The Essay

In 1773, Phillis Wheatley became the first African American to publish a collection of poems. Jade Cuttle looks at the way her poems were described and asks what do we categorise as nature writing? Her essay considers the idea of "coining" and the work of a new generation of poet ...  عرض المزيد

What connects actors with baristas? In 1983, the American sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild published a book called The Managed Heart which studied the working world of airline stewards. Jaswinder Blackwell-Pal’s essay considers what it means when a waiter smiles as they serve ...  عرض المزيد

The Japanese philosopher Yujin Nagasawa says the majority of people are what he calls ‘existential optimists’. What does this mean for ideas about evil and the creation of life? Jack Symes’ essay takes us through the views of thinkers including Schopenhauer, Stephen Law and Camus ...  عرض المزيد

Having worked as a criminal and family barrister, Shona Minson has seen the effect on women and their children when a mother is sentenced to prison for committing a crime. Her essay considers the 1989 Children Act and what she sees as contradictory approaches to motherhood in Bri ...  عرض المزيد

If cinema is often associated with Hollywood or the European New Wave, since the 1970s activist-filmmakers around the world have been involving local people in telling their own stories. Co-creating films about land rights, food security, and pollution, these filmmakers pioneered ...  عرض المزيد