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.
Written by Marina Benjamin
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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
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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
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Film and visual culture
Exposed
Slum photography was at the heart of progressive campaigns against urban poverty. And it was a weapon against poor people
Sadie Levy Gale
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Psychiatry and psychotherapy
Analysis for the people
Group therapy promised to be both democratic and radical, but it failed to take hold. Has its time finally come?
Jess Cotton
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Food and drink
Crème de la crème
How French cuisine became beloved among status-hungry diners in the United States, from Thomas Jefferson to Kanye West
Kelly Alexander & Claire Bunschoten
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Personality
The myth of mirrored twins
What do the lives of twins tell us about heritability, selfhood and the age-old debate between nature and nurture?
Gavin Evans
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Stories and literature
The sonnet machine
A sonnet contains an emotional drama of illusion and deception, crisis and resolution, crafted to make us think and feel
Timothy Hampton
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Mood and emotion
In praise of irritation
Unlike anger, irritation has neither glamour nor radicalism on its side. Yet it might just be the mood we need right now
Will Rees
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Virtues and vices
The virtue of discretion
When the rules break down, you must judge what to do on your own. Discretion is necessary for navigating the muddle of life
Lorraine Daston
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Family life
Honey, I sold the kids
We have laws to protect children from factory work. Why aren’t they protected from parents who monetise their lives online?
Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore
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Art
Milk, pity and power
Since antiquity, artists have depicted a perverse scene of a daughter breastfeeding her aged father. What does it mean?
Margie Orford
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Biography and memoir
My blackness
At times I’ve tried to escape it. Other times I’ve embraced it. But at all times, people have attempted to define me by it
Colin Grant
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Music
Enter the conductrice
Will a new generation of women on the podium perpetuate the tyrannical charisma of their male predecessors or overturn it?
Xenia Hanusiak
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History of ideas
The first Romantics
How a close group of brilliant friends, in a tiny German university town, laid the foundations of modern consciousness
Andrea Wulf