John Locke on politics, civility, and parenting
In times of political change and upheaval, as we’ve seen around the world through the last five years, I take great comfort in reading the works of political writers of various ages.
How well do you know your Broadway trivia? [quiz]
September marks the new Broadway musical season and the opening of fledgling shows like Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 and familiar revivals like Cats.
Ten facts about the Paralympic Games
The Rio Summer Paralympics Games begin on 7 September, 2016. These games offer audiences a chance to be awed by the athletic elitism of international athletes with disabilities and are renowned for their spirit of accessibility and inclusion. Below are ten interesting facts about the Paralympics so that you can impress your friends and family with your knowledge.
Strategies for reflective practices in dance training
Reflective practice has the capability to facilitate deeper experiential understanding to enhance performance. It can release the dancer from the traditional ‘watch and repeat’ mode of dance training. Reflective practice and experiential learning is the crux of the process utilized in the Functional Awareness®: Anatomy in Action approach to somatic movement training.
Ryan Lochte’s “over-exaggerating”
If there were an Olympics for making an apology, swimmer Ryan Lochte wouldn’t qualify. After being outed for his fake claim that he was robbed by men identifying themselves as Brazilian police officers, he took to social media for damage control. His Instragram apology on August 19 went this way
Just because all philosophers are on Twitter…
Just because everyone is on Twitter doesn’t mean they’ve all got interesting things to say. I vaguely recall reading that late 19th-century curmudgeons expressed similar scepticism about the then much-hyped technology of the telephone.
Remembering H.D. on her 130th birth anniversary
American-born, British citizen by an ill-fated marriage, the modernist writer Hilda Doolittle (H.D.) was wary of nationalism, which she viewed as leading inevitably to either war or imperialism. Admittedly, she felt—as she wrote of one of her characters—“torn between anglo-philia and anglo-phobia,” and like all prominent modernists of her day, her views were probably not as enlightened as ours.
Is Shakespeare racist?
Just as there were no real women on Shakespeare’s stage, there were no Jews, Africans, Muslims, or Hispanics either. Even Harold Bloom, who praises Shakespeare as ‘the greatest Western poet’ in The Western Canon, and who rages against academic political correctness, regards The Merchant of Venice as antisemitic. In 2014 the satirist Jon Stewart responded to Shakespeare’s ‘stereotypically, grotesquely greedy Jewish money lender’ more bluntly.
Is the mind just an accident of the universe?
The traditional view puts forward the idea that the vast majority of what there is in the universe is mindless. Panpsychism however claims that mental features are ubiquitous in the cosmos. In a recent opinion piece for Scientific American entitled “Is Consciousness Universal?” (2014), neuroscientist Christof Koch explains how his support of panpsychism is greeted by incredulous stares–in particular when asserting that panpsychism might be the perfect match for neurobiology
What do we talk about when we talk about ‘religion’?
Let us start at the Vatican in Rome. St. Peter’s Basilica has a strict dress code: no skirts above the knee, no shorts, no bare shoulders, and you must wear shoes. At the entrance there are signs picturing these instructions. To some visitors this comes somewhat as a surprise. Becky Haskin, age 44, from Fort Worth, Texas, said: “The information we got was that the dress code only applied when the pope was there.”
Fifteen years after 9/11
Fifteen years after the devastation in lower Manhattan that is routinely referred to as 9/11, the site that was once Ground Zero is unrecognizable. The Twin Towers have been replaced by Michael Arad’s memorial Reflecting Absence, anchored by two voids in part of the space once filled by Minoru Yamasaki’s skyscrapers.
Leibniz and Europe
At the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, national states were on the rise. Versailles was constructed as a stage on which the Sun King, Louis XIV, acted out the pageant of absolute sovereignty while his armies annexed neighbouring territories for the greater glory of France. At the death of Charles II of Spain in November 1700, the Spanish throne and its extensive possessions in Italy, the Low Countries and the New World passed to his grandson, Philip, Duke of Anjou.
Rebuilding the Houses of Parliament: Victorian lessons learned
“What a chance for an architect!” Charles Barry exclaimed as he watched the old Palace of Westminster burning down in 1834. When he then went on to win the competition to design the new Houses of Parliament he thought it was the chance of a lifetime. Instead it turned into the most nightmarish building project of the nineteenth century. What ‘lessons learned’ might the brilliant classical architect draw up today based on his experiences?
10 facts about the recorder
You might associate the recorder with memories of a second grade classroom and sounds vaguely resembling the tune of “Three Blind Mice” or “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” While the recorder has become a popular instrument in music education, it also has an extensive and interesting history.
Christmas in Nazi Germany
Christmas is the most widely celebrated festival in the world but in few countries is it valued as deeply as in Germany. The country has given the world a number of important elements of the season, including the Christmas tree, the Advent calendar and wreath, gingerbread cookies, and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, “Es ist ein Ros` entsprungen,” or “Vom Himmel Hoch.”
Shakespeare’s clowns and fools [infographic]
Fools, or jesters, would have been known by many of those in Shakespeare’s contemporary audience, as they were often kept by the royal court, and some rich households, to act as entertainers. They were male, as were the actors, and would wear flamboyant clothing and carry a ‘bauble’ or carved stick, to use in their jokes.