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Pause for Thought
From full stops to emojis, a Tudor letter to texting - how has the use of punctuation marks developed over the centuries? Florence Hazrat thinks abou…
3 years, 11 months ago
Opium Tales
Linking tea, sugar, opium, addiction and trade, Fariha Shaikh's essay looks at the novel An Insular Possession published in 1986 by Timothy Mo, and a…
3 years, 11 months ago
New Generation Thinkers: Alexander and the Persians
What made him great? Celebrated as a military leader, Alexander took over an empire created by the Persians. Julia Hartley's essay looks at two examp…
3 years, 11 months ago
Windows
From Hitchcock to George Formby, stained glass to Rachel Whiteread, Cindy Sherman to Rembrandt. A new exhibition called Reframed: The Woman in the Wi…
3 years, 11 months ago
Kawanabe Kyōsai and Yukio Mishima
Frogs, farting competitions, art connoisseurs, courtesans and crows all feature in the art of Kawanabe Kyōsai,- a key Japanese figure who challenged …
3 years, 11 months ago
A Brazilian soprano in jazz-age Paris
Xangô (the god of thunder) and Paso Ñañigo’, composed by the Cuban Moises Simons, were two of the numbers performed by Elsie Houston in the clubs of …
3 years, 11 months ago
John Baptist Dasalu and fighting for freedom
An 1856 portrait shows a 40 year old man from Benin who managed to secure his freedom after being captured. Dasalu was taken from Dahomey to Cuba, al…
3 years, 11 months ago
May Day rituals
The People's History Museum researcher Dr Shirin Hirsch, folk expert Tim Healey and writer Zoe Gilbert join Matthew Sweet to explore rituals and beli…
3 years, 11 months ago
New Generation Thinkers: African cinema, nationhood, and liberation
Africa's first filmmakers boldly revealed how, and why, colonialism lived on after the independences. Sarah Jilani takes a closer look at the works o…
4 years ago
Rainer Maria Rilke
A New Age mystic who fell out of favour for his apolitical views - how true a characterisation is this of the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 …
4 years ago