Investigating German colonialism in the British Library’s collections

Content warning: This blog reproduces an image from a historical publication which is now considered racistLast week, the Zanzibari writer Abdulrazak Gurnah became the first black African author in 35 years to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Judges from the Swedish Academy highlighted his ‘uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism’ as a key reason for the distinction.Much of Gurnah’s writing is set in East Africa, and his latest novel, Afterlives, explores ...

Knowledge as Taste - and sentience as experiences

The Building Blocks of Personhood: Oliver Sacks on Narrative as the Pillar of Identity – Brain Pickings

The Building Blocks of Personhood: Oliver Sacks on Narrative as the Pillar of Identity – Brain Pickings The Building Blocks of Personhood: Oliver Sacks on Narrative as the Pillar of Identity "Biologically, physiologically, we are not so different from each other; historically, as narratives — we are each of us unique." By Maria Popova "A person’s identity," Amin Maalouf wrote in his brilliant treatise on personhood, "is like a pattern ...

Predictions from sci-fi movies that became reality

(MENAFN- BreezyScroll) How weird is it to believe that fiction can turn into reality? Well, as absurd it sounds there are certain predictions made by sci-fi movies that did become reality. Here are 5 predictions from sci-fi movies that are now a reality. 5 predictions from sci-fi movies that are now a reality 1. Space travel — ‘Le Voyage Dans La Lune,’ 1902 Space travel — ‘Le Voyage Dans La Lune,’ 1902 – Well, we can’t put our finger on who inspired or initiated space tra...

What is Nietzsche's Zarathustra - A Philosophical Confrontation

Gabriel Marcel’s Thirst

[link ] In this episode, I speak with Michial Farmer about the philosopher and playwright Gabriel Marcel–more specifically, we discuss his play, Thirst, and one of his essays, "The Mystery of the Family." We talk about how Marcel’s plays give him the materials for his later philosophy, and how Marcel differs from other existentialist philosophers, like Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Kierkegaard. I hope you enjoy our conversation. Michial Farmer is one-third of the Ch...

Philosophy and the Mirror of Technology: Interview with Christopher Tollefsen

One of the goals of this series is to explore the impact of technology on ordinary lives, especially the underappreciated negative aspects of the inexorable march of scientific advancement.  A very practical example is the accelerating use of medical advice and technology to terminate life.  A related question is the extent to which, by artificial means, we extend life.  To explore the bioethical implications of technology, I reached out to Professor Christopher Tollefsen of the University of...

The Second Life of John Frankenheimer's Seconds

Rock Hudson — rock as stoneStone HuddaughterStone Son (penis?)What IF…?What if…? is more than a new Marvel series. It’s the question that underpins so much great science fiction. What if the hierarchies of biological evolution were upended? What if artificial intelligences rebelled? What if humans colonized new worlds or mastered time travel? And what if—in the case of John Frankenheimer’s 1966 brilliant body-horror science-fiction paranoiac thriller Seconds—any of us could have a second shot...

The Non-Athenian Foundation of the Modern West

"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth." ~ Zeus didn’t say this. He didn’t care about the meek. When Zeus threw his thunderbolts, the meek would die with the evil. The thunderbolts of Zeus do not differentiate between the meek and the evil. The deceptions of Zeus are legendary. His sexual conquests, mostly through the use of deception, include: Hera, Aegina, Alcmene, Antiope, Callisto, Danae, Io, Nemesis, Europa, Ganymede, Leda, Metis, and other women of antiquity. There is no...

Renaissance Science – XVII

As we saw in the last episode, Ptolemaeus’ Geographia enjoyed a strong popularity following its rediscovery and translation into Latin from Greek at the beginning of fifteenth century, going through at least five printed editions before the end of the century. The following century saw several important new translation and revised editions both in Latin and in the vernacular. This initial popularity can at least be partially explained by the fact that Ptolemaeus’ Mathēmatikē Syntaxis and his ...

Astrology: Informative, Harmful, or Just Plain Fun?

