Buried Alive!
Being buried alive was one of the most common phobias of the Victorian era. Fear of premature interment in a coffin inspired the creation of the London Association for the…
Subversive, queer and terrifyingly relevant: six reasons why Moby-Dick is the novel for our times
But it is Moby-Dick’s premonitory brilliance that continues to make it relevant. Melville predicts mass extinction and climate breakdown, and foresees a drowned planet from which the whale would “spout…
A woman’s greatest enemy? A lack of time to herself
If what it takes to create are long stretches of time alone, that’s something women have never had the luxury to expect {read}
Ted Chiang Uses Science to Illuminate the Human Condition
I think science and religion could more peacefully coexist if we could agree that they are trying to answer different questions; science is investigating the question, “how does the universe…
The Future of Work: The Farm, by Charlie Jane Anders
Once, The Daily Argus had fact-checkers, copy editors, legal advisers. Those people are gone now, and in their place there’s the Farm.
A Meditation on Forests, Life, and Art: Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Fir Tree”
“The Fir Tree” was originally published in New Fairy Tales, Second Collection (1844) next to another winter tale, The Snow Queen. It was swiftly overshadowed by that other story and…
Why Are Men So bad at writing sex?
Male authors dominate the Bad Sex in Fiction awards, and it’s no coincidence
The End Of The World with Josh Clark
This episode of The End of the World podcast had me thinking a lot about a book I just finished, Knocking on Heaven’s Door by Sharman Apt Russell, the boundless…
creativity, the illusion of originality, and when is something really plagiarism
I happened to listen to these two podcast back to back and I think they are actually great companion episodes. They are about creativity, the illusion of originality, and when…
Excerpt: Autonomous by Annalee Newitz
Earth, 2144. Jack is an anti-patent scientist turned drug pirate, traversing the world in a submarine as a pharmaceutical Robin Hood, fabricating cheap scrips for poor people who can’t otherwise…