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The efficiency of evil: Auschwitz and the detail of genocide
(7 minute read) Ronnie Convery is shocked by the minutiae of a death camp and its hideous attention to detail.
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Time to make peace with nature … but how?
(7 minute read) Richard Bauckham ponders the great challenge to creation posed by our everyday destructiveness.
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Grimy glory: lessons in beauty from sewage-plants and run-down buildings
(7 minute read) Self-confessed commoner Adam Brocklehurst explains how the aristocratic Lucinda Lambton has helped him see the world around him with new eyes.
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On graves and greatness
(4 minute read) Walking through graveyards in Scotland and Italy becomes a surprisingly life-affirming experience for Leonard Franchi.
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Guarding the guardians: what constitutes ‘good’ religion?
(12 minute read) Having argued that not all forms of religion are positive, Joseph Evans proposes criteria to distinguish the good from the bad.
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Did I really see what I think I saw? Optical illusion in historical and contemporary art
(6 minute read) Seeing is believing - if you can believe what you see. Carolyn Morrison discovers an art form which makes us “think anew about what we see and how we see it.”
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Nigeria at 60: A future yet to flower
(6 minute read) Joshua Nwachukwu casts an eye over the light and shadows which mark Nigeria’s 60th anniversary as a modern independent nation.
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Mosque, church or secular space? Hagia Sophia and the battle for modern Turkey
(6 minute read) When is a museum not a museum? When it was once a cathedral and then a mosque and is now a mosque again as a politician’s attempted ace card to revive his flagging fortunes. Cihan Eroglu reports.
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A traveller in the village called Rome
(4 minute read) Leonardo Franchi contrasts the simple lanes of village life in rural Italy with the panting heart of the Eternal City, and finds they have much in common.
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Ethno-religious nationalism in an age of anxiety
(9 minute read) The hijacking of faith by populism is a growing phenomenon around the globe. In this article Nora Fisher-Onar and Ahmet Erdi Öztürk detail the growing influence of ethno-religious nationalist sentiment as a response to the fading promises of 20th century liberalism.
