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Marina Benjamin

Senior Editor, Aeon+Psyche

Marina is a former arts editor of the New Statesman and deputy arts editor of the Evening Standard newspaper in London. Her books include, Living at the End of the World which looked at end-time cults, Rocket Dreams, an off-beat elegy to the Space Age, and Last Days in Babylon, the story of the Jews of Iraq. Marina specialises in the culture of science, developmental psychology and strong personal narratives. Her acclaimed memoirs The Middlepause and Insomnia have been translated into 9 languages. Her latest memoir A Little Give will be published in 2023. She can be found on Twitter @marinab52.

See Marina Benjamin’s profile on Aeon

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Edited by Marina Benjamin

Black and white drawing of swirling smoke and flames rising from the ground, bordered by a rough square outline.

The self

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Why bad doodles can reveal more about you than good drawings

For Marion Milner, ‘not being able’ is a valuable state – one that allows for new and unexpected forms of learning

by David Russell

A young woman in a contemporary apartment is reflected but partially obscured in the plate glass windows

Place

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The divided self: does where I live make me who I am?

At home in Delhi, I am a more social, interactive person. A quiet balcony in Frankfurt gave me space to be by myself

by Anandi Mishra

Freedom and choice

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Why not driving is my own form of resistance

As romantic petrochemical-fuelled narratives slip into the past, I’ve found my own kind of freedom in a life without a car

by Vicky Grut

A painting of a man and woman holding hands indoors with a small dog at their feet. The room is richly decorated.

Philosophy of art

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To master the art of close looking, learn to hold time still

Visual literacy is a skillset that’s rarely taught, but it begins with learning how to look – and how to hold time still

by Grace Linden

Photo of a rocky path winding through a grassy landscape with cloudy skies and distant hills in the background.

Sacred places

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Nan Shepherd delved into a queer erotic kinship with nature

In the Highlands, Nan Shepherd found an erotic kinship with nature: ‘The Living Mountain’ a core text for queer ecology

by Melissa Matthewson

Values and beliefs

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What if my lessons in existentialism were in bad faith?

When I’m teaching existentialism in the classroom, how can I tell where bad faith ends and enlightenment begins?

by Robert D Zaretsky

Painting of a woman seated on a chair reading a book, with her hair in a bun, wearing a dark dress against a plain background.

Stories and literature

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Forget ‘Little Women’. How did girls learn to be grown women?

How might 19th-century novels for adolescent girls help us find healthier models of what it means to grow up female today?

by Julie Pfeiffer

Photo of two people on a train reading Metro newspapers with headlines about royalty and sports transfers.

Love

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What I’ve learned about relationships as an agony uncle

I am an agony uncle. This is what I’ve learned about men, women and how relationships work in my 10 years of giving advice

by James McConnachie

Vintage painting of a man by a window with yellow flowers looking at a woman in a pink dress lying on a bed.

Stories and literature

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Young women were the true originators of the Grimms’ Tales

Snow White, Rapunzel, Cinderella – the old fairy tales are full of female lust and hope, and most were told by women

by Christine Lehnen

A painting of a woman floating on her back in a stream, surrounded by flowers and greenery, wearing a dress.

Memoir

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If madness is like drowning, then writing is my raft ashore

I imagine madness as a kind of watery death, like Ophelia’s. The only way I can get to safety is by writing myself ashore

by Azania Imtiaz Khatri-Patel

Vintage sepia-toned photo of a man with handwritten overlay, wearing a suit, looking thoughtful.

Stories and literature

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Remembrance of telephony past: what Proust made of the phone

For Marcel Proust, the telephone gave distance a sensory form and allowed new ways to experience absence more profoundly

by John Attridge

Two women with braided hair sitting on a park bench, smiling and engaging in conversation. One faces the camera, while the other is seen from behind.

Friendship

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For Beauvoir, it’s friendship that lets us become truly ourselves

For Simone de Beauvoir, friendship, even more than love, was the means to overcome the tragedy of our radical separation

by Skye C Cleary