London

25 minutes

Inside ambiguity | Aeon
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Human rights and justice

Inside ambiguity

We are suspended between the inescapable facts of our lives and what we do to contest them, nowhere more than in prison

Andy West

Nefertiti’s bust | Aeon
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Archaeology

Nefertiti’s bust

How did this ancient and enigmatic sculpture of a beautiful Egyptian queen end up as fortune’s hostage in Germany?

Joyce Tyldesley

The king of fish and chips | Aeon
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Biography and memoir

Meet Haddon Salt – the would-have-been Colonel Sanders of fish and chips

9 minutes

Bill Blaine: a walk around the house | Aeon
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Art

An ageing artist’s unguarded thoughts on what it takes to be great – and why he lacks it

12 minutes

Idealising the predator | Aeon
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Sex and sexuality

Idealising the predator

How did certain French intellectuals get away with preying upon young girls, shamelessly, in public and over decades?

Lily Dunn

The other Fab Four | Aeon
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video

Biography and memoir

Meet the Liverbirds! The bittersweet tale of Liverpool’s all-female answer to the Beatles

16 minutes

Thanadoula | Aeon
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Ageing and death

How an end-of-life doula found her vocation as a companion for the dying

7 minutes

The great world of Gregory Blackstock | Aeon
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Art

How a self-taught autistic artist mines creativity from life’s endless variations

11 minutes

Maestro of more than music | Aeon
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Music

Maestro of more than music

Look beneath the surface of Bach’s music and you will find a fascinating hidden world of numerology and cunning craft

Milton Mermikides

A family that steals dogs | Aeon
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Family life

An artist grapples with the loss of his brother, and the problem of canine abduction

7 minutes

Where the rivers meet | Aeon
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Spirituality

Where the rivers meet

Pilgrims have long sought in India’s holiest city an antidote to the modern West, but Varanasi is more dream than reality

Manini Sheker