Stories search

Daria Martin on ‘Sensorium Tests’ and ‘At the Threshold’

Getting around the rules of sex education

What should we and shouldn’t we teach our teens about sex, inside and outside of the classroom?

The meanings of hurt

In the early modern period, gruesome incidents of self-castration and other types of self-injury garnished the literature of the time. Alanna Skuse explores the messages these wounds conveyed.

The soul in the stomach

A 17th-century physician’s controversial theory about the link between the emotions and the stomach reminds us that we shouldn’t ignore our ‘gut feelings’.

Obesity and Britain’s boys

Six young men and six experiences of being overweight. Find out how these boys and their loved ones feel about this stigmatising issue.

When you don’t belong, you drink

In the third part of her exploration of belonging, Tanya Perdikou unpicks the addictions that have shaped her past and uncovers the connections that make recovery possible.

How stories bring us together

Elif Shafak considers how hard it is to be heard in our divided world, but how listening can nurture wisdom, connection and empathy.

Mask, ritual and fertility

Today many of us learn about fertility, conception and pregnancy online. But that wasn’t always the way. Discover how masks and rituals played an important educational role.

Inside the mind of Living with Buildings curator, Emily Sargent

Curator Emily Sargent reveals why council estates and a Finnish TB sanatorium were chosen for the ‘Living with Buildings’ exhibition.

My rainforest upbringing

In the introduction to her serial, research biologist Nataly Allasi Canales charts the influences that led her to passion for preserving the species of the Peruvian Amazon, where she spent her childhood.

Dementia playlists and musical memory

Listening to the right music can provide both solace and pleasure for someone with dementia, helping them to reconnect with the world around them. Grace Meadows makes the case for more music in dementia care.

Inside the mind of Somewhere in Between’s curator, Laurie Britton Newell

The exhibition's curator shares her secrets.

Is shoegaze the loneliest genre of music?

Christine Ro explores the connection between shyness and shoegaze.

Coleridge’s hypochondria

An intense focus on his own bodily sensations led poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge to self-medicate with narcotics. But this fascination also put Coleridge ahead of the medical sensibilities of his day.

Shame and how our bodies betray us

Embarrassment about our desires, bodies and bodily functions can silence us. Lucia Osborne-Crowley asks whether a low-level but constant sense of shame is stopping us getting the help we need.

How Indigenous insight inspires sustainable science

The forest of the Amazon Basin is inextricably bound up with the lives of the Indigenous peoples living there. Find out how they feel about the forest, use what it provides, and try to protect it from aggressive commercial exploitation.

Coasting to catastrophe

In climate change, everything – and everyone – is connected. The watery process that will gradually cut off the Isle of Thanet from the British mainland has begun, and everyone in the UK needs to pay attention.

Inside the minds of Teeth’s two curators, James Peto and Emily Scott-Dearing

James Peto and Emily Scott-Dearing talk visceral reactions, their interactions and object extractions.

Audrey and her family

In working on Audrey Amiss’s archive, Elena is getting closer to understanding her. But the way her niece and nephew remember Audrey adds essential detail to the picture.

Laughing at disaster

If joking around can help us cope when the worst happens, could comedy be a useful way to connect on climate change?

The meaning of happiness

What is happiness? Tiffany Watt Smith charts how its definition has changed over time, from chance emotion to something that can be measured and controlled.

Ways appear

While his sense of body shame meant the personal side of his life was unfulfilled, Chris’s career was rewarding. His own childhood experiences gave him profound empathy for the children he worked with.

Uncovering experiences of dementia

Focusing on three 19th-century women’s case notes, Millie van der Byl Williams explores how our definition of dementia has changed.

The secret lives of Britain’s first Black physicians

Dr Annabel Sowemimo explores the web of connections between early Black British doctors, the role of empire in West Africa and the pernicious reach of scientific racism.

The indelible harm caused by conversion therapy

With first-hand evidence from two powerful testimonies, neurologist Jules Montague explores the destructive history of conversion therapy, a punitive treatment designed to ‘cure’ people of homosexuality.