essay
Public health
It’s dirty work
In caring for and bearing with human suffering, hospital staff perform extreme emotional labour. Is there a better way?
Susanna Crossman
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Social psychology
The magic of the mundane
Pioneering sociologist Erving Goffman realised that every action is deeply revealing of the social norms by which we live
Lucy McDonald
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Stories and literature
The real Miss Julie
Victoria Benedictsson assumed a male identity, achieved literary stardom, and took her own life. Then Strindberg stole it
Elisabeth Åsbrink
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The future
Prehistory in the atomic age
To understand the terrifying futures unleashed by nuclear weapons, we urgently need to return to the deep past
Maria Stavrinaki
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Economics
Who bears the risk?
Under the guise of empowerment and freedom, politicians and business are offloading lifethreatening risk to individuals
Suzanne Schneider
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Political philosophy
The battles over beginnings
Niccolò Machiavelli’s profound insights about the violent origins of political societies help us understand the world today
David Polansky
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Anthropology
Societies of perpetual movement
Why do hunter-gatherers refuse to be sedentary? New answers are emerging from the depths of the Congolese rainforest
Cecilia Padilla-Iglesias
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Language and linguistics
Cathedrals of convention
Humans have a strong impulse to see things that are arbitrary or conventional as natural and essential – especially language
Reuben Cohn-Gordon
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Neuroscience
Rethinking the homunculus
When we discovered that the brain contained a map of the body it revolutionised neuroscience. But it’s time for an update
Moheb Costandi
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Gender and identity
Silencing of the girls
Girls are still in a bad bargain with patriarchy: the price of relationship is keeping their true thoughts to themselves
Carol Gilligan
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Religion
Inventing Hindu supremacy
Vinayak Savarkar ridiculed Gandhi, preaching that anti-Muslim violence was the only means to unite India into a nation
Mihir Dalal
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Comparative philosophy
Folklore is philosophy
Both folktales and formal philosophy unsettle us into thinking anew about our cherished values and views of the world
Abigail Tulenko