By Dominic Broomfield-McHugh, Professor of Musicology, University of Sheffield
Revisiting Peter Shaffer’s 1979 play Amadeus is no small feat. Joe Barton, the writer behind Netflix’s Black Doves, has taken on the challenge of reworking Shaffer’s dense account of Mozart’s life and legend into a five-episode series for Sky Atlantic. It’s a bold move: the original play – and the 1984 film adaptation – already felt exhaustive, sometimes overwhelmingly so.
Yet Barton manages something unexpected. Shaffer’s monologue-laden tale of Mozart’s rival Antonio Salieri’s guilt becomes…
(Full Story)
|
By Ian Scoones, Professorial Fellow, Institute of Development Studies
The loss of the central role of people in today’s complex global systems is the greatest danger of all. In Kenya and Amdo Tibet, it can be rediscovered.
(Full Story)
|
By Lucy E. Hyde, Lecturer, Anatomy, University of Bristol
From broad cheekbones and a flexible back to a small prefrontal cortex, here’s everything an anatomist thinks makes the Grinch so one-of-a-kind.
(Full Story)
|
By Ane Grum-Schwensen, Associate Professor at The Hans Christian Andersen Centre, Principal Investigator of "Fairy Tales and Stories – The Digital Manuscript Edition", University of Southern Denmark
Holger Berg, Special Consultant at The Hans Christian Andersen Centre, University of Southern Denmark
Jacob Bøggild, Associate Professor at The Hans Christian Andersen Centre, University of Southern Denmark
Sarah Bienko Eriksen, Postdoctoral Researcher at The Hans Christian Andersen Centre, University of Southern Denmark
Hans Christian Andersen is one of Denmark’s most cherished writers – a master of the literary fairy tale whose influence stretches far beyond The Little Mermaid, The Emperor’s New Clothes and the other classics many of us first encounter in childhood.
Born in 1805 in Odense, on the island of Funen, Andersen was the son of a shoemaker and an illiterate washerwoman who would grow into an author who wrote across genres – novels, travelogues, poems and…
(Full Story)
|
By Suzanna Fay, Associate Professor in Criminology, The University of Queensland
The Bondi shooters legally owned the guns they used to kill 15 people in a terrorist attack. The government has flagged harsher gun laws, but will they work?
(Full Story)
|
By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
Caps on how many firearms someone can own and only granting licences to Australian citizens are among the slated new laws.
(Full Story)
|
By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
For all the government’s rhetoric on antisemitism, something has often seemed missing. It has appeared behind where it needed to be.
(Full Story)
|
By Saana Hansen, Postdoctoral Researcher in Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Helsinki
Each December, long-distance buses, minibus taxis and private cars stream northwards from South Africa as Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second biggest city, prepares for its annual ritual: the seasonal homecoming of “injiva” – migrants returning for Christmas.
The old industrial city, where businesses have declined and shops and restaurants struggle to survive, fills temporarily with cars with South African number plates and people dressed in trendy clothes signalling urban South African lifestyles. Trailers are loaded with remittances known as “Christmas boxes” containing cooking oil, soap…
(Full Story)
|
By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image A destroyed bulldozer and other damaged heavy machinery from an Israeli airstrike on September 3, 2025 on Ansariyeh, southern Lebanon. © 2025 Human Rights Watch (Beirut) – The Israeli military’s repeated attacks on reconstruction-related equipment and other civilian facilities in southern Lebanon throughout 2025 violate the laws of war and are apparent war crimes, Human Rights Watch said today.Residents and local municipal authorities told Human Rights Watch that the attacks have hampered reconstruction efforts and the ability of tens of thousands of displaced…
(Full Story)
|
By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image A person at the keyboard. © 2017 Press Association via AP Photo On November 21, President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree establishing a new centralized digital platform that dramatically expends state surveillance powers. The system, known as the Centralized Information and Digital Analytics System (MİRAS), will be controlled by the State Security Service and fully operational by May 2026.MİRAS is designed to consolidate public data from multiple state bodies— including the Special State Service for communications and information security, and the Interior Ministry—centralize…
(Full Story)
|