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Dr Alun Withey
Are Beards Over? A Historical Perspective. Recently I spoke with the Guardian journalist Tim Dowling for an excellent article he was writing...
over a year ago
76
over a year ago
Recently I spoke with the Guardian journalist Tim Dowling for an excellent article he was writing (published last week) about whether beards are finally ‘over’, and I thought it would be interesting to reflect on some of this. Since re-emerging around 2014, gaining popularity...
Trying to Understand...
The Day After. And the day after that.
3 months ago
TheCollector
6 Famous Land Artists You Should Know Land Art, also known as Earth Art, is a name applied to artworks that operate within the natural...
4 months ago
35
4 months ago
Land Art, also known as Earth Art, is a name applied to artworks that operate within the natural realm rather than in artistic studios, using earth, stones, and other natural materials. In some ways, Land Art was a category of art rather than a coherent movement. Artists who...
Flashbak
Have A Weird Christmas With Our Album Of Vintage Photo Oddities There’s a weird vibe running through this album of Christmas images. Harvested from Robert E....
8 months ago
56
8 months ago
There’s a weird vibe running through this album of Christmas images. Harvested from Robert E. Jackson’s phenomenal collection of snapshots we see all kinds of unusual goings on. One Christmas card features a photo of the sender covered in rats; on another a man canoodles a...
Overcoming Bias
Surprisingly Blind You might expect us to understand our romantic couple breakups very well.
3 months ago
Trying to Understand...
Back To The Un-Table For more non-negotiations.
3 months ago
Flashbak
‘F*ck You, Philadelphia’ – When Blondie Opened For Rush In 1979 When on January 21st, 1979, Rush needed an opening act for the Philadelphia leg of their Hemispheres...
a year ago
27
a year ago
When on January 21st, 1979, Rush needed an opening act for the Philadelphia leg of their Hemispheres tour, Blondie got the call. Georgia-based southern rockers Stillwater couldn’t play. So would the New Yorkers deliver what 18,000 fans of the Canadian rockers packed into the...
Classical Wisdom
Weekend Roundup Banned Book Week Begins...
11 months ago
Dreams of Space -...
World's First Intra-Space Stamp Album (1953) A re-scan of an old favorite. This may be the oddest piece of space ephemera I have ever found. It...
a year ago
20
a year ago
A re-scan of an old favorite. This may be the oddest piece of space ephemera I have ever found. It is a stamp album of imaginary space stamps commemorating the planets and the atomic powered intra-solar rocket service that serves those planets. It was intended for "space...
TheCollector
Was the Duke of Wellington a Womanizer? Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington, has gone down in history not only as a capable...
2 days ago
4
2 days ago
Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington, has gone down in history not only as a capable politician and exceptional military leader but also as a coveted lover and notorious womanizer.   There is no question about it. Wellington possessed everything needed to attract the...
TheCollector
9 Myths About the Greek Goddess Hera In Greek mythology, Hera was the goddess of women, marriage and married life. She was the queen of...
6 months ago
48
6 months ago
In Greek mythology, Hera was the goddess of women, marriage and married life. She was the queen of the gods by her marriage to Zeus. In art, she was generally depicted wearing a crown and a peplos, a long sleeveless robe that was customary for women in ancient Greece. She was a...
Wrong Side of...
Our philanthropists and their oligarchs Some foreign billionaires seem to be welcome in British politics
7 months ago
African History...
a brief note on the Intellectual history of Africa the Jabarti diaspora of North-Eastern Africa.
a year ago
Classical Wisdom
The Darker Side of Dionysus Understanding the Bacchae
2 months ago
African History...
On the spread of Traditional African religions during the pre-colonial period. Among the corpus of terracotta figurines discovered in the Greco-Egyptian city of Alexandria dating...
6 months ago
46
6 months ago
Among the corpus of terracotta figurines discovered in the Greco-Egyptian city of Alexandria dating back to the 2nd century BC is a fine clay vessel in the form of a Nubian priestess of Isis of Philae, who is depicted in a kneeling position while performing a Greek-type mortuary...
