Arts + Culture – Articles, Analysis, Comment – The Conversation

The mysterious world of His Dark Materials. BBC/Bad Wolf/HBO

His Dark Materials: how to decode the story’s linguistic secrets

Simon Horobin, University of Oxford

Behind the magical tale is a deep layer of linguistic meaning.

Celebrity greens kale and seaweed were long considered food of last resort

Lauren Alex O'Hagan, Cardiff University

Many trendy ‘Instagrammable’ foods have a long association with poverty.

The main parties are fighting a fierce battle on social media platforms. Yui Mok/PA Wire/PA Images

UK election 2019: video the big battleground as main parties go head to head for hearts and minds

Matt Walsh, Cardiff University

A close look at the way the parties are using video in the campaign can tell you a lot about their approach.

Dead famous: Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean in a still from Giant (1964). Warner Bros

Dead celebrity earnings show gender inequality reaches beyond the grave

Ruth Penfold-Mounce, University of York

Even in death, men are able to earn far more than women.

Ste Hayes, pictured left, is the focus of a Hollyoaks storyline exploring the radicalisation of LGBT individuals into the far right. Lime Pictures

Hollyoaks’ far right storyline highlights the growing recruitment of minorities

Alice Sibley, Nottingham Trent University

For the past year, Hollyoaks has portrayed the far right radicalisation of a gay character, highlighting the embrace of a different kind of recruit

Killing Eve. BBC/Sid Gentle/Steve Schofield

How Killing Eve and James Bond spied on the past

Erica Wickerson, University of Cambridge

Killing Eve may seem like an ultra-modern take on the spy genre but it is more traditional that it seems.

John Lewis and Waitrose have launched their first joint Christmas advert, telling the story of a little girl and her dragon friend Edgar. John Lewis & Partners

Is this the last John Lewis Christmas ad?

Griff Round, Keele University

As the British retail landscape shifts and sales fall, how much longer will Christmas ads be a fixture of the season?

From Africa to Peckham: how we decolonise culture by rehumanising people

Paul Basu, SOAS, University of London

Art, outreach and fieldwork can help reframe Britain’s imperial past, by re-humanising the people subjected to anthropological ‘colonial science’.

There is no strong evidence linking violent behaviour with violent video games. korobskyph/Shutterstock

Video game violence is not the problem – the real world that inspires it is

Jack Denham, York St John University; Matthew Spokes, York St John University, and Steven Hirschler, York St John University

It’s a worn-out debate based on no strong evidence, and if violent themes are going to be picked apart, then the real-world violence they’re mimicking must be too.

England’s players were instructed to perform the Nazi salute during the German national anthem.

England’s football team has played 1,000 games – here’s the most notorious

Martyn Dean Cooke, Manchester Metropolitan University

When England played a football match against Germany in 1938, the players were ordered to perform a Nazi salute.

Only 7% of children’s books published in 2018 featured a character of colour. Shutterstock

British children’s books are still too white – responsibility to change them is on all involved

Karen Sands-OConnor, Newcastle University

British children’s books are still not representing all British readers – but reflecting realities for readers of colour is possible if parties across the industry work together

Are dark tourism performances of gulag life educational – or voyeuristic?

Guillaume Tiberghien, University of Glasgow

Performances of prison life are commonplace nowadays in gulag museums. Visitors can vividly imagine it all – the tears, pain and despair.

Currier and Ives 1875 print of Robinson Crusoe and his companion Friday. Everett Historical via Shutterstock

Robinson Crusoe 300 years on: Defoe’s unreliable narrative set up enduring colonial myths

Daniel Cook, University of Dundee

Published in 1719, Robinson Crusoe was one of the first novels (in the modern sense) written in English. Some 300 years later, the complicated castaway and his misadventures continue to shape culture.

The British Tribe Next Door. Working Title/Channel 4

Criticism of The British Tribe Next Door reveals deep biases in British culture says show’s anthropologist

Emma Gilberthorpe, University of East Anglia

Critics who called the show featuring Scarlett Moffatt ‘racist’ need to look at their own prejudices.

Being bilingual can delay onset of dementia, but sometimes patients revert to their mother tongue, leaving them isolated. Shutterstock

Bilingualism and dementia: how some patients lose their second language and rediscover their first

David Murphy, University of Strathclyde ; Aedin Ni Loingsigh, University of Stirling; Ingeborg Birnie, University of Strathclyde , and Thomas H Bak, The University of Edinburgh

Why the lives of bilingual dementia patients can be transformed by finding carers who speak their native language.

The 1919 Victory Parade passes down Whitehall, to mark the end of World War I. PA Archive/PA Images

Remembrance Day: the enduring nature of the first two-minute silence

Daniel McKay, University of Cambridge

The first two-minute silence in 1919 was designed as a moment that could unite people across many divides. It has become a collective means of commemoration for all manner of tragedies

Is Call of Duty really promoting anti-Russian propaganda?

John Wills, University of Kent

There are calls to boycott the latest release due to the game’s questionable depiction of Russia.

When the Wall came down: Berlin 1989. Raphaël Thiémard

Berlin Wall: how techno music united Germany on the dance floor

Beate Peter, Manchester Metropolitan University

Young people from both East and West Germany congregated in nightclubs which were hastily thrown up in the spaces where the Wall had dominated.

Half the teams in the English Premier League –like West Ham – are sponsored by gambling companies. Shutterstock

Gambling and sport: how bookmakers win in voluntary ‘whistle-to-whistle’ advert ban

Richard Purves, University of Stirling and Nathan Critchlow, University of Stirling

Since 2005 there has been a dramatic increase in gambling sponsorship of sport in the UK, prompting critics to call time on self-regulation in the industry.