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Stories and literature

Close-up of a painting depicting a woman wearing a large hat smoking a cigarette, with visible brushstrokes and expressive eyes.

Stories and literature

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Selfish, grumpy and unkind? That’s my kind of woman

Misanthropic female novelists and their characters make me hopeful for a future in which we shrug off feminine perfection

by Ellena Savage

An ancient, mud-brick fortress on a rocky hill with mountain ranges in the background and a person walking on a path.

Spirituality and religion

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This is not the end. Apocalyptic comfort from ancient Iran

Faced with the collapse of their empire, Zoroastrians sought comfort in the apocalyptic – and their literature flourished

by Domenico Agostini & Samuel Thrope

An angelic figure with wings and a sceptre, surrounded by a dramatic dark sky and people near an arched structure with smoke in the background.

Spirituality and religion

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The Devil you don’t know: the Satan of the 19th century

Satan wasn’t always a wicked, horned figure. The Romantics imagined the Devil as a resourceful and well-spoken gentleman

by Erik Butler

A girl is shown reading from a device in her hand, her face illuminated by the screen’s light

Technology and media

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What does switching from paper to screens mean for how we read?

It’s well established that we absorb less well when reading on screen. But why? And can we do something to improve it?

by Lili Yu, Sixin Liao, Jan-Louis Kruger & Erik D Reichle

Medieval illuminated manuscript painting of a monk touching a woman beside an outhouse and a tree, with decorative text above.

Stories and literature

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Get medieval on your haters: lessons from Beowulf and Chaucer

When your reputation is at stake, get medieval on your haters: lessons from Beowulf, Margery Kempe and Geoffrey Chaucer

by Irina Dumitrescu

Close-up of a person with glasses looking at a computer screen displaying lines of code, with code text reflected on the glasses.

Consciousness

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The myth of machine consciousness makes Narcissus of us all

The idea that AI can be conscious is a mistake. It’s just a very shiny mirror of humanity, reflecting what we want to see

by David Bentley Hart

A person walks past a billboard under a bridge, featuring an image of eyes superimposed on a sky with clouds, next to a café entrance.

Work and vocation

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Kafka warned us: surveillance turns the watched into watchers

Surveillance changes us in powerful ways, as Franz Kafka warned. Neither the watched nor their watcher escapes unscathed

by George Alliger

Ancient Roman mosaic depicting a woman lying on a bed and a nude man beside her in a domestic scene with vibrant colours and detailed tesserae arrangement. Two women attend to them.

Poetry

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Love’s contradictions: Catullus on the agony of infatuation

Behold a man tortured on the rack, pulled apart by love and hate: how to understand Catullus’s best-known poem

by Armand D’Angour