Around 2,300 years ago, the Hellenistic philosopher Zeno of Citium in Cyprus, began teaching at the Stoa poikilē, or ‘Painted Porch’ in Athens, and the philosophical tradition of Stoicism, taking its name from the city colonnade, was born. And the authors of a book that recently came my way, Kai…

A US physicist in his first book likens the universe to a ‘cosmic brain’ and says we humans are miniature models of it Physicist Melvin A Felton Jr proposes that the human brain is a physical model of the universe because of the structural and dynamical similarities between the two…

One of my poems is included in this fundraising collection I’m very pleased that my poem, ‘I might go barefoot on the receiving earth’, is included in the new ‘Poetry for Ukraine’ anthology just published (April 7, 2022) by ‘The Poet’ magazine, both online and in book form. More than…

Appreciating the reader’s role in creating meaning in literary works In Thomas Hardy’s poem, ‘We sat at the window’, the narrator describes how he and his partner watched the rain on St Swithin’s Day at Bournemouth in July, 1875. With ‘nothing to read, nothing to see …’ for the couple…

‘The human mind is the consummate and undisputed world champion of division, duality and separation’. Pathik Strand As the tragedy of international events continues to show, the world’s madness will continue as long as we define ourselves as separate entities, as egos, belonging to a particular race, religion, nation, family…

In a period of less than 10,000 years, our planet could have been struck no fewer than four times by debris from a disintegrating comet circulating in the solar system, each time either destroying or stultifying civilization restarted in the aftermath by surviving Atlantean culture bearers. This is the engrossing…

Former teacher Ian Breckenridge wants to investigate ‘the exquisite choreography of life, the intimate mystery of time, the puzzles of infinity and deep complexity, strange kinship of matter and energy, and the biochemical wizardry underwriting the human quest to make sense of this’. All well and good — as far…

It’s the 300th anniversary this year of the publication of the bawdy and picaresque tale of Moll Flanders, written by Daniel Defoe, a work full of linguistic paradoxes extending even to the protagonist’s true identity which, significantly, is kept from the reader When Jem, taken aback, asks ‘What is the…

Finishing her final semester of college, and browsing through trade journals, Erica Elliott saw an opening for a fourth-grade teacher at Chinle on the Navajo reservation in north-eastern Arizona. Without knowing why, she felt a ‘strong magnetic pull’ to apply for the job. And she did, with some bravery or…