Category Archives: Culture

The last Corsican.

Posted on July 18, 2017 by

“I’ve decided to keep this diary because I’m going to die in the next few days…I am condemned because, having refused to be evacuated with the others, I will be annihilated by the incendiary bombs which are systematically ravaging the … Continue reading →

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Matisse in Corsica.

Posted on July 16, 2017 by

The great artist Henri Matisse (1869-1954) was inspired to use colour in radical new ways during his first visit to Corsica. After their wedding in early 1898, Matisse and his wife Amélie Parayre spent their honeymoon first in London and … Continue reading →

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Brecht’s radical Galileo

Posted on May 29, 2017 by

Brecht’s ‘Life of Galileo’ is a great piece of theatre with universal appeal. It’s also a particularly good one for science students because it brings the scientific method to life. Galileo’s struggle to get acceptance for the ‘Copernican’ heliocentric model … Continue reading →

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The Mathematics of Survival

Posted on April 2, 2017 by

Poetry gives our language the wings to fly and in difficult times we need strong wings. Starting with just the alphabet, the poetic form allows our ideas to soar. Just like those in our previous anthologies, the student poems in … Continue reading →

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More fictional dystopias

Posted on March 26, 2017 by

Reading Dystopias offered an introduction to the genre of dystopian fiction through 4 classic dystopian novels. Here are four more which are also well worth reading. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1953) [211 pages] Fahrenheit 451: The temperature at which … Continue reading →

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Abdellatif Laâbi: attesting against barbarism.

Posted on December 31, 2016 by

The brilliant Moroccan poet, novelist and playwright Abdellatif Laâbi is the epitome of the engaged writer. Born in Fez in 1942, he studied at the University of Rabat and was one of the founders of the literary magazine Souffles in … Continue reading →

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Theodore Zeldin on ‘what is worth knowing?’

Posted on August 8, 2016 by

What is worth knowing? It’s a good question, given how much there is to know and the impossibility of knowing more than a tiny fraction of the total. Theodore Zeldin’s latest collection of essays, ‘The hidden pleasures of life’ (Quercus, 2015) … Continue reading →

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