Posts

The birth of naturalism

The modern era is often seen as the triumph of science over supernaturalism. But...

The listening gift

It is the dark matter of conversation, the white space around a poem. For Rilke,...

Mother tongue

In animations that evoke the fog of memory, Susan returns to her childhood in Ko...

How to see an exquisite corpse

A history of the ‘exquisite corpse’ in art shows how it embodies surrealist idea...

The ethical dilemma of privacy

Is privacy inherently valuable, or just one more variable in a society’s bluepri...

Hearts and brains

Humans always end up with clogged arteries, right? That’s not what the lives of ...

Passion and Palestine

More than any other conflict, Israel/Palestine has provoked extraordinarily ferv...

A former slave’s letter to his old master

‘Will you send us our wages for the time that we served you?’ A freed slave answ...

Poverty is not permanent

By understanding the pernicious myths surrounding poverty, we can make progress ...

The cheekiest potter

A ceramicist puts a playful twist on Italian Renaissance pottery with dirty joke...

A very American fear

Moral panics about erotica have coursed through the country’s history. Why do so...

So many unmarried men

For Mary Midgley, the Western philosophical tradition is shaped by the fact that...

Guardians of the gibbons

Humans are both the gravest threat and the greatest hope for the survival of the...

Why Social Media Is Making Our Kids Miserable

Social media is selling kids unrealistic goals, leaving them anxious and lost. I...

Rebuilding Trust

Why trust is key to healthy relationships, and how we can seek to restore trust ...

A Better Alternative to Defensive Pessimism

Defensive pessimism is a strategy that is used to deal with fear and is often pa...

Bipolar I Before Lithium: What Was It Like?

Before lithium became available to treat this potentially devastating illness, b...

Boomerang! Managing Your College Kid Moving Back Home E...

When college kids move home early, it's vital you set expectations, be a good ro...

Hugging and Narcissism: A Surprising Insight

Some people love to hug other people, while others don’t. A new study sheds ligh...

An Unexpected Irony of Popular Weight-Loss Therapy

New research supports a medical irony: Weight-loss drugs that transform our appe...