Volume 120 Issue 6 November/December 2005

Features

Line of beauty: Laurie Taylor interviews Edmund White: Edmund White, high priest of casual sex, tells Laurie Taylor why hes 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
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
Are you being served?: It's the season of spending again. But this year you don't have to feel quite so guilty. Sally Feldman can now reveal that shopping is a humanist act
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
What is genocide?: An extraordinarily large part of modern legal, human rights and academic discourse is devoted to finding the right definition of genocide.
Unmasked!: Indias rationalists are on the frontline of the battle between science and superstition. Caspar Melville reports on their fight to debunk holy men

Natty Dread: Lloyd Bradley assesses the eternal influence of Jamaicas finest
Demons for sale: A low budget film about exorcism has become a runaway success in the US, writes Solana Larsen
Hermann Bondi, 1919 - 2005: When the president of the Rationalist Press Association died in September all the obituaries gave glowing accounts of his career as a mathematician and cosmologist. But few acknowledged his prodigious contribution to humanism. Jane Wynne Willson remembers an extraordinary man
No doubt: With the possibility of purchasing all manner of rare and obscure books now a mere mouse-click away, high-street booksellers find themselves in an unenviable position how to maintain rapid turnover, given the constraints of limited, and increasingly expensive, space?
Lies, all lies: Theres a point early on in Paul Austers new novel in which he recounts an incident concerning the protagonists daughter, a battery operated razor and a toilet bowl.
The red death: It was the bloodiest and most costly war ever fought.
Ergo Mania: 'I shop, therefore I am'
Light reading: With her 14th novel, Nadine Gordimer, now in her 80s, has perhaps come as close as she ever will to perfecting the balance between universal themes, old truths and the more specific fears and the modes of the present.

Learning to love yourself: Laurie Taylor gets to grips with sharing
Is it time for humanists to start holding services?: We all need rituals, says Dave Belden
Viewing the body: Explicit media images of death perform a vital social function, argues Jean Seaton
United states?: Kalypso Nicolaïdis puts her faith in the idea of Europe
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
Notes from the Blasphemy Depot: History is much on our minds this issue. This month we celebrate our 120th birthday.