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Culture

Essays and videos on the arts, literature, travel, rituals and celebrations
ArchitectureArtBiography and memoirDance and theatreDesign and fashionFilm and visual cultureFood and drinkHomeMusicNature and landscapeRituals and celebrationsSports and gamesStories and literatureSubculturesTravel
Aerial view of a large pipeline construction site with machinery and vehicles cutting through green fields and hills under a partly cloudy sky.
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essay

Nature and landscape

Land loneliness

To survive, we are asked to forget that our lands and bodies are being violated, policed, ripped up, silenced, sacrificed

Kelsey Day

A young girl in a pink dress stands on a step, holding the hand of an adult. Four adults are partially visible around her.
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essay

Biography and memoir

The adoption paradox

Even happy families cannot avoid the reality – my reality – that adoption is predicated on transacting the life of a child

Fiona Sampson

Handwritten notes in black ink on an open notebook, with red and black corrections.
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essay

Thinkers and theories

Paper trails

Husserl’s well-tended archive has given him a rich afterlife, while Nietzsche’s was distorted by his axe-grinding sister

Peter Salmon

Mist-covered city skyline with a calm, reflective body of water in the foreground under a grey sky.
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essay

Pleasure and pain

Eulogy for silence

Tinnitus is like a constant scream inside my head, depriving me of what I formerly treasured: the moments of serene quiet

Diego Ramírez Martín del Campo

Four young girls in dresses smile outside, with one holding a small cat.
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video

Biography and memoir

Preserving memories of a Japanese internment camp, and the land where it stood

8 minutes

Illustration of a child sitting with their head down and knees up, next to a toy box with a teddy bear sticking out. An adult’s legs, dressed in a red skirt and brown shoes, are visible seated nearby on the right.
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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

The astronaut Ed Dwight in an orange jumpsuit smiles while holding a white helmet against a clear blue sky background.
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video

Biography and memoir

Passed over as the first Black astronaut, Ed Dwight carved out an impressive second act

13 minutes

Artwork depicting a family group composed of angular lines and triangles, some but not all coloured, on a paper background
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essay

Family life

A patchwork family

After my marriage failed, I strove to create a new family – one made beautiful by the loving way it’s stitched together

Lily Dunn

A man lies down with his head on a miniature model of buildings and streets, blending into the tiny, urban scene at night.
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video

Biography and memoir

The unique life philosophy of Abdi, born in Somalia, living in the Netherlands

29 minutes

Illustration of three scouts in uniforms with red neckerchiefs, one wearing a hat. They have different facial expressions and are sitting in a row.
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video

Childhood and adolescence

Striking shadow puppetry illuminates a skater kid’s memories of Boy Scout camp

12 minutes

A photo collage with stone buildings, a wooden door, a metal gate, and residential structures with plants in the background.
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video

Technology and the self

A ‘virtual outing’ on Google Maps reveals a treasured image from Diego’s past

6 minutes

Person on a roof, using a shovel to clear deep snow while more snow falls off the edge, against a snowy, cloudy sky backdrop.
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video

Nature and landscape

What it’s like to care for Yellowstone during its quietest – and coldest – months

13 minutes

Close-up of a man with a long beard and shoulder-length hair, smiling slightly with a contemplative expression, black and white photograph.
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essay

Thinkers and theories

On knowing who he was

Alan Watts, for all his faults, was a wildly imaginative and provocative thinker who reimagined religion in a secular age

Christopher Harding

Woman holds a baby while standing on a stone spiral path in a forested area with trees and greenery in the background.
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video

Biography and memoir

As her world unravels, Pilar wonders at the ‘sacred geometry’ that gives it structure

20 minutes

Surreal artwork of a human head. The top section contains an open book and clouds, the bottom section has deep water with sharks, all set in an abstract background.
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essay

Stories and literature

Saved by Infinite Jest

Bereft and suicidal, I lay on my sofa. Only David Foster Wallace’s novel kept me tethered to life, and still does

Mala Chatterjee

A portrait of a smiling Black woman in a garden, sitting on a white plastic lawn chair, with leafy plants, flowers, and a wooden fence in the background.
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video

Biography and memoir

A gentle soul in an oppressive land – Bonnie’s story of life in America

11 minutes

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

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

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
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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

Rubens painting Venus and Cupid reimagined with Venus on the left gazing in a mirror at her mastectomized breast. A cherub like Cupid to the right holds the mirror
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essay

Illness and disease

More than pink

The culture around breast cancer is full of positivity and femininity. But it comes at the expense of the marginalised

Philippa Hetherington

A diary page from 1943, featuring handwritten text in French and German and two small black-and-white photographs of a man and a woman at the bottom.
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essay

War and peace

Chorus of testimony

Anne Frank’s diary is one of thousands of desperate, secret and vivid journals each bearing witness to the reality of war

Nina Siegal

A monochrome drawing of a surprised young person looking downwards, with wide eyes and slightly open mouth.
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video

Biography and memoir

The busboy who comforted Robert F Kennedy as he lay dying shares his story

3 minutes

A young black man wearing a blue checkered shirt and glasses is speaking into a microphone with a pop filter, reading off of a paper, against a plain white background.
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video

Biography and memoir

A young autistic man’s heartfelt letter to the beloved mother he lost

12 minutes

Black and white photo of a Black man in a trench coat walking, with a few other white men in suits visible in the background. He compellingly looks into the camera.
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video

Family life

The extraordinary story of a Black Holocaust survivor, as told by his daughter

21 minutes