Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
Can sexual desire lead us to something that transcends the physical act? Socrates seemed to think so. In Plato’s Symposium, Socrates recalls the words of his apparent teacher of erotics, the priestess Diotima of Mantinea, who instructed him that lust was the first rung on a ladder leading upwards towards an appreciation of the form of beauty itself and, further, to morality and virtue.
video
History of technology
Replicating Shakespearean-era printing brings its own dramas and comedy
19 minutes
video
Animals and humans
The wild tale of a young animal keeper, an angry tiger and a torn circle net
10 minutes
video
Beauty and aesthetics
Can you see music in this painting? How synaesthesia fuelled Kandinsky’s art
10 minutes
video
Knowledge
Why it takes more than a lifetime to truly understand a single meadow
11 minutes
video
War and peace
‘She is living on in many hearts’ – Otto Frank on the legacy of his daughter’s diary
12 minutes
video
Art
Why Diego Velázquez needed a lifetime to paint his enigmatic masterpiece
31 minutes
video
Political philosophy
The radical activist couple who fought for social change in the courtroom
21 minutes
video
Technology and the self
A haunting scene from ‘Minority Report’ inspires a voyage into time and memory
7 minutes
video
Family life
The stream-of-consciousness thoughts and memories that emerge while cooking a meal
5 minutes