Volume 120 Issue 6 November/December 2005

Notes from the Blasphemy Depot: History is much on our minds this issue. This month we celebrate our 120th birthday.

Cover Story

The debunkers: India's rationalists are on the frontline of the battle between science and superstition. Caspar Melville reports on their fight to debunk "holy men"

Hermann Bondi, 1919 - 2005: Jane Wynne Willson remembers an extraordinary man
United states?: Kalypso Nicolaïdis puts her faith in the idea of Europe
Viewing the body: Explicit media images of death perform a vital social function, argues Jean Seaton
After bombs and ashes: Moving back from Yale to the London School of Economics, Professor Paul Gilroy finds his home town changed but the people just as mixed up

Are you being served?: As two new TV series about the early days of the department store hit UK screens, we revisit Sally Feldman's paeon to the all too human(ist) urge to shop
An extremely brief history of time: Dr Jonathan Swingler is head of the Engineering Department at the University of Southampton. He has been a creationist since he was 18, the same age at which he began studying physics. Richard Harris finds out what he believes
Line of beauty: Laurie Taylor interviews Edmund White: Edmund White, high priest of casual sex, tells Laurie Taylor why he's still glad to be a gay icon
...or is that just what we could do without?: We have all the rituals we need, counters AC Grayling
Is it time for humanists to start holding services?: We all need rituals, says Dave Belden
The blasphemers of Johnson's Court: New Humanist was launched under the title Watts's Literary Guide 120 years ago this month. Jonathan Rée digs in the archives

Ergo Mania: 'I shop, therefore I am'
Demons for sale: A low budget film about exorcism has become a runaway success in the US, writes Solana Larsen

What is genocide?: An extraordinarily large part of modern legal, human rights and academic discourse is devoted to finding the 'right' definition of genocide, says Stan Cohen
The red death: Michael Binyon on the bloodiest and most costly war ever fought.
Light reading: Candy Clarke on Nadime Gordimer's 14th novel
Natty Dread: Lloyd Bradley assesses the eternal influence of Jamaica's finest
No doubt: Nina Power has some doubts about a new history of scepticism
Lies, all lies: Chris Paling visits Paul Auster's Brooklyn