Nordic Knitwear – We’re all Scandinavian Now
February 17, 2013
Twenty years ago you have the feeling that if a Danish TV series had been aired in the UK it would’ve involved Scandinavian characters inexplicably speaking English to each other. But the appetite for Nordic noir seems insatiable nowadays, all in its original language and subtitled: Forbrydelsen, Broen, Wallander, Borgen, and so on. And why …
Feedback and Feed Forward
February 10, 2013
The opinions of others, no matter how much one produces art that pleases oneself, are a matter of pressing importance in relation to any creative endeavour. We want to be productive, because it pleases us to exercise our creative powers, but it cannot be denied that we want also to display our efforts to others. …
Film, Form and Function
February 3, 2013
Are there any classic movies you’re ashamed to say you’ve never seen? I rectified my biggest omission last week when I watched Citizen Kane, which many take to be the greatest film of all. At a movie industry dinner some months ago I found I was not the only one around the table for whom …
Professor Slug
January 27, 2013
Storytelling is a wonderful thing. While it serves no practical purpose it is something that takes our disposable income, for novels, films, plays and comic books. And we all have stories of our own, from favourite anecdotes brought out at family gatherings to the more serious narrative we construct about our lives as a whole. …
Soft or Hard?
January 20, 2013
We sometimes speak of the hard sciences, meaning physics, chemistry, mathematics and anything for which there are clear, determinate answers to be found. The hard/soft distinction can be found even in the arts. In philosophy we often distinguish between the hard end, of logic, metaphysics and epistemology, and the softer end of ethics, aesthetics and …
Of Theatre and Men (and Women)
November 27, 2012
What is the continuing appeal of the theatre? It is a format little changed in centuries, if not millennia. With the advent of cinema, television and YouTube, why do we still bother travelling to a live event and paying the ticket price? Why do the actors so inefficiently perform the same scenes night after night …
Nothing Really Matters
November 4, 2012
Anyone can see that absence figures just as much in our lives as presence. A deceased loved one causes the greatest sorrow. You see that they are no longer there, in their regular place, doing their regular things. A hole is left in someone’s life. Other absences impact on us. One might be saddened by …
Appearance and Reality
October 28, 2012
I realise that my life is full of contradictions. I’m shy yet I enjoy attention; high-intellect attracts me yet I’m also fond of comic books; I love to visit my roots yet I’m mostly found hidden away in the world of academe. Added to that is the struggle in which I’m perpetually caught between appearance and …
History and Politics
October 24, 2012
Earlier this month I attended the inaugural lecture of Celeste-Marie Bernier, a new professor at Nottingham’s Department of American and Canadian Studies. The lecture explored images of slavery, showing how the masters depicted their slaves one way while slaves and former slaves tried to tell a different story when they had the rare opportunity to be …
Immortality
October 5, 2012
I have just returned from a conference on the metaphysics of relations at which were some of the finest contemporary philosophical minds. I was struck by frequent references to the likes of Aristotle, Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Descartes and such. Aristotle died 2,300 years ago. We have had a long time to improve on his thinking, …
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