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Society

Essays and videos on social issues, history, political life and the future
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Sports and games

A unique project frames college football as an intricately choreographed mass ritual

7 minutes

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Anthropology

A riveting collage portrays a century of Inuit history, and envisions a vibrant future

14 minutes

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Family life

Amazonian childcare

In the eyes of the Runa people, Western kids grow up indulged, over-mothered and incapable of facing outward to the world

Francesca Mezzenzana

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Anthropology

How to mourn a forest

The Marind people of West Papua deploy mourning not only to grieve their animal and plant kin but as political resistance

Sophie Chao

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Anthropology

Memories within myth

The stories of oral societies, passed from generation to generation, are more than they seem. They are scientific records

Patrick Nunn

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Rituals and celebrations

Beware the Nalujuit! A rare glimpse into a chilling Labrador Inuit tradition

13 minutes

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Anthropology

Lessons from the foragers

Hunter-gatherers don’t live in an economic idyll but their deep appreciation of rest puts industrialised work to shame

Vivek V Venkataraman

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Archaeology

Children of the Ice Age

With the help of new archaeological approaches, our picture of young lives in the Palaeolithic is now marvellously vivid

April Nowell

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Archaeology

Finding the First Americans

Archaeology and genetics can’t yet agree on when humans first arrived in the Americas. That’s good science and here’s why

Jennifer Raff

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Anthropology

Keeping the score

The gifts we exchange are both generous and yet fraught with social rules and obligations. Marcel Mauss explained why

Gili Kliger

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Thinkers and theories

The generous philosopher

Bruno Latour showed us how to think with the things of the world, respecting their right to exist and act on their own terms

Stephen Muecke

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Religion

The meaning of Purgatory

Think less of a holding pen for Heaven and more as a flow of love from the living, and the weirdness starts making sense

Magnus Course

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Computing and artificial intelligence

The people of the cloud

Hot, strenuous and unsung. There is nothing soft and fluffy about the caretaking work that enables our digital lives

Steven Gonzalez Monserrate

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Anthropology

Keeping our options open

Frantic human activity has reduced both cultural and biological diversity. Now we must protect the dwindling alternatives

Thomas Hylland Eriksen

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Human evolution

Out of the forest

We have thought of humans for a century or more as creatures of the savannah, shaped in every way by grassland life. Not so

Patrick Roberts

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Language and linguistics

The polyglots of Dardistan

At the crossroads of south and central Asia lies one of the world’s most multilingual places, with songs and poetry to match

Zubair Torwali

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Anthropology

Primitive communism

Marx’s idea that societies were naturally egalitarian and communal before farming is widely influential and quite wrong

Manvir Singh

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Information and communication

From mental image to sketch – how memories and emotions conjure up a face

23 minutes

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Art

From archaeology digs to display cabinets: how museums bring exhibits to life

37 minutes

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Ecology and environmental sciences

Life in one of Canada’s northernmost villages, where the land is sinking into the sea

24 minutes

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Evolution

Promethean beasts

Far from being hardwired to flee fire, some animals use it to their own ends, helping us understand our own pyrocognition

Ivo Jacobs

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Mood and emotion

Feeling, in situ

What if emotions are not universal and hardwired but exquisite acts of meaning-making specific to context and culture?

Elitsa Dermendzhiyska

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Anthropology

On the run from COVID-19, an Indigenous family treks deep into the Amazon rainforest

17 minutes

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Anthropology

The Margaret Mead problem

Mead, so radical about gender and sex in her early work, doubled down on the differences between men and women later. Why?

Elesha J Coffman