Art and Culture

In the movie The Maltese Cross, Humphrey Bogart plays the role of Dashiell Hammett’s famous hard-nosed detective, Sam Spade. Hammett’s world is a godless world, ruled by chance and violence with individuals being alone in a meaningless world. Macbeth lives in a similar kind of world. Macbeth is a tragic figure. Michael Rockler sees Macbeth [...]

Scientific research conducted at the University of Southern California has resulted in the claim that fast-moving virtual games and online news feeds may be encouraging indifference to human suffering: In a media culture in which violence and suffering become an endless show, indifference to the vision of human suffering gradually sets in. This research was [...]

Over 5 years Debra Trione interviewed 60 of America’s most powerful and influential people – in politics, law, business, the military and publishing – regarding their visions of a perfect world. In doing so she used a unique and, indeed, rather peculiar interview technique. Trione began with broad questions such as: "Name two things you hope will be [...]

I was listening to a podcast some time back (I’ve forgotten the source) which described Nietzsche as perhaps the most art-obsessed philosopher of all time. Apparently, he saw himself as a poet and composer, though others found it difficult to share this opinion. Nietzsche believed that the pre-Socratic ancient Greeks used art to deal with [...]

In a stimulating article (“Wilde and Morality” in Philosophy Now 65 [Jan-Feb 08] 28-30) Peter Benson explores the relationship of Wilde’s classic The Portrait of Dorian Gray to morality. In the preface to this book Oscar Wilde provocatively claimed, There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written [...]

According to Jewett there is a “Eurocentric” tendency “to project a universal Paul who needs no cultural adaptation.” This tradition of Pauline interpretation “is a culturally specific collection of interpretations purporting to transcend culture.” Cosgrove is part of a project to consider how Paul looks from other cultural perspectives, as set out in the book [...]

In 1848-1849 Edouard Manet voyaged to Rio de Janeiro on a naval training ship. He writes to his mother, describing his impressions of Rio: After lunch I went off with my new friend to explore the town. It’s quite big, but with very small streets; for an artistically minded European it has a very special [...]

In Aeschylus’ play Agamemnon at one point the chorus chants: …though I stand alone, I hold that from one wicked deed A countless family is sown, And, as the parent, so the seed. But Justice hands fair Fortune on And godly sire hath goodly son. What is the “one wicked deed” from which “a countless [...]