The quiet subversiveness of A Christmas Carol
Dickens's short story electrified Victorian Britain. But it was a secularist tale, and its subversive qualities have been forgotten.
Culture
The art of the blag
Laurie Taylor's entry to Birkbeck University required the deployment of a key skill for getting by in life: the blag.
In the US, ‘civil religion’ ensures church and state remain tied at the hip
Americans who profess no religious affiliation make up a sizeable voting bloc. Yet despite this, faith continues to guide US policymaking.
Q&A: Eimear McBride
We spoke with the novelist and essayist Eimear McBride on the continuing objectification of women's bodies in western culture.
Abandonment issues
"The Lost Daughter", adapted from Elena Ferrante’s novel, brings her bold tale of motherhood and loss to the big screen.
A funny old island
The current government often frames "Britishness" as imperilled by outsiders. Our "unique" sense of humour, so it thinks, is under particular threat.
Predators in the Church
Revelations that Catholic clergymen in France abused 230,000 children over 70 years is irrefutable evidence of a deep rot within the Church
“Cave paintings of animals show a quest for knowledge, a sense of admiration and love”
We spoke with art historian John-Paul Stonard on the evolution of human image-making, from cave paintings to modern art.
Inside the new Space Race w/Nick Schmidle
As the private sector promises to make us all "astronauts", we talk to author Nick Schmidle about wealth, machoism and the people working behind the scenes of the new Space…
Book review: Terminal Boredom: Stories
Izumi Suzuki's fiction melds the mundanity of the present - addictions, heartbreaks - with the robots and alien races of the future.