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When the Wind Blows: Planning for Nuclear War in the 1980s
Read more: When the Wind Blows: Planning for Nuclear War in the 1980sJim Gledhill on the organisation of civil defence in Scotland amidst Cold War tensions.
Naomi Farmer
Kenneth White on the Breton Coast (The Fundamental Field)
William Sharp evokes ‘those wild Breton coasts of the Tréguier headland’ with the ‘grey, muttering waste’ of the sea. Little did I realise, when I must have read these phrases at the age of 14 on a cliff overlooking the north end of the village of Fairlie, in Ayrshire, Scotland that years later I would be living in that self-same area.
Spinoza and democracy in peril
By Dan Taylor In October 2020, in the days leading up to the US Presidential Election, over 130 leading historians of fascism signed an open letter. They warned that democracy today is deeply imperilled. It is either ‘withering or in…
The world of Spinoza’s Theological–Political Treatise
By Dan Taylor Baruch Spinoza’s Theological–Political Treatise, published anonymously in 1670, quickly turned Europe upside-down. Dismissed by one contemporary as a book ‘forged in hell by the Devil himself’, it argued that for societies to endure conflict and flourish, they…
The missing drafts of Whitehead’s books
Until recently, few people suspected that the missing drafts for Alfred North Whitehead’s books might still exist – in the notes of his Harvard and Radcliffe lectures.
Rhythm and Critique
Sunil Manghani explores how rhythm came to be one of the most productive terms for critical enquiry into our social, political and cultural lives, and looks to the future of research into rhythm.
Placemaking in a pandemic
How we make place and have a sense of belonging in a pandemic is such a very different experience than many of us have usually experienced.
Aristotle and gender: form vs matter?
Even as strides toward gender equality have been made in the last century, the notion that gender is a binary divided between those who determine the social world – men – and those who need to be determined – women…
Scottish Muslims: Unity and Belonging
Scottish Muslims’ lives are dressed up in tartan and play the music of Islam. The Scottish ‘Muslim community’ is made up of people of various ages, ethnicities and social classes. But what they have in common is that they identify…
Three fun ways to create a medieval Arabic manuscript
From recycling to creating huge anthologies, Konrad HIrschler looks at some innovative ways that book lovers created their medieval Arabic manuscripts.
Sublime goals? Sport and the egalitarian sublime
James Williams argues that one of the main lessons of the search for an egalitarian sublime is that exceptional achievements in sports should not be called 'sublime'.