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Although his master’s thesis on the topic was rejected by the University of Chicago’s anthropology department, it’s hard to discount the acuity of the US writer Kurt Vonnegut’s theory of ‘story shapes’. This archival video features Vonnegut using a chalkboard and his famous deadpan wit to map out three highly familiar narrative arcs that seem to have lost none of their popularity despite countless iterations. He addressed story shapes at greater length in his essay collection A Man Without a Country (2005). The US graphic designer Maya Eilam later adapted his archetypes into a series of handy infographics, which can be viewed at her website.
Image from A Man Without a Country
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Social psychology
What happened when a crypto scam swept over a sleepy town in the Caucasus
18 minutes
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Stories and literature
Two variants of a Hindu myth come alive in an animated ode to Indian storytelling
14 minutes
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Anthropology
For an Amazonian female shaman, ayahuasca ceremonies are a rite and a business
30 minutes
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Virtues and vices
Why Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith were divided on the virtues of vanity
5 minutes
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History of technology
Replicating Shakespearean-era printing brings its own dramas and comedy
19 minutes
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Childhood and adolescence
The police camp where tween girls enter a sisterhood of law and order
28 minutes
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Anthropology
Does Mogi’s future lie with her horses on the Mongolian steppe, or in the city?
16 minutes
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Genetics
Why it took a century to work out that humans interbred with Neanderthals
22 minutes
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Meaning and the good life
‘Everydayness is the enemy’ – excerpts from the existentialist novel ‘The Moviegoer’
2 minutes