Essays

Mapping Bob Dylan’s mind

Generative AI sheds new light on the underlying engines of metaphor, mood and reinvention in six decades of songs

Prashant Garg

Are you Confusedocene?

As a scientific concept the Anthropocene is dead. But it’s such a helpful idea to think with, should we use it anyway?

Ville Lähde

Megastructures on Mars

Images of vast ‘canals’ rippling across the red planet inspired fears of alien ‘engineers’ and changed science forever

Dagomar Degroot

Valuable misunderstandings

Scientific progress depends on disagreement. So why are vaccine sceptics and other science critics not worth listening to?

Collin Rice & Kareem Khalifa

Power and flesh

As struggles over the human body escalate, we should return to the work of cinema’s greatest anatomist: David Cronenberg

Travis Alexander

The world without hegemony

As Pax Americana ends, a multipolar order is emerging. The history of Southeast Asia holds lessons for what’s to come

Manjeet S Pardesi & Amitav Acharya

My private mountain

Through her paintings, Georgia O’Keeffe laid claim to New Mexico’s desert landscape. But it was never hers for the taking

Alanna Offield

An emperor for all seasons

The magnificent Altar of Peace celebrates the imperial order of Augustus’ Rome and his place in the fabric of the cosmos

John Weeds

Monstrification

For centuries we’ve used the declaration of ‘monster’ to eject individuals and groups from being respected as fully human

Surekha Davies

Learning to not-know

From late-night calls to unsolved symptoms, uncertainty is woven into every doctor’s day. They should learn to embrace it

Zoe Cunniffe

Dreams of a Maoist India

India’s Maoist guerillas have just surrendered, after decades of waging war on the government from their forest bases

Rahul Pandita

Hidden in plain sight

Jewish children who were ‘hidden’ in Christian families during the Holocaust have much to teach us about memory and trauma

Carolyn Ariella Sofia