- Article
- Article
Yoga adapts to time and place
A yoga teacher in 1930s India inspired today’s transnational practice with his spectacular fusion of tradition and innovation.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Ayurveda: Knowledge for long life
The story of medicine in India is rich and complex. Aarathi Prasad investigates how it came to be this way.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Eating their own kind
In his grisly history of cannibalism, zoologist Bill Schutt asks what drives an animal to feast on its own flesh and blood.
- Article
- Article
Performance art, frozen in time
For over a year, live performance art with an audience present has been largely impossible. But still images continue to allow artists in this sphere to inspire audiences at home.
- Article
- Article
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.
- Article
- Article
The politics and power of audio-description
Traditional theatre audio-description often lets down artists and audiences. But, done well, it has the potential to be a force for creativity as well as accessibility.
- Article
- Article
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.
- Article
- Article
The yogi as hermit, warrior, criminal and showman
How the modern world changed the life and reputation of the yogi.
- Article
- Article
Building a dream in the garden suburbs
In the late 19th century a ‘garden suburb’ promised a retreat from London’s dirt and crowds. See how this new concept was developed to appeal to the health concerns of the literary classes.
- Article
- Article
Crones
Menopause can be tough when nobody talks about it and all the stereotypes are negative, but it can also be transformative, marking the start of a new stage of life - cronehood.
- Article
- Article
A symbol of a lost homeland
The story of one protective amulet from Palestine reveals a complex tale. Encompassing the personal history of an influential doctor and collector, it provides a window onto dispossession and exile, and the painful repercussions that are still felt today.
- Article
- Article
Native Americans through the 19th-century lens
The stories behind Rinehart's photographs may not be as black and white as they first appear.
- Article
- Article
What our facial hair says about us
Five bearded and moustachioed men choose five hirsute archive images to help them reflect on the way facial hair is linked with personality and identity.
- Article
- Article
Duelling doctors
An enduring enthusiasm for 18th-century gentlemen to defend their ‘honour’ by duelling placed doctors in a delicate position. Specially when they faced being shot themselves.
- Article
- Article
Lovesickness and ‘The Love Thief’
An 11th-century poem of love, lust and possibly gruesome death still resonates today.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Winter blues and the story of SAD
In ‘Chasing the Sun‘ Linda Geddes reveals why for some people, winter is literally depressing, showing how we first came to recognise seasonal affective disorder (SAD).
- Article
- Article
A body apart from the head
We look back at the importance of the head, from how it’s influenced our language to the bold political statement of having it removed.
- Article
- Article
The eye of darshan
The Hindu concept of darshan means “divine revelation”, but it’s also about the multilayered ways in which we see the world around us. Adrian Plau explains how one image in a Panjabi manuscript relates to darshan, and why it’s so striking.
- Article
- Article
Going viral in the online anti-vaccine wars
‘Anti-vaxxers’ are taking their message online using powerful images as well as words. But is the pro campaigners’ response any better?
- Long read
- Long read
The ambivalence of air
Daisy Lafarge investigates the effects of air quality and pressure on body and mind, exploring air as cure, but one with contradictions.
- Article
- Article
Sex in graphic novels
Sex and sexuality have long been explored in the history of the graphic novel.
- Article
- Article
The secret sting of cystitis
Agnes Arnold-Forster recounts her experiences of cystitis, explaining how this illness intersects with sexism, shame, and stigma from medical professionals.
- Article
- Article
The painter, the psychiatrist and a fashion for hysteria
A dramatic painting brings a famous event in medical history alive. But it also tells a tale about the health preoccupations of the time.
- Interview
- Interview
Meet the climate emergency
Find out what led Yinka Shonibare to create the compelling artwork ‘Refugee Astronaut’.
- Article
- Article
Leaving Mexico and finding refuge in hope
In Mexico, violence of all kinds – organised, street, domestic – is accepted as normal. From the UK, Laura Morales speaks out and fights to help those suffering back home.