A Grand Unified Theory Of Keira Knightley’s History Movies

Listen, you might think the actor’s movie choices are random. Au contraire, mes frères: The luminous star of the new Colette is (sometimes literally) sticking it to The Man. “In all of Knightley’s historical films, she is at the center. She is not relegated to the role of love interest; men are. Romances, marriages, children, and dalliances are all secondary to her own development — as a woman, but also as the protagonist in her own life story, no matter how tragic it may become.”

When A Public Radio Pro Turns To Solo Podcasting (And Wonders If He’s Going Insane)

Public radio fans may remember Scott Carrier from his segments (many involving long road trips) on This American Life. In 2015, he switched to podcasting, reporting and producing the series The Home of the Brave with funding provided solely by listeners. Barrett Golding, who co-founded with Carrier the Peabody Award-winning NPR project Hearing Voices, talks with him about the transition to solo work and everything that it takes (and takes out of you).

Is Firing NY Review Of Books Editor A Chilling Of Intellectual Courage?

Laura Kipness: “Allocution is a tough genre. But even when the account is disingenuous and self-pitying, I’m interested in what the accused have to say for themselves, including those I think are guilty and despicable and who haven’t learned the proper lessons from their crimes. One of the reasons we read prison literature is because we’re all guilty and despicable. One of the reasons we read literature as such is to know what it’s like to be a criminal, a coward, a refugee, a pariah. In other words, human. Something significant was lost last week.”

Where Does Language Come From? The Mind Or The Land?

The English philosopher Owen Barfield, a member of the Oxford Inklings in the 1930s and ’40s, whose work as a philologist convinced him that the Romantic tradition was broadly right, put it succinctly. Words have soul, he said. They possess a vitality that mirrors the inner life of the world, and this connection is the source of their power. All forms of language implicitly deploy it. Poets are arguably more alert to it because they consciously seek it out.

Scotland Races To Protect Historical Sites From Rising Waters Of Climate Change

More than 3,000 archaeological sites — among them standing stone circles, Norse halls and a Neolithic tomb graffitied by Vikings — have endured for millenniums, scattered across the roughly 70 islands that make up the Orkney archipelago. Today, in forays to remote spits of land, people are working to save some of these places for posterity from the climate changes accelerated by human activity.

A Case For Philanthropic Risk Investment In The Arts

“I think the key thing with philanthropy is, if you want to normalise the practice you’ve got to make it public and normal. So if want philanthropy to invest in the arts and in creative development, and we want that to be normal, you’ve got to advertise it, not be shy to talk about your giving. And so eventually with philanthropy generally, giving will become normal; it will become normal to give when you have wealth to give money away.”

What Do Humans Need Religion For? Managing Our Emotions

“How we feel is as important to our survival as how we think. Our species comes equipped with adaptive emotions, such as fear, rage, lust and so on: religion was (and is) the cultural system that dials these feelings and behaviours up or down. We see this clearly if we look at mainstream religion, rather than the deleterious forms of extremism. Mainstream religion reduces anxiety, stress and depression. It provides existential meaning and hope. It focuses aggression and fear against enemies. It domesticates lust, and it strengthens filial connections. Through story, it trains feelings of empathy and compassion for others. And it provides consolation for suffering.”