In Camus’s works, we see an obsession with the human mouth, especially mouths that are smiling or laughing. Often, the smiles and laughter are juxtaposed with gravity and violence. Here we take a look at how Camus uses the mouth, smiling or grave (and, bizarrely, sometimes both at the same time), in order to […] Read more ›
OverviewA long while back I had an idea to hack a WiFi smart light bulb to do something more useful to me. Actually, I had a few different ideas of things to do with them. One of these ideas was to mo… Read more ›
Philosophers hardly ever meet over centuries. But their ideas do sometimes bump into each other like people arguing in the same room. And the conversation between Aristotle and Friedrich Nietzsche would definitely not have been quiet. Aristotle believed that humans need to follow the laws of nature, act on their reasoning faculties, and be […] Read more ›
Ecofeminism isn’t just a word that’s thrown around—it’s a potent movement that combines fighting for gender equality with environmental justice. Imagine a world where the subjugation of women and destruction of nature are seen as two sides of the same coin. Here, we’ll examine the origins of this influential philosophy, what it stands for, […] Read more ›
The Seminoles are a Native American tribe of southern Georgia and Florida, the latter of which was under Spanish control from 1500 until 1821. Escaped slaves often fled into Florida, a morass of swamps and thick jungle, to be taken in by the Seminoles or to establish their own communities. A mutually beneficial alliance […] Read more ›
Color has a language of its own— a language that most artists understand. Beyond light versus dark, each color has a significant interpretation connected to it. In Biblical paintings, yellow is for Judas and blue for Mary. It’s not always clear where these ideas come from, but in the case of ultramarine blue, the […] Read more ›
Looking skyward on a clear night, we see sparkling stars that remind us that a huge cosmos waits for exploration. The urge to explore space has been rekindled of late. Now, pioneers want not only to visit other planets—such as Mars or the moon—but to build colonies there. This raises thorny questions about ethics. […] Read more ›
The 1950s had a long line of bestselling U.S. fiction on a myriad of subjects, from J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye to Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird. But Jack Kerouac’s semi-autobiographical novel On the Road was singular in revving up the countercultural Beat Movement, both in literature and its intersection with emerging […] Read more ›
How did people fight against imperialism? In the aftermath of the Second World War, the global landscape changed radically, as independence movements sprang up across Africa, Asia, and South America to resist the cultural and economic exploitation imposed on them by the European imperial powers. This peaceful and violent opposition to foreign domination represented […] Read more ›
The Phoenicians were prolific merchants and explorers who traveled from their home in the Levant across the ancient Near East and Mediterranean, planting colonies and trading outposts around the ancient world. Wherever the Phoenicians went, they took their language with them, and they were pioneers in this area too. They developed the first true […] Read more ›
The existence of political parties is taken for granted in modern democracies because all democratic countries allow political parties. Countries in which they are banned include monarchies, such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, as well as theocracies like Afghanistan and Iran. Weil calls for the abolition of political parties, but she is not among […] Read more ›