Summary

Legalise Comedy

Romania’s evolving political satire reveals what jokes can say and what they can’t In this thoughtful and subtly sharp essay, Romanian writer Dan Panaet traces the country’s long, awkward relationship...

The Delirious Mythology of Italian Brainrot

How AI chimeras, absurd nursery rhymes, and Gen Z humour has birthed a chaotic new online aesthetic Even in a world overrun by online content, the viral surge of so-called...

One Man, One Woman, One Version of Hong Kong

Inside Hong Kong’s Legislative Council debate on same-sex unions – and what happens when homophobia becomes policy language On 12 February 2025, Hong Kong’s Legislative Council spent just over ninety...

Inkblots on Trial

Norway’s legal debate over the Rorschach test The Rorschach test – known worldwide for its enigmatic inkblots – has long been a symbol of psychology’s more mysterious side. First developed...

Legacies of Solitude from Persian Women

Amid Iran’s current turmoil, an essayist remembers two women in history, in an intimate reading of how their solitude birthed future movements of resistance In a moment when Iranian women...

The Ailment Affecting Finland’s Darts Elite

When performance falters without warning, is it the body or the mind that fails? In a fascinating piece for Finland’s national broadcasting company, journalist Hannes Nissinen unpacks a bizarre and...

The Wisdom of the Semende

How a land stewardship custom honouring eldest daughters has allowed a Sumatran indigenous group to flourish over three hundred years South of the shiny skyscrapers of Singapore and west of...

Young People to the Rescue in Turkey?

Mass protests in Istanbul have rekindled old notions about the role of young people in political resistance to authoritarianism – but just below the surface there’s anxiety and fragmentation On...

The Digital Death Spiral

What happens when an influencer turns their mental illness and euthanasia plans into viral content? In this unsettling longread, Maud Effting and Haro Kraak investigate the rise of Ghanaian-British influencer...

Freedom by Numbers

More than 200 court rulings in 2024 cite an algorithm that classifies foreign prisoners without ties as high risk, even if they lack other risk factors In 1993, two beekeepers...

With food waste, the personal is political

In a personal but wide-ranging article for the Romanian online platform Scena9, the journalist Oana Filip explores the thorny issue of food waste. While the piece focuses on Filip’s home...

Time Is Finally Theirs To Shape

Arab women in the diaspora discover new freedoms after fifty, liberated from the cultural constraints of their homelands and empowered to reinvent themselves on their own terms In this article...

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