Diversity
May 11, 2014
While in some ways there is a commonality that holds us together as a species – all of us wanting love, freedom and personal growth – we also exhibit a great diversity. There is no denying this. As well as the very apparent differences in race, sex and culture, we are diverse in our politics, …
The Past is in the Present; and the Present is in the Past
February 9, 2014
It’s not just writings, data and bytes of memory that can contain information. I’ve always loved the way that a plain old object, dug up from the ground, can tell a story about the past. The object and the information are in the present, yet they relate to some distant age and give us a …
An Unknowable Truth
February 1, 2014
We have to be humble sometimes and admit we are not capable of knowing everything that is true. This should be uncontroversial for surely there are many truths about the past all evidence of which is now erased. It is either true or false that a dinosaur sneezed on this exact spot 100 million years …
What Science Cannot Teach Us
January 17, 2014
If I had a hammer, there’s lots I could do with it. I could crush a walnut, for one thing. But I might hang a picture on the wall, knock a bulge out of my car’s wheel arch, break some toffee, start a carpentry project. I could also use it to bash someone’s brains in. …
Losing our Minds
January 12, 2014
A further sadness about death is the loss of mind. A mind collects memories, experiences and learning. All those skills of intellect, painstakingly acquired, all those beliefs and values, all those habits and affections. They once made a person: an entirely unique individual shaped by their experiences and education; now gone into the past. They …
Prospective
December 30, 2013
A new year is to begin in the Western calendar. It marks the opportunity for new beginnings, new resolutions, a virtual rebirth. Many believe the date of the new year to be an arbitrary point. But what matters is the prospect of an annual renewal, reinvigoration and reinvention. New Year’s Day presents us with an …
Retrospective
December 21, 2013
It might be best not to dwell upon the past. For all our efforts we cannot change it. Why waste our considerations on its reliving? Some of the most thrusting and dynamic are precisely those who focus on the future, formulating their ambitions and strategy. For most of the year I aim for that. The …
On Reading Oneself
April 28, 2013
Now that my hair is getting more grey by the day, and it’s long since I was classified as an early-career academic, I have almost 25 years of written research behind me. I recently started tidying my office and have found all sorts of old writings lying around, neglected and mostly unpublished. Some were hand-written …
Propaganda and Art
April 14, 2013
What are we to make of art that is put to some morally dubious purpose? Can we still appreciate it as art or has it become tainted by its use? Politicians are acutely aware of the stirring and motivating power of art and thus it is natural that they put it to use in propaganda, …
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 …
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