High Culture
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How AI learned to paint like Rembrandt
The Rijksmuseum employed an AI to repaint lost parts of Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch.” Here’s how they did it.
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How Mariah Carey stole Christmas
The singer-songwriter distilled the essence of the holidays into a hit song, and for her efforts she was crowned the Queen of Christmas.
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James Bond: Witty one-liners go back to ancient times
What value does wit hold in genres defined by brute strength?
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How John Berger’s “Ways of Seeing” changed the way we look at art
Released in 1972, "Ways of Seeing" has proven to be as worthy of study as the artistic traditions it investigates.
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How a Hollywood-style television show about Trotsky rearranged the Russian Revolution
Although equal parts Hollywood blockbuster and Putinist propaganda, "Trotsky" still manages to capture the good, the bad, and the ugly of Russia’s revolutionary past.
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The most compelling representations of Satan in world literature
By taking Satan out of the religious context, storytellers explored the nature of sin in new ways.
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How Nietzsche’s love for music influenced his philosophy
The German thinker wrote both treatises and songs. He approached each form of expression with the same level of interest.
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Why Squid Game is actually a critique of meritocracy
Winner takes all, losers die, and participants have no choice but to play.
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Fyodor Dostoevsky’s greatest critic explains why everyone should read his books
According to literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin, Dostoevsky's talents were on par with those of William Shakespeare.
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How Frank Herbert’s “Dune” revolutionized science fiction
Before Herbert came along and wrote Dune, few if any sci-fi stories were set in fully realized universes.
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What Day of the Dead tells us about the Aztec philosophy of happiness
Growing up in the United States, I remember on Halloween my mother used to say, “Honey, this is not just a day for costumes and candy. You must also remember […]
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The messianic movements that inspired “Dune”
Frank Herbert's "Dune" refers to a religious desert people who are desperate for a savior to overthrow an evil empire. Sound familiar?
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Horror fiction: the unexpectedly ancient origins of ghost stories
Fear is one of the oldest and most powerful emotions known to man, so it should come as no surprise that horror stories are as old as storytelling itself.
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Why has Halloween become so popular among adults?
Today, alcohol is as important as candy to the Halloween economy.
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Why 1972’s “The Other” is a forgotten classic of American horror films
One of the scariest films of the 1970s didn't set out to be a horror film at all.
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The search for the scariest horror movie in cinematic history
The more horror we consume, the harder it becomes to find a good scare. These genuinely unsettling movies should get you in the mood for Halloween.
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Spirit photography captured love, loss, and longing
Haunting photographs depict the dead as "still with us."
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Why Arthur Schopenhauer thought music was the greatest of all artforms
Music is often labelled a “universal language,” and according to the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, there is a good reason for that.
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More “disease” than “Dracula”: how the vampire myth was born
Societal breakdown, whether real or imagined, can lead to dramatic responses — like blood-sucking vampires.
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Dante’s Inferno is far more popular than Paradise. What does that say about us?
In hell, we assume a position of moral superiority, looking down over the sinners and the poor decisions that led them to this wretched place. In heaven, Dante is looking down upon us.
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A brief overview of the history of European portraiture
Portraiture is one of the most intimate genres in all of painting, and it has reinvented itself many times across European history.
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The philosophy and magic of Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli
Studio Ghibli movies celebrate the natural world using a very Japanese mixture of Shinto, Buddhist, and Daoist themes.
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Why you’ve probably never heard of Computer Space, which launched the video game industry 50 years ago
Computer Space lacked a critical ingredient that the other games possessed: gravity.
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Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation”: Predicting the future with mathematical sociology
The "Foundation" series, recently adapted into a show by Apple TV, was inspired by a fascinating, real-life academic discipline.
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2021 Nobel Prize for literature goes to Zanzibar-born author Abdulrazak Gurnah
The Swedish Academy honored the writer for his uncompromising inquiry into the lasting consequences of Africa’s colonization.
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The time Japan’s bestselling author staged a coup and committed seppuku
Yukio Mishima treated his life as if it were a story — one with a surprising and deadly final act.
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Tatlin’s Tower and the untapped potential of early Soviet architecture
Bolsheviks planned to erect a towering monument to the socialist cause, but their quixotic ideas never got off the ground.
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How Michelangelo’s David turned Renaissance Italy on its head
Although the statue’s political connotations faded over time, its eyes remain fixed on a key moment in Florentine history.
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Optical illusion: Why Hans Holbein hid a creepy skull in “The Ambassadors”
The German artist painted death as it appeared in life – omnipresent and hidden in plain sight.
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How computational biologists made proteins write classical music
Ever wondered what oxytocin receptor proteins sound like?
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Daniel Craig’s selection as James Bond was controversial. So why not try a woman next time?
"The name's Bond. Jane Bond."