TheCollector
What Happened to Anne Boleyn’s Iconic “B” Necklace? The tale of Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s fiercest queen, is as captivating as it is shocking. Despite...
2 months ago
26
2 months ago
The tale of Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s fiercest queen, is as captivating as it is shocking. Despite Henry’s efforts to erase her from history as if she were Nefertiti instead of a woman in the modern era, Anne’s legacy persists — she was, after all, mother to the monarch who ruled...
TheCollector
Unpacking Freud’s Concept of “The Uncanny” Although Sigmund Freud is known as the progenitor of psychoanalysis, The Uncanny, one of his most...
2 weeks ago
12
2 weeks ago
Although Sigmund Freud is known as the progenitor of psychoanalysis, The Uncanny, one of his most famous essays, is just as important in the world of literary criticism as in that of psychology. It also had a seismic impact across the arts. Throughout, Freud probes the possible...
Trying to Understand...
The Sense Of An Ending. But right back where we started from.
a year ago
Open Culture
When William Faulkner Set the World Record for Writing the Longest Sentence in Literature: Read the... Image by Carl Van Vechten, via Wikimedia Commons “How did Faulkner pull it off?” is a question many...
5 months ago
61
5 months ago
Image by Carl Van Vechten, via Wikimedia Commons “How did Faulkner pull it off?” is a question many a fledgling writer has asked themselves while struggling through a period of apprenticeship like that novelist John Barth describes in his 1999 talk “My Faulkner.”...
Res Obscura
On 17th century "cocaine" A new analysis of mummified brains pushes back the timeline for the globalization of coca
10 months ago
Hidden History
The Last Day of World War One At 5am on November 11, 1918, the French, British, American and German representatives signed the...
9 months ago
23
9 months ago
At 5am on November 11, 1918, the French, British, American and German representatives signed the armistice treaty that formally ended hostilities in the First World War. Under the terms of the Armistice, the war would officially end at 11am that day. All the troops in the...
weird medieval guys
Why medieval artists drew ancient Romans in medieval clothes Or, how the French stole Julius Caesar in 1200 AD
over a year ago
TheCollector
17 Logical Fallacies Everyone Should Know Fallacies are so pervasive in human processes that this reality can make us pessimistic regarding...
3 months ago
21
3 months ago
Fallacies are so pervasive in human processes that this reality can make us pessimistic regarding our rationality. There are so many errors we make in logical reasoning. However, the fact that we recognize these should lead us back to optimism since we can be better at avoiding...
TheCollector
What the Book of Nahum Says About the Fall of Nineveh Nahum prophesied about the imminent destruction of Nineveh and, by extension, the Assyrian Empire,...
3 weeks ago
11
3 weeks ago
Nahum prophesied about the imminent destruction of Nineveh and, by extension, the Assyrian Empire, though he did not prophesy directly to them. Instead, he brought his message to an audience in Judah that gained much hope from the news that Nineveh was about to fall. The Kingdom...
Dreams of Space -...
Space Explorer (1960) A promotional comic from 1960 called Space Explorer. It was part of the comic series Boys’ and...
4 months ago
32
4 months ago
A promotional comic from 1960 called Space Explorer. It was part of the comic series Boys’ and Girls’ March of Comics, #202. These promotional comics were distributer to retailers who would brand them with their name and give them away to customers to attract them to shop at that...
CrimethInc.
Announcing The Beautiful Idea : A New Podcast Participants in CrimethInc. projects are collaborating with veterans of other anarchist media...
8 months ago
54
8 months ago
Participants in CrimethInc. projects are collaborating with veterans of other anarchist media platforms on a new podcast, The Beautiful Idea, which will offer reporting and analysis of current events. The first episode of The Beautiful Idea has just been released! In their own...
Overcoming Bias
Celebrity v CEO v Politician Why are celebrities, CEOs, and politicians three different types of people who don’t overlap much?
