Three young Claphamites walk into a bar. The start of a bad joke, and also the start of this article. Three young Claphamites walk into a bar, pay the best part of a tenner for a pint of lager, before climbing the back stairs to a dingy room to take their seats for the show.… Continue reading From spleen to screen — what is comedy now?
Preface: Gorgias (483-375BC) wrote his Encomium of Helen (‘in praise of Helen’) as a sort of exercise in the use of language, an example piece, if you will, to attract potential students of rhetoric. We might classify it, in Aristotelian terms, as an epideictic, a ‘praise and blame’ piece of writing. Jean Cocteau, whose treatment of poetry is… Continue reading Poetry on trial – reading Jean Cocteau’s Testament of Orpheus in the light of Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen
Every day, people open their phones and step into refugee camps, protests, weddings, and war zones thousands of miles away. These glimpses, intimate and unfiltered, are becoming the new currency of global influence. After October 7, 2023, Shayma Ahmed began documenting daily life amid airstrikes, explaining the strain of ordinary tasks and moments of quiet… Continue reading Where Everyone Can Shape the Story: The New Soft Power
The study of memory is an ever-evolving field, having to constantly negate the reinforcement of antagonisms. Various modes of memory study have developed in recent history, most notably the “cosmopolitan mode” which emerged after the Second World War, which focused on individual victims and subsequently neglected the social and political causes of events, resulting in… Continue reading Comparing Memories and Legacies of the Troubles and the Algerian War
The Age of Humans, or the Age of Forgetting? The Anthropocene marks a proposed new chapter in Earth’s history, one where human activity has become the planet’s dominant geological force (Crutzen & Stoermer, 2000). The term comes from anthropocentrism, the belief that humans stand at the centre of existence, seen as “superior to nature and…animals,… Continue reading Rethinking the Anthropocene: What First Nations Knowledge Teaches Us About Climate Justice
Between the years of 1642 and 1651, the UK was in total turmoil as the Royalist and Parliamentarist forces competed to lead the way for the union’s future. One man, utterly disturbed by the skirmishes resulting in an uncertain future and a death toll of around 200.000, strived to find out how this outcome could… Continue reading HOBBES AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: THE META-LEVIATHAN
Growing Up in the Cost of Living Crisis Young people in Britain are working harder than ever yet falling further behind every year. Rising costs and stagnant wages have turned financial independence into a privilege rather than a milestone. For millions of individuals under thirty, the cost of living crisis has reshaped what it means… Continue reading The UK Cost of Living Crisis and the Lost Promise of Youth
You’re scrolling again. Stories, reels, posts, faces you’ve never met, lives you’ll never live. You’re surrounded by people, yet somehow… you feel completely alone. That’s the paradox of our time: we’ve never been more connected, yet true connection has never felt so rare. The Age of Digital Closeness When social media first appeared, it promised… Continue reading The Illusion of Connection: How Social Media Made Us Lonelier Than Ever
Oscar Wilde’s satirical wit and critique of late Victorian society are well-known, but what is often overlooked is his vision of a radically different, more just society—one that he not only believed was possible but also worth striving for. In his political essay The Soul of Man Under Socialism, Wilde laid out his political ideals,… Continue reading Oscar Wilde’s vision of a better world
Ulysses deriding Polyphemus’ is an 1829 work by Turner which depicts the tale from Book IX of Homer’s Odyssey of Ulysses (Odysseus’ name in latin) and his encounter with the cyclops Polyphemus which results in Ulysses blinding the one-eyed giant andsailing away, taunting the son of Poseidon, an action which comes back to bite him… Continue reading Turner’s Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus – a reading
