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Culture

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

Architecture Art Biography and memoir Dance and theatre Design and fashion Film and visual culture Food and drink Home Music Nature and landscape Rituals and celebrations Sports and games Stories and literature Subcultures Travel

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Two children playing with a dog in a green field with yellow flowers, a goalpost and a yellow field in the background.

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Childhood and adolescence

The play deficit

Children today are cossetted and pressured in equal measure. Without the freedom to play they will never grow up

Peter Gray

A metal car game piece on the “In Jail” square of a Monopoly board. The background shows blurred text and board squares.

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Sports and games

Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism

Kate Raworth

A woman in a yellow saree standing among large piles of colourful clothes outdoors, with trees in the background.

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Beauty and aesthetics

This is the final resting place of your cast-off clothing

14 minutes

Diagram of the solar system showing the positions of spacecrafts Pioneer 10 and 11, Voyager 1 and 2, New Horizons, and planets.

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Cosmology

Our Universe is too vast for even the most imaginative sci-fi

Michael Strauss

Close-up of a woman with brown eyes and long hair smiling, showing noticeable dental issues and freckles on her face.

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Fairness and equality

Poor teeth

If you have a mouthful of teeth shaped by a childhood in poverty, don’t go knocking on the door of American privilege

Sarah Smarsh

Hands wearing gloves making pink candyfloss with a machine, surrounded by fluffy pink candyfloss strands.

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Illness and disease

The case against sugar

A potent toxin that alters hormones and metabolism, sugar sets the stage for epidemic levels of obesity and diabetes

Gary Taubes

Abstract painting of a face with two red eyes, geometric shapes in pastel colours and a textured orange background.

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Philosophy of mind

I am not a story

Some find it comforting to think of life as a story. Others find that absurd. So are you a Narrative or a non-Narrative?

Galen Strawson

An elderly couple sitting on a bench reading newspapers, both are wearing glasses and dressed warmly in jackets.

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History of ideas

A philosophical approach to routines can illuminate who we really are

Solmu Anttila

A yellow car with “just married” and hearts written on the rear window in white paint.

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Love and friendship

A temporary marriage makes more sense than marriage for life

Vicki Larson

Close-up of a smiling mouth with braces, showing pink lips and metal orthodontic brackets on teeth.

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Anthropology

It’s not that your teeth are too big: your jaw is too small

Peter Ungar

A woman working on a laptop indoors at night viewed from outside through a window, with dark curtains and a dimly lit room.

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Sleep and dreams

Broken sleep

People once woke up halfway through the night to think, write or make love. What have we lost by sleeping straight through?

Karen Emslie

Man in a blue shirt and cap playing a cello in a forest setting.

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Ecology and environmental sciences

Yo-Yo Ma performs a work for cello in the woods, accompanied by a birdsong chorus

4 minutes

Black and white photo of women in gospel choir robes singing and clapping enthusiastically with hands raised in a worship setting.

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Cognition and intelligence

One more time

Why do we listen to our favourite music over and over again? Because repeated sounds work magic in our brains

Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis

Vintage photo of a diverse group of people, including a priest and children, marching and holding hands in a civil rights demonstration.

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Politics and government

Change the world, not yourself, or how Arendt called out Thoreau

Katie Fitzpatrick

An astronaut in a space suit standing next to a lunar rover on the Moon’s surface with mountains in the background.

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Knowledge

Say goodbye to the information age: it’s all about reputation now

Gloria Origgi

A vintage photo of a smiling family of five posing in front of a green curtain, with the father holding the youngest child.

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Childhood and adolescence

The great forgetting

Our first three years are usually a blur and we don’t remember much before age seven. What are we hiding from ourselves?

Kristin Ohlson

Close-up photo of a reptile’s face showing textured scales and a detailed eye. The reptile’s mouth is partially visible on the right.

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Social psychology

Want to feel unique? Believe in the reptile people

Roland Imhoff

Black and white photo of a large group of people digging and working in a field with shovels, surrounded by onlookers in uniform and trees.

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History

Drunk on genocide: how the Nazis celebrated murdering Jews

Edward B Westermann

Sepia photograph of an elderly man with a long beard and moustache, resting his chin on his hand, looking thoughtfully at the camera.

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Design and fashion

How beards put a brave face on threatened masculinity

Christopher R Oldstone-Moore

Hyperrealistic painting of a messy cheeseburger with onions, lettuce and condiments, along with a salt shaker on a dark background.

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Mood and emotion

The hunger mood

Hunger isn’t in your stomach or your blood-sugar levels. It’s in your mind – and that’s where we need to shape up

Michael Graziano

Photo of a family of six sitting together, reading a book in a dimly lit tent.

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Subcultures

Utopia Inc

Most utopian communities are, like most start-ups, short-lived. What makes the difference between failure and success?

Alexa Clay

Photo of two signage boards for an osteomyopathist, advertising naturopathic pain erasure and various treatments by Dennis M. Carr.

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Stories and literature

Why bullshit is no laughing matter

Gordon Pennycook

A religious procession with masked people in purple hoods carrying a statue adorned with angel figures and flowers at night.

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Subcultures

What is a cult?

Cults are exploitative, weird groups with strange beliefs and practices, right? So what about regular religions then?

Tara Isabella Burton

Painting of a girl in red and a wolf in a forest. The girl holds a basket and looks back at the wolf among dense green foliage.

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Stories and literature

The good guy/bad guy myth

Pop culture today is obsessed with the battle between good and evil. Traditional folktales never were. What changed?

Catherine Nichols