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MYSTERIOUS: 26 - You Need To See This

Reviled, reclaimed and respected: the history of the word 'queer'

Recently, a number of people have questioned or critiqued the use of the word “queer” to describe LGBTIQA+ folk. One writer to the Guardian claimed that the “q-word” was as derogatory and offensive as the “n-word”, and should not be used.

The Conversation

This lunar year will be the Year of the Rabbit or the Year of the Cat, depending on where you live

On Jan. 22, 2023, more than a billion people globally will welcome the Year of the Rabbit – or the Year of Cat, depending on which cultural traditions they follow – as the start of the Lunar New Year. In the New York City public school district, Lunar New Year…

The Conversation

How autofiction turns the personal into the political

It is timely that the 2022 Nobel Prize for Literature went to French writer Annie Ernaux.

The Conversation

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On New Year's Day, Buddhist god Hotei brings gifts and good fortune in Japan

The new year brings a fresh start, symbolized in some cultures by the cherubic baby New Year who replaces the old year that has come to a close. In Japan, the roly-poly god Hotei, who is often identified with Santa Claus, ushers in the new year along with six other…

The Conversation

Damar Hamlin’s cardiac arrest during 'Monday Night Football' could be commotio cordis or a more common condition – a heart doctor answers 4 questions

Damar Hamlin, a safety for the Buffalo Bills, collapsed on the field during a Monday night football game against the Cincinnati Bengals on Jan. 2, 2023.

The Conversation

Radicalism, feminism and family puzzles: why Wilkie Collins is so much more than a mystery writer

Wilkie Collins had the longest writing career of any major mid-19th-century English novelist, writing short stories and novels from 1844 to 1889. Literary criticism, however, has traditionally seen him as only notable for his two mystery novels, The Woman in White (1860) and The Moonstone (1868).

The Conversation

'Magic' Liverpool tunnel that people know has seen generations of Liverpool lives

Many said they had no idea the 130 year old city centre pedestrian passageway was there

Liverpool Echo

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The history and mystery of Tangram, the children's puzzle game that harbours a mathematical paradox or two

Have you played the puzzle game Tangram?

The Conversation

Beyoncé, Lizzo, and Taylor Swift Give In To the Speech Police

"It's stories and songs and films cut apart and written over, leaving no trace and no remnant of whatever used to be," writes novelist and cultural critic Kat Rosenfield.

Reason

The earliest humans swam 100,000 years ago, but swimming remains a privileged pastime

One of my life’s aims is to swim in as many lakes, rivers, pools and oceans as I possibly can, to use my liberty and swimming skills as freely as I can. I love the feeling of being in a large, fresh body of water, its soft immersive, vast or…

The Conversation

Are Christian souls gendered?

Within Christianity, the question of the nature of human identity has been a messy and complex one.

The Conversation

Time is arrested in Gail Jones' beautiful new novel of war and art, Salonika Burning

The first pages of Gail Jones’ beautiful new novel, Salonika Burning, offer a vision. The image is of a city on fire, watched by soldiers at a distance who despite, or perhaps because of, their familiarity with devastation, are transfixed “with indecent pleasure” by the sight.

The Conversation

The Christmas tree is a tradition older than Christmas

Why, every Christmas, do so many people endure the mess of dried pine needles, the risk of a fire hazard and impossibly tangled strings of lights?

The Conversation

Sydney: A Biography is Louis Nowra's love letter to his adopted city

Louis Nowra’s inspired biography of Sydney starts with a surprise visit to the city. He grew up in a housing commission estate in Melbourne. In 1959, while on a trip with his father to Wollongong in a truck to pick up a load of coke (for fireplaces, not drinking), his…

The Conversation

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The Conversation

What is a goblin?

The 2022 word of the year from the folks at the Oxford English Dictionary is “goblin mode”. Voted by the public and coming in at 93%, “goblin mode” – a phrase, rather than a word, to be precise – expresses a state of being or mindset.

The Conversation

Japan's Laughing Buddha Hotei is merging into Santa Claus -- both are roly-poly sacred figures with a bag of gifts

As Christmas approaches, children in many parts of the world look forward to a visit from the potbellied Santa Claus, who comes down chimneys carrying a sackful of gifts over his shoulder. In Japan, some children also wait for Hotei, a jolly Japanese god with a rotund frame who carries…

The Conversation

How are books made?

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com.

Daily Mirror

Abandoned New York Subway station hanging with chandeliers that's stuck in 1945

As much money and thought that was poured into City Hall station, it just wasn't needed and there's little room for sentimnetality when it comes to transport infrastructure

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Daily Mirror

Abandoned Christmas-themed town left to rot in the middle of the desert

Santa Claus, Arizona, in the US, was built by an ambitious estate agent who in vain envisaged turning this remote stretch of desert into a bustling Christmas-themed resort town

The Conversation

Graphene is a proven supermaterial, but manufacturing the versatile form of carbon at usable scales remains a challenge

“Future chips may be 10 times faster, all thanks to graphene”; “Graphene may be used in COVID-19 detection”; and “Graphene allows batteries to charge 5x faster” – those are just a handful of recent dramatic headlines lauding the possibilities of graphene. Graphene is an incredibly light, strong and durable material…

The Conversation

Cultural industries have been captured by billionaires – a new book considers what we can do about it

This book speaks to a disenchanted present.

The Conversation

More than a story of treasures: revisiting Tutankhamun's tomb 100 years after its discovery

On November 4 1922, a young Egyptian “water boy” on an archaeological dig is said to have accidentally stumbled on a stone that turned out to be the top of a flight of steps cut into the limestone bedrock.

The Conversation

Are you haunted by ghosts of the past and phantoms of your future? Welcome to the spooky realm of hauntology

Do you believe in ghosts? Every year, Halloween serves up the usual images of spooks, skeletons and witches – but these ideas aren’t just the domain of fiction or trick-or-treating. There is also a philosophical concept that embraces ghosts.

The Conversation

The book that changed me: how Pierre Hadot's Philosophy as a Way of Life taught me to 'love a few old truths'

The most life-changing books can seem like they have always been there. What they say may seem obvious, once we’ve read them. But that’s only because they’ve reshaped how we look at things.

Reason

That Fuzzy Blob Is Not a UFO

Science writer Mick West examines alleged UFO sightings. He finds that they almost always have far more obvious explanations.

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