Cultuur en Educatie – Buitenland

Image by Fakhri “Scientists Discover the Earliest Evidence of Drug Use in Really Old Teeth” may sound like odd headline language, at least by the traditional standards of the New York Times. But then, the teeth in question are, indeed, really old. “Archaeologists have pushed the timeline of human drug use... Read more »

Before the Japanese fell completely, one hundred percent in love with anything and everything Disney (I mean, seriously, they love it), Mickey Mouse represented something completely different: Pure American imperialist evil. At least he did in this 1934 animated propaganda cartoon Omochabako series dai san wa: Ehon senkya-hyakusanja-rokunen (Toybox Series... Read more »

This past summer, the United States of America celebrated 250 years of independence. But for a great many Americana-lovers around the world, this year also brings another, even more resonant date: the 100th anniversary of the establishment of Route 66. In the months leading up to November 11th, the official... Read more »

It’s an ungainly word for English speakers, which is maybe why we do not hear it often: Gleichschaltung. Yet the concept remains central for a clear view of what happened to Germany in the 1930s. In 1933, the nation completely transformed, seemingly overnight, through “a concerted policy of ‘coordination’ (Gleichschaltung),”... Read more »

Today, we’re surrounded by technologies we could justifiably describe as time thieves. In ancient Greece, those who wanted to know where their time was going consulted a device they called a “water thief.” The roots of the clepsydra, or water clock, go back as far as the sixteenth century BC,... Read more »

When the historian Timothy Snyder left Yale for the University of Toronto in 2024, he took with him the practice of occasionally putting his course lectures online, making them available to anyone who cares to learn from them. Above, you can watch ten lectures from his recent course Hitler and... Read more »

Frank Lloyd Wright was often strapped for cash. In that respect, he had something in common with Vincent van Gogh, who passed most of his much shorter life in more dire circumstances. Unlike Wright, who enjoyed decades of fame at the pinnacle of the American architectural profession, van Gogh remained... Read more »

When the U.S. media began reporting on the phenomenon of “forest bathing” as a therapy for mental and physical health, the online commentariat—as it will—mocked the concept relentlessly as yet another pretentious, bourgeois repackaging of something thoroughly mundane. Didn’t we just used to call it “going outside”? Well, yes, if... Read more »

In 1927, Bertrand Russell delivered a lecture titled “Why I Am Not a Christian.” At the time, such a declaration was still fairly bold, as was the reasoning he provided for it. Nearly three decades thereafter, he included in his collection Portraits from Memory another, shorter piece, “Why I Am... Read more »

Lloyd Kahn worked as an insurance broker before quitting in 1965. Then, he took a turn into the DIY building movement that emerged with the 1960s counterculture. Soon enough, he found himself editing the influential Whole Earth Catalog and publishing Shelter in 1973, a book still considered the bible of... Read more »

Many who read this will remember watching television on a black-and-white set at some point in their lives. Fewer will remember doing so because only black-and-white sets existed. Of course, your own experience will depend upon your country of origin. The United States began the transition to color television in... Read more »

Many an internet cinephile has wondered aloud if the Criterion Closet is a real place, or just a set thrown together to make videos when famous directors like Christopher Nolan, Francis Ford Coppola, or Jim Jarmusch drop by. It turns out indeed to exist, not only at Criterion’s offices in... Read more »

In some rare cases, adaptations and interpretations of a literary work can surpass the source. Despite hundreds of valiant efforts on the part of fans, filmmakers, game/toy designers, and radio producers, this has never been true of the fully-realized fantasy world in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings... Read more »

At the height of their productivity as Beatles, neither Paul McCartney nor John Lennon could read or write music notation. Clearly it didn’t keep them from making a cultural impact, and as with so much else in life, they regarded it humorously. As McCartney has said, they used to liken... Read more »