Sophie Oliver studies literature and the symbolism of clothes. Inheriting a house dress worn by Jean Rhys made her think differently about pregnancy, transformation and fantasies. Show more
Set off by a disgruntled employee, the Feurtado's fire in 1881 Kingston led the governor to compare the city to 'the ruins of Pompei', but what kind of society rose from the ashes? Show more
From boiled bullock heads to a concentrated beef extract, New Generation Thinker Tom Scott-Smith looks at the different ways we have approached feeding at times of shortage. Show more
Xine Yao finds a way of coping with curiosity about Chinatown residents depicted in the short stories published in 1912 by the first Asian North American writer Sui Sin Far. Show more
What's the difference between collecting football programmes and objects that lead to art? Diarmuid Hester muses on the thin line between inspiration and a compulsive disorder. Show more
Seren Griffiths takes us to the battlefields of the First World War and a soldier's groundbreaking collection of Paleolithic, Meseolithic and Neolithic stone tool artefacts. Show more
In September 1956, the journal Présence Africaine staged a conference at the Sorbonne attended by James Baldwin amongst others. Alex Reza's Essay looks at politics then and now. Show more
From gentlemen's games of cards and dice in 18th-century Bath to the solitary pursuits of the smartphone gambler, Darragh McGee considers the cultural history of gambling. Show more
New Generation Thinker Lucy Weir's Essay looks at a 1990s music cult that resulted in church fires and deaths involving band members - a dark tale of excess and moral panic. Show more
'I'm feeling flat,' we say. But New Generation Thinker Noreen Masud's Essay praises flat landscapes, the vast skies of Norfolk and the novels of Kazuo Ishiguro and Graham Swift. Show more
