What universities get wrong about free speech
When racist firebrands claimed a right to speak at various universities two years ago, free speech absolutists on the left and right rushed to their defense.
How meningitis has (almost) been conquered
Scientific discovery is often a messy affair. It’s sometimes intentional, sometimes accidental, sometimes cluttered with error, and always complicated. The ultimate value of scientific observations may not be recognized for many years until the discovery emerges to shed new insight on old problems and become etched in the scientific canon. Such is the story of the conquest of meningitis, a devastating infection of the brain that is usually fatal if not treated.
What does ‘Honest to God’ tell us about Britain’s “secular revolution”?
On 17 March 1963, John Robinson, the Anglican bishop of Woolwich, wrote an article for the Observer entitled “Our Image of God Must Go.” He was writing to advertise his new book, Honest to God, which made a deeply controversial argument: that modern Christians would eventually find it necessary to reject classical theism. God Himself, Robinson argued, was causing […]
The Holocaust and the illusions of hindsight
Historians’ 20-20 hindsight makes them in a way blind, trapped on the far side of history’s moving wall from the actors they wish to study. Nowhere is this truer than when writing the history of periods of great uncertainty and struggle. The only chance of understanding those caught up in the maelstrom of such moments, is to plunge, as far as that is possible, into the uncertain waters of their present.
Phyllis Tate – A Family Portrait
Colin and Celia Frank, the children of 20th-century composer Phyllis Tate, reflect on her life and works. Phyllis Tate, or Phyl as she was known to her friends, worked in what was then very much a man’s world, epitomized by a photo of members of the Composers’ Guild in which she is the only woman. […]
Reading, writing and readability—appreciating Rudolph Flesch
This October marks the thirty-third anniversary of the passing of Rudolph Flesch, the patron saint of brevity.
Fears of a Latino invasion: demographic panic then and now
How are Donald Trump’s racist tweets about “rat-infested” Baltimore, his tacit endorsement of chants of “send her home” about representative Ilhan Omar at his rallies, and the mass shooting in El Paso, TX, targeting Latinos by a gunman concerned about a Mexican “invasion” of the United States connected?
History of clashes in and around Jewish synagogues
One Sabbath day in the late-second century CE, a slave and future pope named Callistus (Calixtus I) entered a synagogue and, hoping to die, picked a fight with the Jews. For the opening salvo, he stood and confessed that he was a Christian. A melee ensued. But the Jews only dragged Callistus before Rome’s city […]
Progressive black radio weighs in on Trump’s base
“Tom and Sybil, you guys lifted us up mightily for so many years,” said President Barack Obama to the Tom Joyner Morning Show anchors on 2 November, 2016. “I could not be more grateful.” Economic insecurity or racism? Immediately following Donald Trump’s shocking 2016 electoral-college presidential win, commentators rushed to explain the results by focusing on white […]
The not-so ironic evolution of the term “politically correct”
Punctuation-wise, most of us fall between these two extremes. We are neither staccato nor breathless. Instead, we use punctuation to establish a comfortable pace for readers by grouping and emphasizing certain chunks of information.
Quiz: How well do you know Albert Camus?
The Nobel Prize winner, Albert Camus (1913-1960) is one of the best known French philosophers of the twentieth century, and also a widely-read novelist, whose works are frequently referenced in contemporary culture and politics. An active figure in the French underground movement, a fearless journalist, and an influential thinker in the post-war French intellectual life, Camus’s experience of growing up in troubled and conflicted times during the World War I and Nazi occupation of France permeate his philosophical and literary works.
Albert Camus and the problem of absurdity
Albert Camus (1913-1960) was a French philosopher and novelist whose works examine the alienation inherent in modern life and who is best known for his philosophical concept of the absurd. He explored these ideas in his famous novels, The Stranger (1942), The Plague (1947), and The Fall (1956), as well as his philosophical essays, The Myth of Sisyphus (1942) and The Rebel (1951). […]
The worrying ideology that helps Trump’s new friendship with Brazil
As the conflict develops in Venezuela between the US-backed Juan Guaidó and the incumbent government of Nicolás Maduro, one staunch supporter of the United States position is Brazil.
Schizophrenia and ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky
Schizophrenia is the most iconic of all mental illnesses but both its conceptualization and causes remain elusive. The popular image portrays patients convinced of being persecuted and hearing voices that nobody else can hear.
The Treaty of Versailles: A Very Short Introduction
National self-determination was supposed to be the answer to the so-called “ethnic problem” of the 19th century. The prewar, multi-ethnic Russian, German, and Austro-Hungarian empires, all on the wrong side of history, had disappeared at the end of the First World War never to return.
Why terminology and naming is so important in the LGBTQ community
It is imperative that we explore the evolution of queer identity with regard to mental health, detail experiences that foster resilience and stress-related growth among people, and examine what comes after marginalized sexual orientation and gender identity status is disentangled from their historical association with the concept of mental illness.