Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
Following the Age of Enlightenment’s emphasis on empiricism, Romantic historians such as the French writers Augustin Thierry (1795-1856) and Jules Michelet (1798-1874) viewed human emotion as vital to – and inexorably part of – constructing meaningful renderings of history. This piece from the UK video essayist Lewis Waller offers a brief intellectual history at the nexus of Romanticism and historiography. From there, Waller makes the case that, by rejecting the possibility of objective detachment from historical facts and embracing feelings and narrativisation, these Romantic thinkers built more ‘truthful’ histories than empiricists.
Video by Then & Now
Director: Lewis Waller
video
Fairness and equality
How the first woman of colour to be elected to the US Congress remade education
21 minutes
video
History of ideas
Tantra is, and was, a subversive philosophy of feminine power
19 minutes
video
Rituals and celebrations
From roaring fire and molten glass an artist creates a healing ritual
13 minutes
video
Ecology and environmental sciences
Producing food while restoring the planet – a glimpse of farming in the future
7 minutes
video
Archaeology
Ancient Greek sculptures were colourful. Why does the white marble ideal persist?
6 minutes
video
Economics
We all play by economic rules set by men. What could a feminist economics look like?
30 minutes
video
Ecology and environmental sciences
Yo-Yo Ma performs a work for cello in the woods, accompanied by a birdsong chorus
4 minutes
video
Art
‘Long Live Degenerate Art’ – how a Surrealist group in Cairo defied repression in 1938
4 minutes
video
Thinkers and theories
Metaphysics and beyond – Martha Nussbaum on Aristotle’s indelible ideas
43 minutes