Interdisciplinary horizons in human–animal studies
Over the last few decades, scholarship in the arts has undergone a significant shift towards questions and topics related to animals and our relationships with them.
Music therapy musicianship: a call for change
The following is offered as a manifesto: a bold assertion of our unique musicianship. We – music therapists – are different from performers and educators.
Five surprising facts about baseball [map]
As a game, baseball has multiple antecedents and ancestors, most notably an English children’s game called rounders. But as an organized spectator sport, baseball is native to the United States.
Trailblazing paths: iconic women through time [reading list]
In honor of Women’s History Month, we’re celebrating trailblazing paths taken by women whose courage and vision transformed societies.
The “Freest Writer” in Stalin’s Russia
Laurence Sterne, the eighteenth-century author of Tristram Shandy and A Sentimental Journey, might seem an unlikely figure to capture the imagination of early Soviet intellectuals in the 1920s and 1930s.
How to write an interdisciplinary abstract
The purpose of any abstract is to summarise your article’s content in a way that will help potential readers decide if they want to read your work. An abstract usually runs between 150 and 300 words and will likely be your readers’ first interaction with your research article, so you must write it with that in mind.
Humour as a higher form of justice
Walter Benjamin, the intellectual hero of the 1968 generation and one of the most influential figures in German cultural and media studies, is still regarded as the quintessential melancholic. Yet his work is interwoven with reflections on humour and the political opportunities it offers.
Reintroducing Justice Robert Jackson
In 1952, Justice Robert Jackson issued a concurring opinion in the case of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, in which a majority of the Supreme Court held that President Harry Truman could not invoke executive power to seize several of the major U.S. steel manufacturing companies. Jackson’s opinion in Youngstown sketched a framework for executive power under the Constitution, identifying three examples of executive decisions against the backdrop of congressional authority.
The sound of suspense: Hitchcock and Herrmann [playlist]
Listen to Bernard Herrmann’s eight scores for the films of Alfred Hitchcock. You’ll hear, in music, a mirror of how the duo’s personal relationship evolved, from its joyous start in late 1954 to its bitter end in 1966.
Turn off AI. Pick up a crayon.
Google Gemini offers “a new way to bring your imagination to life.” Adobe Firefly promises “The ultimate creative AI solution.” And Craiyon invites you to “Create AI Art.” Don’t believe the tech hype.
What’s your literary classic Halloween costume? [quiz]
This Halloween, why not let literature dress you?
Quatremère de Quincy: the founding father of museophobia?
Antoine-Chrysostôme Quatremère de Quincy (1755-1849) was celebrated during his lifetime as the greatest European writer on the arts. The architect Sir John Soane admired his essay on Egyptian architecture while Hegel considered his research on ancient Greek polychromatic sculpture a masterpiece. Despite the breadth of Quatremère’s writings, today he is famous for inventing an idea […]
How I used the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography as a student
‘They court the notice of a future age/ Those twinkling tiny lustres of the land’. Today’s users of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography are members of the ‘future age’ that William Cowper talks of in his poem ‘On Observing Some Names Of Little Note Recorded In The Biographia Britannica’. For students, this makes the […]
Nine reasons I love John Williams [playlist]
I wrote a biography of John Williams, essentially, because I have loved his music since I was nine years old.
Prague: a playlist from the heart of Europe
Prague is a city steeped in history, where music has long been intertwined with its cultural identity. This playlist captures that spirit, featuring compositions that reflect the grandeur of its imperial courts, the struggles of its people, and the resilience of its artists.
John Williams and the two notes that changed cinema
Two notes. Probably the most famous two-note unit of music in modern history.
When a composer has a hit song or an instantly iconic tune, it can be a blessing and a curse. That tune becomes eternally attached to you—and sometimes it can eclipse the rest of your work.