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Category: Culture

Israeli director receives death threats after officials call Berlin film festival ‘antisemitic’

Israeli director receives death threats after officials call Berlin film festival ‘antisemitic’

Our film “No Other Land” on occupied Masafer Yatta’s brutal expulsion won best documentary in Berlinale. Israel’s channel 11 aired this 30 second segment from my speech, insanely called it “anti semitic” – and I’ve been receiving death threats since. I stand behind every word. pic.twitter.com/2burPfZeKO — Yuval Abraham יובל אברהם (@yuval_abraham) February 25, 2024 The Guardian reports: An Israeli film-maker who won one of the top prizes at the Berlin film festival has said German officials’ description of the…

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If we can learn to speak the language of whales, what should we say?

If we can learn to speak the language of whales, what should we say?

Ross Andersen writes: One night last winter, over drinks in downtown Los Angeles, the biologist David Gruber told me that human beings might someday talk to sperm whales. In 2020, Gruber founded Project CETI with some of the world’s leading artificial-intelligence researchers, and they have so far raised $33 million for a high-tech effort to learn the whales’ language. Gruber said that they hope to record billions of the animals’ clicking sounds with floating hydrophones, and then to decipher the…

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With Beyoncé’s foray into country music, the genre may finally break free from the stereotypes that have long dogged it

With Beyoncé’s foray into country music, the genre may finally break free from the stereotypes that have long dogged it

Beyoncé and her husband, Jay-Z, at the 66th Grammy Awards on Feb. 4, 2024, in Los Angeles. Kevin Mazur/Getty Images By William Nash, Middlebury On Super Bowl Sunday, Beyoncé released two country songs – “16 Carriages” and “Texas Hold ‘Em” – that elicited a mix of admiration and indignation. This is not her first foray into the genre, but it is her most successful and controversial entry. As of last week, Beyoncé became the first Black woman to have a…

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A country shaped by poetry

A country shaped by poetry

Nina Strochlic writes: It was a dark February evening when a young Somali math professor posted a poem on his Facebook page. In keeping with the tradition of his ancestors, who maintained an oral culture until only recently, he spoke it aloud in a rhythmic cadence: “When I realized there is neither wells dug for you, nor rescuers on the way and the leaders elected to serve the nation have corrupted the resources;” Then he uploaded the recording to his…

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Israel’s cultural genocide is destroying Gaza’s very memory

Israel’s cultural genocide is destroying Gaza’s very memory

Ahmad Ibsais writes: Growing up in the diaspora, I clung to the stories of Palestine I heard from my parents and grandparents. They gave me the undying belief that Palestinians would one day be free because we are a people rooted in resilience, culture, language, and one another. Part of resisting the 76 years of brutal Israeli occupation is passing on these stories. Some were told by my mother when making dishes like maklouba, which was always served with “Sahtain!,”…

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‘Everything beautiful has been destroyed’: Palestinians mourn a city in tatters

‘Everything beautiful has been destroyed’: Palestinians mourn a city in tatters

The Observer reports: Its walls collapsed and its minaret cut short, Gaza’s Omari mosque remains standing but vastly diminished. Around it, the historic old city is also in tatters. The 7th-century mosque, also known as the Great Mosque of Gaza, was Gaza’s most famous and its surroundings a focal point of the Palestinian enclave’s history and culture, but the damage done to its heritage over more than 100 days of Israeli bombardment spreads across the city. For the few Palestinians…

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Scientists discover stunning evidence of multiple lost prehistoric societies

Scientists discover stunning evidence of multiple lost prehistoric societies

Vice reports: Your choice in jewelry can say a lot about you: That you follow a particular religion, graduated with an engineering degree, or you’re just a fan of the latest viral aesthetic. Now, new research shows that jewelry was just as important for distinguishing different cultures in ancient Europe as it is for signaling your allegiance to a particular group today. The study, published in Nature Human Behaviour, reveals the existence of nine distinct groups that were lost to…

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The past is being destroyed in Palestine — as well as the present

The past is being destroyed in Palestine — as well as the present

Olivia Snaije writes: It is nearly impossible today to imagine Gaza as a thriving port on the sparkling Mediterranean, where a rich socioeconomic exchange took place over thousands of years of human history. Yet for millennia, Gaza was an essential stopping point on the overland route between Africa, Asia and Europe. Rich archaeological treasures found in the area indicate that trading was brisk throughout the Bronze Age — including finds indicating a close relationship with Ancient Egypt — to Hellenic…