7 months ago
TheCollector
What Did “Noble Death” Mean to Greeks and Romans? Death was an ever-present part of life in the ancient Mediterranean. However, it manifested itself...
a month ago
15
a month ago
Death was an ever-present part of life in the ancient Mediterranean. However, it manifested itself in very different ways according to social class and status. Whilst death simply meant passing into total obscurity for most of the population, for the aristocracy, it could be an...
TheCollector
What Was Black Wall Street? History & Legacy Black Wall Street stood as a testament to African American resilience in a time when equality was...
3 months ago
20
3 months ago
Black Wall Street stood as a testament to African American resilience in a time when equality was seen as an impossibility. Located in Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Greenwood District, this segregated community blossomed in the early 20th century. In 1921, a devastating massacre tore through...
Flashbak
Save The Robots: Life At New York’s Best Illegal Nightclub In The 1980s Save the Robots was an underground after hours club in New York City’s Lower East Side. Deb Diz...
10 months ago
62
10 months ago
Save the Robots was an underground after hours club in New York City’s Lower East Side. Deb Diz Fearon was living in the building at 25 Avenue B, Manhattan before the ‘Robots’ moved into the basement. “We were the tenants that got kicked out so Save The Robots could move in,” she...
CrimethInc.
“They Can’t Beat All of Us” : A Reportback from the Florida Abolitionist Gathering The banner at the Civic Media Center welcoming participants to the 2025 Florida Abolitionist...
5 months ago
49
5 months ago
The banner at the Civic Media Center welcoming participants to the 2025 Florida Abolitionist Gathering. From February 28 to March 2, hundreds of abolitionists and anarchists from across the country converged in Gainesville for the first Florida Abolitionist Gathering...
Classical Wisdom
Is Subjective Equal to Objective? Dear Classical Wisdom Reader, I remember the day vividly. I had moved to Moscow unwisely in the...
a year ago
32
a year ago
Dear Classical Wisdom Reader, I remember the day vividly. I had moved to Moscow unwisely in the middle of winter, and finally, around four months later, the first real spring day had arrived. The sun bore her rays magnificently, forcing the city’s residents into an ant-like...
Flashbak
Teenagers in Their Bedrooms in the 1990s “Our bedrooms tell stories about us. They become the repository for memories, desire and self-image”...
3 weeks ago
16
3 weeks ago
“Our bedrooms tell stories about us. They become the repository for memories, desire and self-image” – American photographer Adrienne Salinger   When Adrienne Salinger first published her portraits of teenagers in their bedrooms in the 1990s, the American photographer wanted In...
Open Culture
How Wearing Ridiculously Long Pointed Shoes Became a Medieval Fashion Trend We can all remember seeing images of medieval Europeans wearing pointy shoes, but most of us have...
6 months ago
41
6 months ago
We can all remember seeing images of medieval Europeans wearing pointy shoes, but most of us have paid scant attention to the shoes themselves. That may be for the best, since the more we dwell on one fact of life in the Middle Ages or another, the more we imagine how...
Classical Wisdom
Do We Need Passports? Or Borders? Watch now (23 sec) | Crossing with Radiohead
over a year ago
Flashbak
Music of the Squares David Ramsay Hay and the Reinvention of Pythagorean Aesthetics Understanding the same laws to apply to both visual and aural beauty, David Ramsay Hay thought it...
8 months ago
43
8 months ago
Understanding the same laws to apply to both visual and aural beauty, David Ramsay Hay thought it possible not only to analyse such visual wonders as the Parthenon in terms of music theory, but also to identify their corresponding musical harmonies and melodies, writes Carmel...
TheCollector
10 Must-Visit Historic Towns in South Carolina South Carolina’s history is deeply intertwined with the founding of America, the Revolutionary War,...
5 months ago
22
5 months ago
South Carolina’s history is deeply intertwined with the founding of America, the Revolutionary War, and the Civil War. It was the first state to secede from the Union in 1860, setting the stage for the nation’s most defining conflict. Battles such as those in Camden and Cowpens...
