Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
The Ancient Greeks blamed sadness on bodily humours called ‘melaina kole’ (black bile). Today, clinical depression is often understood as an imbalance of brain chemicals – although this is a paradigm that many experts believe is overdue for an update. This animation from TED-Ed offers a brief examination of the history of melancholy, scoping how philosophers, poets, writers and scientists have envisioned and altered our understanding of the experience across the ages.
video
Technology and the self
The commodified childhood – scenes from two sisters’ lives in the creator economy
14 minutes
video
Art
Background music was the radical invention of a trailblazing composer
17 minutes
video
Anthropology
For an Amazonian female shaman, ayahuasca ceremonies are a rite and a business
30 minutes
video
Metaphysics
What do past, present and future mean to a philosopher of time?
55 minutes
video
Sports and games
Havana’s streets become racetracks in this exhilarating portrait of children at play
5 minutes
video
Spirituality
Through rituals of prayer, a monk cultivates a quietly radical concept of freedom
4 minutes
video
Art
Radical doodles – how ‘exquisite corpse’ games embodied the Surrealist movement
15 minutes
video
Language and linguistics
Why Susan listens to recordings of herself speaking a language she no longer remembers
5 minutes
video
Ethics
Plato saw little value in privacy. How do his ideas hold up in the information age?
5 minutes