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Sperm whales live in culturally distinct clans, research finds

Sperm whales live in culturally distinct clans, research finds

The Guardian reports: Sperm whales live in clans with distinctive cultures, much like those of humans, a study has found. Using underwater microphones and drone surveys, Hal Whitehead, a sperm whale scientist at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Canada, examined the sounds the animals made and their feeding habits and found they organised themselves into groups of up to around 20,000. The paper, published in the Royal Society Open Science journal, said the clans were defined by variations in their vocalisations…

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Sufis still gather in Afghanistan

Sufis still gather in Afghanistan

Annika Schmeding writes: My introduction into the world of Afghanistan’s Sufism began in 2015, over lunch with my friend Rohullah, the director of a research institute in Kabul. I had been working in Afghanistan in various sectors from government to nongovernmental jobs, and had returned to explore topics for a PhD that I had embarked on, a year prior. I asked what had happened to Afghanistan’s Sufis. Were they all gone? Afghanistan had, after all, once been the cradle of…

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I am Gaza City’s mayor. Our lives and culture are in rubble

I am Gaza City’s mayor. Our lives and culture are in rubble

Yahya R. Sarraj writes: As a teenager in the 1980s, I watched the construction of the intricately designed Rashad al-Shawa Cultural Center in Gaza City, named after one of Gaza’s greatest public figures, and its theater, grand hall, public library, printing press and cultural salon. Students and researchers, scholars and artists from across the Gaza Strip came to visit it, and so did President Bill Clinton in 1998. The center was the gem of Gaza City. Watching it being built…

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What does it mean to erase a people – a nation, culture, identity? In Gaza, we are beginning to find out

What does it mean to erase a people – a nation, culture, identity? In Gaza, we are beginning to find out

Nesrine Malik writes: I will start this column with a question for you, dear reader. What connects you with your country, and makes you feel it is yours? What gives you a sense of identity and belonging? It’s the physical things, of course – where you live, where you were born, where your family and friends reside. But underlying those practical aspects, I suspect, are all the other things that you don’t think about, that you take for granted. The…

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Why the future might not be where you think it is

Why the future might not be where you think it is

Bystrov/Shutterstock By Ruth Ogden, Liverpool John Moores University Imagine the future. Where is it for you? Do you see yourself striding towards it? Perhaps it’s behind you. Maybe it’s even above you. And what about the past? Do you imagine looking over your shoulder to see it? How you answer these questions will depend on who you are and where you come from. The way we picture the future is influenced by the culture we grow up in and the…

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The sea was never blue

The sea was never blue

Maria Michela Sassi writes: Homer used two adjectives to describe aspects of the colour blue: kuaneos, to denote a dark shade of blue merging into black; and glaukos, to describe a sort of ‘blue-grey’, notably used in Athena’s epithet glaukopis, her ‘grey-gleaming eyes’. He describes the sky as big, starry, or of iron or bronze (because of its solid fixity). The tints of a rough sea range from ‘whitish’ (polios) and ‘blue-grey’ (glaukos) to deep blue and almost black (kuaneos, melas). The sea in its calm…

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Robert Bellah, a socialist who insisted that democracy needs religion

Robert Bellah, a socialist who insisted that democracy needs religion

Matthew Rose writes: If Émile Durkheim helped Bellah understand American ideals, the German sociologist Max Weber helped him confront American realities. Bellah’s deepest criticism of individualism was that it undermined the very conditions that make it possible. Its vision of human beings as free to choose their own identities and commitments had not brought about a more creative or reflective society. It had resulted in people who were lonely, disoriented, and servile to the power of markets, states, and public opinion….

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Nearly 20% of the cultural differences between societies boil down to ecological factors – new research

Nearly 20% of the cultural differences between societies boil down to ecological factors – new research

How much of a culture could be due to things like the grain it traditionally grew? Visoot Uthairam/Moment via Getty Images By Alexandra Wormley, Arizona State University and Michael Varnum, Arizona State University In some parts of the world, the rules are strict; in others they are far more lax. In some places, people are likely to plan for the future, while in others people are more likely to live in the moment. In some societies people prefer more personal…

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