Stories search

Native Americans and the dehumanising force of the photograph

In the second part of Native Americans through the 19th-century lens, we delve deeper into the ambivalent messages within the images.

A history of mindfulness

Matt Drage questions how an ancient religious practice became a secular cure for stress.

Remote romance and the common cold

Getting creatively romantic due to a virus sounds all too contemporary, but our archives show what socially distanced seduction looked like seven decades ago.

The psychology of Ouija

Explore the science behind table tilting and Ouija boards, and discover how the unscrupulous still make money from exploiting the ‘ideomotor’ effect.

When you can’t return home

Migrants and refugees cannot choose to return home, so homesickness becomes a profound and long-lasting feeling. This powerful force infuses migrant cultures, and is rarely given the serious attention it warrants.

We who can’t believe

Unless she falls to the floor unconscious, Anne Boyer has always ignored signs of illness. Cancer, however, made her face her fallibility.

What is structural violence?

Structural violence is seemingly invisible. But its tentacles have invaded every part of many people’s lives, thoughts, experiences and expectations, shaping them in ways they don’t even realise.

Fleeing fear, defying prejudice

As teenage refugee Sedra Al-Yousef grappled with rebuilding her life and education in another country, at the same time she used compassion and humanity to demolish populist anti-refugee myths.

Autistic togetherness during lockdown

While lockdown has presented autistic people with greater challenges than life pre-COVID, many have found strength and comfort in the situation. Autistic writer and performer Kate Fox explains how.

Generation portraits

Photographer Julian Germain’s major project focusing on portraits of multi-generational families came to a sudden halt during the various Covid-19 lockdowns. Here families celebrate coming together again in words and images.

Dangers inside and out

Eimear McBride reflects on the deadly consequences of misogyny in the wake of the murder of Sarah Everard and argues why advising women to simply “stay indoors” is wrong.

Electric marvels in the age of enlightenment

How our understanding of electricity has grown, from novelty to the pulse of modern life – and the inner fire that powers the human machine.

Chasing down a mystery illness

In an extract from their graphic novel about a deadly, drug-resistant illness, Val McDermid and Kathryn Briggs explore why knowledge isn’t always the same as power.

The dangers of women’s speech

For centuries, women have been ridiculed and punished for excessive talking, despite the fact that men gossip just as much.

Can our minds be taken hostage?

It’s not unusual for captives to end up feeling strong bonds with their captors. But is it a matter of submission or survival?

Titans in the landscape

The history of brainwashing

Is it possible to control what other people think? In this abridged extract from his book ‘Brainwashed’, psychoanalyst and historian Daniel Pick offers us a new history of thought control.

The law of periodicity for menstruation

Dr Edward Clarke's Law of Periodicity claimed that females who were educated alongside their male peers were developing their minds at the expense of their reproductive organs.

The leukaemia diagnosis I didn’t see coming

Treatment for leukaemia kept journalist Hannah Partos in isolation, like the female prisoner whose image inspired her to write this piece.

Another way to listen

Background noise is something we often try to ignore. Adjoa Wiredu explores what happens if we intentionally choose to tune in.

Genius spirits and the mystery of creative inspiration

Once upon a time, we all had a genius.

When self-deception becomes global hoax

Being deceived isn’t always a case of believing someone else’s lie. Experiments have shown that many of us can be manipulated into accepting our own fictions as true.

Tracing the toxic story of tear gas

Investigating tear gas – from factory to Black Lives Matter protest – Imani Jacqueline Brown uncovers a toxic legacy where pollution, violence and racism are intimately entwined.

Thunderbolts and lightning

Fire in the sky has always exerted a hold on our imagination, even as early scientists unlocked the secrets of atmospheric electricity.

Inside the Cold War mind

Martin Sixsmith explores the competing national psyches of Russia and America, and a world divided between their irreconcilable visions of human nature.