Essay Why democracy belongs in artificial intelligence February 21, 2023 Most of the real harms AI systems can cause—but also the opportunities they can afford—are nothing to do with robots taking over the world or self-generating AI systems. They are to do with what, how, when, and why we should use powerful predictive tools in the decision-making systems of our political, social, and economic organizations. Read More
Essay Meaning and the hard problem of life February 21, 2023 In the middle of the twentieth century something happened to the meaning of “meaning.” Until then meaning had been associated with concepts, definitions, and language—and so associated strongly with the human animals who hold concepts, define things, and speak. But now it came to be connected to a term, information, that was sponsoring revolutions in areas from computation to biology. Read More
Podcast Pandemic Politics February 20, 2023 COVID-19 has killed more people than any war or public health crisis in American history, but the scale and grim human toll of the pandemic were not inevitable. Read More
Essay Ukraine’s memorials February 20, 2023 One of the curiosities of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is how, even amid the deprivations of a savage war, Ukrainians have turned their attention to destroying or de-Russifying Soviet monuments and protecting their own. Read More
Podcast The Sounds of Life February 16, 2023 The natural world teems with remarkable conversations, many beyond human hearing range. Scientists are using groundbreaking digital technologies to uncover these astonishing sounds, revealing vibrant communication among our fellow creatures across the Tree of Life. Read More
Essay Medea, again February 16, 2023 Although she is surrounded by the accoutrements of a magical spell that she is performing, which gestures to her mastery of an arcane science, the predominant impression is of a woman who is being victimized by a love-charm that the gods have cast upon her, compelling her to use her special knowledge to help the hero Jason. Read More
Interview James B. Nardi on The Hidden Company That Trees Keep February 15, 2023 You can tell a lot about a tree from the company it keeps. James Nardi guides you through the innermost unseen world that trees share with a wondrous array of creatures. Read More
Podcast Data Driven February 15, 2023 Long-haul truckers are the backbone of the American economy, transporting goods under grueling conditions and immense economic pressure. Truckers have long valued the day-to-day independence of their work, sharing a strong occupational identity rooted in a tradition of autonomy. Read More
Podcast Words for the Heart February 14, 2023 Words for the Heart is a captivating treasury of emotion terms drawn from some of India’s earliest classical languages. Read More
Interview Helen Sword on Writing with Pleasure February 13, 2023 Writing should be a pleasurable challenge, not a painful chore. Writing with Pleasure empowers academic, professional, and creative writers to reframe their negative emotions about writing and reclaim their positive ones. Read More
Podcast What the Thunder Said February 07, 2023 When T. S. Eliot published The Waste Land in 1922, it put the thirty-four-year-old author on a path to worldwide fame and the Nobel Prize. “But,” as Jed Rasula writes, “The Waste Land is not only a poem: it names an event, like a tornado or an earthquake. Read More
Interview Sandy Baum and Michael McPherson on Campus Economics February 05, 2023 Campus Economics provides college and university administrators, trustees, and faculty with an essential understanding of how college finances actually work. Read More
Essay Thoreau and the business of distraction February 04, 2023 In his early years, the writer and naturalist Henry David Thoreau was a restless young man with a romantic temperament, casting about for a way to make a living without giving up his freedom. Read More
Essay Batman’s holy grotto: The psychic resurrection of Bruce Conner February 02, 2023 Bohemian San Francisco gained a new gathering place in 1960 when the deep-pocketed aspiring painter Billie Jahrmarkt and his wife Joan decided to found a gallery for the benefit of their artistic and literary friends. Two such, artist Bruce Conner and poet/playwright Michael McClure, took the project in hand. Read More
Essay Roland Betancourt on White: The History of a Color February 02, 2023 Moving away from those who might wish to find a universal symbolism or archetypal truth in a color, Michel Pastoureau’s The History of a Color series has sought to understand color as first and foremost a social phenomenon, one with historically grounded realities and effects. Read More