Culture & Religion

They starve themselves and risk their necks for $150 a race. And depression is prevalent in the jockeys’ ranks. Who would be one?

Are cities the best place to live? Are suburbs OK? A fight grows in urban planning, with Harvard at the center.

Times are still tough, but American independent cinema turns out to be a movement defined by stubborn true belief and survival. This year’s Sundance featured strong noncorporate films.

A new book examines the sloppy studies that pass for scientific evidence in so many of today’s bestselling books that claim to expose neurologically-based sex differences.

Childhood phases we now take for granted—toddler, tween—were established by marketers, not doctors or child specialists. What should we know about girls’ princess phases?

You may say your dream holiday would be trekking in a rainforest or white-water rafting but new research shows most of us are less daring than we think and prefer being beach-side.

While social media has afforded us many things, it’s also given the uncanny ability for a single person to become many different people. All at the same time.

The girlie-girl culture being marketed to little girls is less innocent than it might seem, and can have negative consequences for girls’ psychological, social and physical development.

Once upon a time, films would open, close, appear on video, then vanish. Now with dozens of television channels to fill and rentals going postal, some films never go away.

Autism sufferers unquestionably have feelings. It’s processing them—and reading others’—that they struggle with.

Demonstrating that one is able to conform to curricula currently trumps boldness; seat hours in the auditorium count more than audacity. I wonder if that’s really good for America, though.

In ‘Wandering Lonely in a Crowd’, S M Atif Imtiaz’s desire for genuine discussion about Islam in Britain is striking and compelling, writes Charles Moore.

Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Yemen, Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia all contain political and demographic ingredients at least as perilous as those that combusted in Tunisia.

Videogames consistently fulfill genuine human needs that the real world fails to satisfy and may prove to be a key resource for solving some of our most pressing real-world problems.

Once the mark of sailors and bikers, body art is now sought after by the fashion-hungry. For many, the difference between fine art and modern tattooing has disappeared.

The question of how forms of writing produce forms of thought is one that the literary critic and legal scholar Stanley Fish explores again in his new book, How to Write a Sentence.

For clients willing to pay large sums, Videogame Adventure Services will construct “adventure games” which blurs real life with fictitious romances and car chases.

Patti Smith became a rock star by accident—it made her an icon. She wrote a book—it won a major award. Now, with an album on the way and a U.K. tour, she’s as driven as ever.

Now, more than at any time, Americans need to be reminded what a great country America has been and still is.

Leading neuroscientist Vilayanur S Ramachandran shares intriguing case studies revealing the powerful, adaptive potential of the human brain.

As assistant in charge of the Archive of American Folk Song in the Library of Congress, Alan Lomax proved that the poorest places held some of the richest cultural treasures.

So, in the wake of the boring–yet annoying–Golden Globes,  I’ve been asked what movies of last year I’d recommend that the foreign correspondents slighted.  Let me say, to begin with, […]

Sales of Glock semi-automatic guns are skyrocketing in the wake of Tucson. The growing piles of bodies is real evidence of growing extremist activity. What could be plainer or starker?

Multiculturalism critic Kenan Malik: The very thing that diversity is good for is the very thing that multiculturalism as a political process undermines.

As soon as we start saying our lives or our planet from a cosmic perspective is meaningless, we are no longer engaged in science but science-fiction.

In the aftermath of the (Tucson shootings), something has changed. No one can say how long the calm will endure. When it fades, perhaps the memory will leave us all in a better place.

The legendary chess grandmasters, who have spent thousands of hours analyzing each other’s games, describe and critique each others’ playing styles.

Gabriel Orozco, Mexico’s foremost living artist, has a secret. Though he is celebrated for his “post-studio practice” it turns out he has a space that many artists would call a studio.

Holding a hard or soft ball can influence a person’s perception of how masculine or feminine others are. Our sense of touch is connected to social processing in our brains.

Those at the end of emerging adulthood will better make the family and career decisions they had been putting off, resulting in a future of greater life satisfaction and stability.