What follows is a guest post by Beba Cibralic (Georgetown University). Like every self-respecting queer 20-something-year-old, I dabble in star signs. I’ll check my horoscope every once in a while to find out what kind of month it’s going to be and I’ve been known to create compatibility charts when I start dating someone. (For the uninitiated: these charts are based on factors related to your and the other person’s birth date and birth location.)  To be sure, these are far from upstand...

The memory of perfection: Digital faces and nostalgic franchise cinema - Dan Golding, 2021

This article is concerned with the intersection of digitally augmented performance and nostalgia in contemporary Hollywood franchise cinema. The practice of 'de-ageing' or even resurrecting actors following their real-life deaths in films like Tron: Legacy (Joseph Kosinski, 2010), Terminator Genysis (Alan Taylor, 2015), Rogue One (Gareth Edwards, 2016), Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017), Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019), and a large number of Marvel Cinematic Un...

How AI is revolutionising the video industry

Expert Opinion How AI is revolutionising the video industry By Meghna Krishna

Islam - pagan origin and Moon god worship

Hubal and Allah the Moon God? Islam: Truth or Myth? start page Introduction to basic facts of history: Moon worship has been practiced in Arabia since 2000 BC. The crescent moon is the most common symbol of this pagan moon worship as far back as 2000 BC. In Mecca, there was a god named Hubal who was Lord of the Kabah. This Hubal was a moon god. One Muslim apologist confessed that the idol of moon god Hubal was placed upon the roof of the Kaba about 400 years before Muhammad. T...

Coins, the Overlooked Keys to History | The New Yorker

Clip source: Coins%2C%20the%20Overlooked%20Keys%20to%20History%20%7C%20The%20New%20Yorker Skip to main content Under ReviewCoins, the Overlooked Keys to HistoryA delightful new book argues that numismatics—the study of coins—is the "beautiful science of civilizations." By Casey Cep July 28, 2021https://www.facebook.com/dialog/feed?&display=popup&caption=Coins%2C%20the%20Overlooked%20Keys%20to%20History&app_id=1147169538698836&link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newyorker.com%2Fbooks%2Funder-review%2Fc...

Frontiers | Suspending Syntax: Bodily Strain and Progressivity in Talk | Communication

Suspending Syntax: Bodily Strain and Progressivity in TalkDepartment of Culture and Society, Linköping University, Linköping, SwedenPeople speak not only under relaxed conditions but also during strenuous activities, and grammatical resources can be used to achieve displays of strain. This study looks at the relationship between progressivity of talk and bodily strain, focusing on the practice of temporarily suspending syntax while the speaker is accomplishing a physically challenging task. B...

Body language of liars Part 2 – The Mast Online - themastonline.com

[By Humphrey M Kapau] When it comes to baking lies in the kitchen of manipulation using the oven of deception, humans are always the defending champions. The trophy always comes home. In fact, some lies that humans produce are as compacted as Zambian traditional bread made from sorghum or millet flour. Other lies are made puffy, airy, spongy and attractive like fried cakes (fritters). Professional liars even bake lies like some wedding cakes by layering, compacting and hardening t...

Against the Literature of Silence: Richard Flanagan on the Writer’s Freedom to Embrace Heresy

It is strange to have as my subject freedom to write coming from an island which, for a quarter of its modern history, was a slave society. Though there were major differences, the literature of the era abounds with comparisons between the convict society of Van Diemen’s Land and the slave societies of the Americas. My forebears were transported as convicts from Ireland, frequently in the same ships and similar conditions to those which had transported Africans into American slavery, now p...

TLS review of An encyclopedia of Cold War Culture from Pollock to Presley - and more clips from 4 Jun 2021 print edition

Art and Olfaction

Smellosophy - olfaction and philosophy

JW Dunne - a remarkable conception of time

Westerns - Olfaction - and more Clips from The Philosophers Magazine Issue 93

Semiotics and Philosophy

The Wandering Poet - and America Need Mishpocheh