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Marina Benjamin

Senior Editor, Aeon+Psyche

Marina is a former arts editor of the New Statesman and deputy arts editor of the Evening Standard newspaper in London. Her books include, Living at the End of the World which looked at end-time cults, Rocket Dreams, an off-beat elegy to the Space Age, and Last Days in Babylon, the story of the Jews of Iraq. Marina specialises in the culture of science, developmental psychology and strong personal narratives. Her acclaimed memoirs The Middlepause and Insomnia have been translated into 9 languages. Her latest memoir A Little Give will be published in 2023. She can be found on Twitter @marinab52.

See Marina Benjamin’s profile on Psyche

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Written by Marina Benjamin

Neon signs at night in a city, featuring the words “Fremont Hotel,” “Casino,” “Saloon,” “Keno,” and “Craps”.

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Cognition and intelligence

Playing games for real

My father was hopelessly, joyously addicted to gambling and I his moral critic. How did I end up playing pro blackjack?

Marina Benjamin

Period painting of a woman with curly hair in a red dress holding a portrait necklace, with a young girl in white resting her arm on her shoulder.

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Childhood and adolescence

My daughter, myself

Storms of doubt and change I expected as the parent of an adolescent, I just thought they would be hers, not mine

Marina Benjamin

Edited by Marina Benjamin

Blurry photo of a person lying back with head tilted, set against a red and dark background.

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Sex and sexuality

Sex and death

Our culture works hard to keep sex and death separate but recharging the libido might provide the release that grief needs

Cody Delistraty

A woman in casual attire walking by a large weaving loom with black threads in a bright, clean room

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Design and fashion

When luxury is good

The waste and exploitation of fast fashion shouldn’t blind us to the joys of making beautiful clothing with care

Roger Tredre

Photo of a doll with curly red hair, blue eyes, and a large maroon hat, wearing a double string of pearls and a red dress.

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Rituals and celebrations

Tender, yet creepy

Dolls help children create wonderfully vivid and imaginative worlds, while also serving as unsettling reminders of the abyss

Tishani Doshi

Black-and-white photo of a woman holding her child on a stone pier, with small wooden boats and a shoreline in the background.

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Film and visual culture

The risk of beauty

W Eugene Smith’s photos of the Minamata disaster are both exquisite and horrifying. How might we now look at them?

Joanna Pocock

Aerial view of a large pipeline construction site with machinery and vehicles cutting through green fields and hills under a partly cloudy sky.

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Nature and landscape

Land loneliness

To survive, we are asked to forget that our lands and bodies are being violated, policed, ripped up, silenced, sacrificed

Kelsey Day

Illustration of various human skulls and profiles with captions detailing different ethnic groups and regions, from a historical anthropological study.

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History of ideas

Baffled by human diversity

Confused 17th-century Europeans argued that human groups were separately created, a precursor to racist thought today

Jacob Zellmer

Painting of a person in a striped dress, resting their head on their hand, sitting next to a table with bottles, and a green background.

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Pleasure and pain

Me versus myself

I work against myself through procrastination, distraction and addiction. Why do I consistently sabotage my own life?

Eliane Glaser

A young woman and a man, both dressed formally, sit at a table with an electronic device in front of them. The woman is engaging with the device, which has several buttons and dials, while the man observes attentively. The setting appears to be an office or classroom. The image is in black and white.

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Technology and the self

Tomorrow people

For the entire 20th century, it had felt like telepathy was just around the corner. Why is that especially true now?

Roger Luckhurst

A black-and-white photo of a group of men sitting close together, some with mouths open as if singing or speaking. In the blurry background, additional people are seated around a table. The scene appears to be inside a room with a warm, communal atmosphere.

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Music

Folk music was never green

Don’t be swayed by the sound of environmental protest: these songs were first sung in the voice of the cutter, not the tree

Richard Smyth

Two wooden chairs with a unique, organic design stand in a lush garden surrounded by green plants and yellow flowers. A small tree in the background appears to be pruned in an artistic manner, enhancing the natural aesthetic.

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Design and fashion

Sitting on the art

Given its intimacy with the body and deep play on form and function, furniture is a ripely ambiguous artform of its own

Emma Crichton Miller

Painting of five women working in a field at sunset. Four are bent over tending to the soil, and one stands to the left looking at the sky with a bag on the ground beside her. The sky is a gradient of blue and orange with a visible crescent moon.

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Metaphysics

The enchanted vision

Love is much more than a mere emotion or moral ideal. It imbues the world itself and we should learn to move with its power

Mark Vernon

Artwork depicting a family group composed of angular lines and triangles, some but not all coloured, on a paper background

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Family life

A patchwork family

After my marriage failed, I strove to create a new family – one made beautiful by the loving way it’s stitched together

Lily Dunn