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The underwhelming results of the Copenhagen Accord during last month’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Denmark sent me searching my mental files for examples of how art has documented […]
Yemeni police have captured what is believed to be the key Al-Qaeda chief behind the threats on foreign embassies in the capital Sanaa, according to security officials.
If we cannot rely on our classic economic models to make in-depth, investigative journalism—and, in particular, foreign reporting—possible, what can be done? Are there models in other countries of gathering […]
Underwhelmed with a trip to Whistler, founder and CEO of Sherman’s Travel Media Jim Sherman decided to build a company that offers guides and deals. He sat down with Big […]
The US secret service is investigating an apparent hanging effigy of President Barack Obama slung from a storefront by a noose in Georgia.
An exhibition of naturally sculpted rock from China’s Qing Dynasty opens in London this week – baffling onlookers with displays of elaborately eroded stone on wooded plinths.
Nearly 800 people have set themselves the challenge of self improvement by joining the One Hundred Days to Make Me A Better Person campaign.
A brilliantly preserved skeleton of the extinct dodo bird, found in Mauritius in 2007, could provide valuable DNA information which could lead to the genetic resurrection of the species.
Katie Roiphe’s cover essay in today’s New York Times Book Review affectionately notes one thing about several male novelists of an earlier generation—Roth, Bellow, Updike—that we should consider missing: unapologetic, […]
Has any other American artist been as overanalyzed as Thomas Eakins? Pollock, Hopper, Rothko, and others have all been called to the critics’ psychological couch, but only Eakins has gotten […]
Americans are placing more value on shared experiences than consumable goods in the wake of economic troubles.
The man who tried to assassinate the famed Danish cartoonist who drew Mohammed with a bomb-turban has Al Qaeda ties.
One-tenth of a second is enough time to read even a complex change in emotion on someone’s face.
The word “explosive” is use to describe a lot of artists’ work. In the case of Cai Guo-Qiang, he actually earns the adjective. Last month, the Chinese artist inaugurated his […]
The shift of a mere apostrophe by a single letter can make all the difference. We’re referring here not to the “Editors’ Choice” videos that are highlighted at the top […]
Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin has been praised as one of the finest novels of the year—one of the finest books, full stop. Tina Brown loved it. Jonathan […]
As we usher in a new year and say good-bye to the old one, let’s take a last look at the ten most watched Big Think videos of 2009. You, […]
The U.K. is putting up $2 million to fund paid theater internships for young adults in order to develop the country’s cultural ambitions.
The Economist’s Christmas Issue one-act, “Gordon Rex,” might be funny or—in that uniquely English, Economist-y way—slightly self-consciously aloof, but it makes us long for more. More Brown in verse. More […]
A U.S. judge has ruled that the BitTorrent search engine ISO Hunt is illegal because it celebrates copyright violation.
Grant money is sought to preserve an attendance log that Robert Frost kept while he was teaching at a grammar school in Methuen, MA.
Of all the writers to emerge from the psychedelic ’60s, few have endured as long at the top of their craft as Robert Stone. In a candid interview with Big […]
With a college student in art school who was leaning towards photography as a major just a few weeks ago, Learning To See Creatively by Brian Peterson seemed to be […]
A new computer algorithm analyzes the frequency of unique words used by authors in an attempt to quantify literary style.
The thriller genre is more and more dominated by conservative ideology and plugged by talking heads like Beck and Limbaugh.
This is a common time of year for Lists. Everyone seems to have one. David Brooks’s Best Essays List ran in today’s New York Times, and almost every other literary publication […]
New research silences skeptics who thought it was impossible for Santa to deliver gifts to everyone in a single night.
The European music platform that allows users to stream volumes and volumes of music for free is on its way to America.
The Royal Bank of Scotland is considering selling pieces of its art collection to UK national museums after receiving $73 billion in bailout funds.
Santa held up a Tennessee bank at gunpoint informing the teller that he needed to pay his elves.