essay
Film and visual culture
Fighting kung fu
From chopsocky films to disco earworms, Asian caricatures have proliferated since the 1970s. Can Hollywood kick the habit?
Stephanie Wong
essay
Film and visual culture
Exposed
Slum photography was at the heart of progressive campaigns against urban poverty. And it was a weapon against poor people
Sadie Levy Gale
video
Physics
A dreamy tribute to the music of Brian Eno, rendered in paint, soap and water
2 minutes
video
Anthropology
A riveting collage portrays a century of Inuit history, and envisions a vibrant future
14 minutes
essay
Food and drink
Crème de la crème
How French cuisine became beloved among status-hungry diners in the United States, from Thomas Jefferson to Kanye West
Kelly Alexander & Claire Bunschoten
essay
Quantum theory
All possible worlds
Long a matter of philosophical speculation, the idea of multiple realities has been given new artistic licence by physics
Timothy Andersen
video
Biology
A dazzling slice-by-slice exploration of wood exposes hidden patterns and hues
2 minutes
video
Philosophy of mind
An enigmatic ‘story of consciousness’ told through 19th-century engravings
7 minutes
video
History of technology
Who owns history? How remarkable historical footage is hidden and monetised
18 minutes
essay
Family life
Honey, I sold the kids
We have laws to protect children from factory work. Why aren’t they protected from parents who monetise their lives online?
Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore
essay
Art
Milk, pity and power
Since antiquity, artists have depicted a perverse scene of a daughter breastfeeding her aged father. What does it mean?
Margie Orford
video
Film and visual culture
The old-time cinema experience endures in a quiet corner of Japan
5 minutes
video
Stories and literature
The key to a vampire’s immortality? Meeting the anxieties of the moment
15 minutes
video
Chemistry
A square inch in a Petri dish becomes a grand stage for chemical transformations
4 minutes
video
Art
Edward Hopper came of age with cinema. As an artist, he left a lasting mark on it
12 minutes
essay
Beauty and aesthetics
What does art do?
Good art, laced with irony, ambiguity and suspense, is not obviously political. That’s what makes it politically interesting
Vid Simoniti
essay
Subcultures
Life in the buff
Naturists believed nudity was profoundly beneficial to society. In order to spread the message, they took to photography
Annebella Pollen
video
Film and visual culture
With human help, AIs are generating a new aesthetics. The results are trippy
9 minutes
essay
History
Freedom from liquor
Ken Burns’s account of prohibition tells a popular story of booze in America. The historical record is far more sobering
Mark Lawrence Schrad
video
Film and visual culture
At the movies with Pauline Kael – in the arthouse cinema where she got her start
19 minutes
video
Art
Dizzying discs and obscene wordplay – revisiting Marcel Duchamp’s 1926 film debut
7 minutes
essay
Stories and literature
Aristotle goes to Hollywood
Today, the ancient Greek storyteller would be winning Oscars. To learn how, turn to the Poetics, his masterwork on writing
Philip Freeman
video
Physics
Spectacular fractal patterns emerge when electricity meets a wooden surface
4 minutes
video
Physics
This is not an animation: the spectacular sight of magnets meeting a metallic liquid
5 minutes