Anthony Aveni— Where did it all come from? What are we doing here? What will happen to us? There’s Genesis—a creation story (actually, an amalgam of stories) told in the Middle East more than three millennia ago by a disenfranchised people that attempts to answer these profound questions. A single
Soyica Diggs Colbert— On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass delivered a speech at an Independence Day celebration that asked, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” His question troubles America’s founding democratic myths and the idea that July 4, 1776 marks a day of freedom. For the enslaved,
Evert Sprinchorn— For people with intellects, reading Ibsen was more than entertaining; it was enthralling. Reading his plays is equivalent to a journey through nineteenth-century thought, its art, politics, and philosophy. Ibsen’s collected works painted the intellectual landscape of his time as a magnificent panorama, which he traversed with a
Ernst Cassirer— In the human world we find a new characteristic which appears to be the distinctive mark of human life. The functional circle of man is not only quantitively enlarged; it has also undergone a qualitative change. Man has, as it were, discovered a new method of adapting himself
Monica Bravo– After a long period of staying at home, social distancing, and masking up, we are told—at last—that the world is opening up. Breathing a collective sigh of relief (one that still does not extend to every community worldwide, I hasten to add), many are rushing to once again
Martin Elvis— Changing your line of work late in your career is a refreshing thing to do. I worked for decades helping to decipher the mysteries of how giant black holes—the darkest things in the Universe—can be the engines of the brightest things in the Universe (quasars), making them visible
Ambrogio A. Caiani— On the night of 5 July 1809 French forces kidnapped Barnabà Chiaramonti, Pope Pius VII, from his private apartments in the Quirinal Palace in Rome. He would spend the following five years as a prisoner of Napoleon. Ultimately, the Pope refused to renounce his central Italian kingdom,
David Stafford— Two things saved Churchill at this time of mid-life crisis. The first was his family. Its role in his life has often been underestimated. The constant and loyal support of his wife Clementine has certainly been well recognized, and the lives of their children, especially his tempestuous only
Lucy Bradnock— Instances of feminist artists citing Artaud are curious and not a little confusing. The French poet and dramaturg died in 1948, leaving behind a legacy that was both bound up in historical modernism and dogged by accusations of misogyny. Neither would seem to align him with second wave