TheCollector
The Innovative Methods That Allowed the Mongols to Create a Vast Empire During the 13th century, the Mongols stormed onto the world stage to create one of the largest...
a week ago
7
a week ago
During the 13th century, the Mongols stormed onto the world stage to create one of the largest empires the world had ever seen. Despite their reputation for barbarity, the way they approached both warfare and governance was highly calculated and organized. The Mongols fostered a...
TheCollector
Meet Osiris, the Egyptian God Who Ruled the Afterlife (Myth & Facts) Osiris is best known as the god of the dead in ancient Egyptian religion, as the afterlife was...
a month ago
21
a month ago
Osiris is best known as the god of the dead in ancient Egyptian religion, as the afterlife was created for Osiris after he was killed by his brother Set, and he enabled others to join him in eternal life. But Osiris is also connected to many other important aspects of ancient...
Trying to Understand...
Don't Give Peace Too Many Chances. Nothing is more dangerous than a flawed peace treaty.
over a year ago
Trying to Understand...
Stone, Scissors, Paper. Or, Europe after Ukraine.
6 months ago
The Universe of...
The mathematical past is a foreign country A modern presentation of the Peano axioms looks like this: is a natural number If is a natural...
8 months ago
20
8 months ago
A modern presentation of the Peano axioms looks like this: is a natural number If is a natural number, then so is the result of appending an to the beginning of Nothing else is a natural number This baldly states that zero is a natural number. I think this is a 20th-century...
Trying to Understand...
The Rise of Extractive Politics It's about having small expectations.
over a year ago
TheCollector
Science in Ancient Egypt: Mathematics, Astronomy, Engineering, and Medicine There is a common perception that science is a modern invention with roots in the ancient Greek...
3 months ago
20
3 months ago
There is a common perception that science is a modern invention with roots in the ancient Greek world. While the Greeks pioneered the kind of theoretical thinking that characterizes modern science, before the Greeks, people used practical science. The ancient Egyptians developed...
Open Culture
Man Ray’s Surrealist Cinema: Watch Four Pioneering Films From the 1920s Man Ray was one of the leading artists of the avant-garde of 1920s and 1930s Paris. A key figure in...
4 months ago
47
4 months ago
Man Ray was one of the leading artists of the avant-garde of 1920s and 1930s Paris. A key figure in the Dada and Surrealist movements, his works spanned various media, including film. He was a leading exponent of the Cinéma Pur, or “Pure Cinema,” which rejected such “bourgeois”...
TheCollector
Why Are Aristotle’s “Categories” Fundamental to Logic? Aristotle’s Categories is a foundational philosophical work that provides a framework for...
a month ago
12
a month ago
Aristotle’s Categories is a foundational philosophical work that provides a framework for understanding existence and engaging in classification. The text describes ten categories: substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, action, and passion....
TheCollector
How Alexander the Great Won the Battle of the Granicus With Greece and the Balkans secure, Alexander the Great led his army across the Hellespont into Asia...
3 weeks ago
8
3 weeks ago
With Greece and the Balkans secure, Alexander the Great led his army across the Hellespont into Asia Minor. A revolt in Egypt had drawn away the new Achaemenid king, Darius III, and his army. However, the local Achaemenid satraps were not about to let Alexander do as he pleased....
Hidden History
The 1968 Utah Sheep Kill In 1968, a malfunctioning nerve gas test at the Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah killed several...
7 months ago
69
7 months ago
In 1968, a malfunctioning nerve gas test at the Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah killed several thousand sheep and provoked an outcry. In March 1968, researchers at the Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah were scheduled to perform three experiments involving a lethal nerve gas known as...
Flashbak
Dublin in 1991: Photographing The Feeling Of A City On The Edge “The photo always holds two layers, the concrete and the emotional. You must involve your own...
4 weeks ago
17
4 weeks ago
“The photo always holds two layers, the concrete and the emotional. You must involve your own experience and perception when decoding the photo, and only then does it disseminate its full message” – photographer Krass Clement     In 1991 Danish photographer Krass Clement took...
Classical Wisdom
Final Call Class Begins Tomorrow
a year ago