The Bodleian Libraries at Oxford are putting on show for the first time the original manuscript of the ‘boys own’ essential reading material Lord of the Flies. It is a human behaviour story par excellence about order and chaos, capture and torture, morality and immorality, being civilised and the dreadful consequences of completely uncivilised behaviour.

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American Philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics in the Philosophy Department, Law School, and Divinity School at the University of Chicago. In her short and powerful new book called Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities she makes a passionate case for the importance of the liberal arts at all levels of education. She challenges us all to strive be truly human – ‘to remain childlike, to keep an open mind, to refine an ability to remain humble, to eschew pride and arrogance and to be reverent towards other people and towards the natural world’.

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The 2011 Mostra Internazionale D’Arte Cinematografica la Biennale di Venezia held recently was host to a whole new raft of so-called ‘intelligent movies’ distinguished actors like Britain’s heartthrob Colin Firth believes audiences are clamouring for.

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Noah’s Flood ? According to investigative author Ian Wilson’s book Before the Flood, the answer is Yes, it really happened! As toddlers many of us thrilled to the story of Noah building an Ark to save his family and animals from a world Flood – only later to learn from our science teachers that within the time of humankind there has never been any universal Flood. (This despite many ancient cultures seeming to remember such an event in their folklore). So who might have dreamed that so early in our twenty-first century substantial elements to the Noah story would be discovered to be true after all? Or that the discoverer would be Dr. Robert Ballard, who brought us such spectacular images of Titanic more than seven decades after the vessel disappeared beneath the waters of the Atlantic?

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Professor Bruce Boucher’s scholarly and accessible work, Andrea Palladio, The Architect in his Time was first published in 1994  in a ‘user friendly version’…to fit comfortably into a suitcase or backpack for a quick trip to Vicenza, the scene of many of Palladio’s triumphant works in architecture. Don’t know about you but I have always [...]

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Indignez-vous! from 93 year old French Resistance member Stephane Hessel is a publishing phenomenon. It is the ‘little red book’ that having swept France, is now set to topple international bestsellers’ lists. It contains no sex and is not humorous. It is not a literary masterpiece and it does not have a startlingly original message. So why instead of becoming a publishing disaster, has it become a publishing phenomenon? Everyone is asking, but why?

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Each summer at Oxford University in Oxfordshire England they hold an exhibition at the Bodleian Libraries. Manifold Greatness celebrates the 400th anniversary of the publication in 1611 of The King James Authorized Version of The Holy Bible. This is a book that still attracts superlatives and is beloved by scholars, churchmen, churchwomen and laity the world over.

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This is the starting segment for our course of study the evolution of western art, design, style and culture antiquity until today. It is surveyed in chronological order from antiquity to the contemporary age with respect to intellectual and philosophical ideas, other cultural influences and social change.

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Hello, my name is Carolyn McDowall and I would like to welcome you to the October edition of Muse~News the newsletter of The Culture Concept Circle (The Circle). We hope this issue demonstrates our purpose well and that Muse~News will become of increasing value and interest to our readers. Our main aim is to provide [...]

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No language is rude that can boast polite writers said English illustrator Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898). Now a part of literary history, The Yellow Book first appeared in London in April 1894.  Edited by Henry Harland and artist Aubrey Beardsley, it was to some people an offence and, in the Westminster Gazette, one critic talked about [...]

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I must confess to being one of those people who reads books after they have passed their current popularity phase and, often on a plane.  It has never been intentional, but about finding time and in some cases, having missed it when it was about. Whatever the reason in a lot of ways it has [...]

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