videoKnowledge
A Kichwa activist on ayahuasca’s rise – and what it really means to her people
15 minutes
videoChildhood and adolescence
A neglected Dominican sugar town, as seen through the eyes of a 12-year-old local
11 minutes
videoGlobal history
After the fall of the Iron Curtain, a young couple discovers a strange, newly open world
18 minutes
essayProgress and modernity
The shadow of prosperity
A shrub meant to end hunger now chokes Kenya’s farmlands. It’s a parable of how visions of progress can outgrow their promises
Samuel F Derbyshire
essayChildhood and adolescence
Society needs hope
Youths around the world are in a profound crisis of despair. Adults must help them to believe that the future will be better
Carol Graham
essayAnimals and humans
Life thrums with music
Listen to the boundless sounds of nature, the great animal orchestra, whose songs imbue the world with fresh meaning
Jay Griffiths
essayFuture of technology
Techno-pipe dreams
Thirty years ago, nanotech was about to change everything. Let’s not get tricked again by Silicon Valley’s magical thinking
Philip Ball
videoNature and landscape
Scenes from Aboriginal Australian pottery chart the turn of the seasons
7 minutes
essayProgress and modernity
Authenticate thyself
Data has created a new and paradoxical social order: the promise of emancipation is made possible by classifying everything
Marion Fourcade & Kieran Healy
videoDemography and migration
The volunteers who offer a last line of care for migrants at a contentious border
30 minutes
essayKnowledge
Socrates would be pleased
With a class of college students and inmates, teaching philosophy in prison is a rowdy, honest and hopeful provocation
Jay Miller
videoHistory
In Stalin’s home city in Georgia, generations clash over his legacy
20 minutes
videoArchitecture
Steep climbs lead to sacred spaces carved high into the cliffs of Ethiopia
9 minutes
videoHistory
In the face of denial, this film uncovers the hidden scars of Indonesia’s 1998 riots
21 minutes
essayNations and empires
The rewards of ruin
Societal downfalls loom large in history and popular culture but, for the 99 per cent, collapse often had its upsides
Luke Kemp
videoHistory of science
Insect aesthetics – long viewed as pests, in the 16th century bugs became beautiful
8 minutes
essayAnimals and humans
To build a nest
Throughout the animal kingdom, the parents of newborns must strive to create snug sanctuaries in a hazardous world
Helen Jukes
videoLove and friendship
What does it mean to say goodbye to a creature that doesn’t know you’re leaving?
13 minutes
essayBiography and memoir
The story of Malcolm X
Alex Haley co-wrote The Autobiography of Malcolm X but Haley left out some profound elements of Malcolm’s political thought
Alex White
videoThinkers and theories
The prison abolitionist who dares to envision a world without ‘unfreedoms’
16 minutes
essayPolitics and government
How to run the world
We need new forms of global diplomacy to transcend the current pathetic bargaining of national and commercial interests
David Van Reybrouck
essayAnthropology
Spider divination
Life is complicated. In Cameroon, initiated diviners read the messages of spiders to untangle possible futures
David Zeitlyn
essayThe environment
Beyond food and people
Nietzsche shows us how to embrace our connection with nature – without denying its essential conflict, strife and suffering
Nicholas E Low
videoMedicine
Drinking wine from toxic cups was the 17th century’s own dubious ‘detox’ treatment
11 minutes