Nov 6, 2022Social Baseline Theory and Perception: How our relationships ground us to our neurological starting pointTraditionally, neuroscience, neuropsychology and other mind sciences have considered a person’s ‘baseline’ state to be when that individual is on their own and without the introduction of external stimuli. ‘Baseline’ is the starting point from which your brain activity, and subsequently your resulting perceptions and emotions, stem. To visualise this…Philosophy11 min readPhilosophy11 min read
Oct 21, 2022Christianity, Voodoo and the Slave Revolution of HaitiCW: Slavery, racial violence and colonisation. The year is 1791, and Haiti is established as France’s colonial crown jewel. A foreign export trade built from a brutal regime of slavery results in Haiti producing sixty percent of the world’s exports in sugar and coffee. For its European settlers, it is…Black History10 min readBlack History10 min read
Sep 26, 2022Appraising Appraisal Theory and the Causation of EmotionsWhat causes us to have differentiating emotions in response to the same objects or events? Appraisal theorists seek to address this question by arguing that it is our appraisal of a situation which causes us to have an emotional response that is unique to us. That is, through an analysis…Philosophy10 min readPhilosophy10 min read
Aug 31, 2022Colonial Anthropological Eroticism and the Sexualisation of Black WomenCW: Nudity, sexualization, sexual assault, slavery and colonialism Virginia Woolf’s The Voyage Out, opens with a scene of a busy London street with reference to a man selling picture postcards to passers-by. This reference, although brief, is a nod to the mass cultural form that postcards took throughout Europe as…Colonialism6 min readColonialism6 min read
Aug 7, 2022Think of the Children: A Moral Argument for Parental LicensingCW: Child abuse and neglect Consider this; the Government has introduced a parental licensing scheme that requires aspiring parents to pass an evidence-based evaluation on the quality of parenting they would provide their potential children. Adults are assessed on their emotional and psychological health, financial stability and whether or not…Child Abuse13 min readChild Abuse13 min read
Jul 12, 2022Goldfish and The KKK: An Argument Against Immoral ArtYou walk into a museum and there are four red canvases, each seemingly to appear as replicas of the other. One is painted to depict the close-up of a curtain. The second was inspired by the red sea. …Philosophy7 min readPhilosophy7 min read
Jun 30, 2022Challenging Egyptian Masculinities through Feminist GraffitiCW: Gendered violence, sexual violence and state masculinity. I n the wake of the 2011 revolution, Egypt’s turbulent political landscape has led to mainstream international media delivering a narrative of a state ravaged by corruption, police brutality and sexual violence. At the centre of this Westernised story is the archetype…Feminism13 min readFeminism13 min read
Jun 25, 2022Parfit v Johnston’s Further Fact ViewParfit’s teletransportation problem splits the question of personal identity in two, with arguments falling on either side, in defence of or against the importance of personal identity. While Parfit provides that it is psychological continuity that matters in identity, he ultimately concludes that it is not personal identity that matters…Philosophy7 min readPhilosophy7 min read
May 18, 2022The NGO Problem: Modernised Colonisation in the Middle EastDespite the Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) region often presented as a monolithic entity, the countries that make up this region vary in their complex cultural, political and historical differences. However, while each country harbours their own unique cultural identity — almost all countries within the Middle East find…Ngo9 min readNgo9 min read
Dec 27, 2021Dawn of the New Feminist VampireA Cultural Analysis of Night Teeth Each generation produces the vampire it requires. From the 1920s where Nosferatu sought to instil fear of The Other to the 1930s when Dracula nods to its Victorian origins of women’s sexuality being inherently sinful; and the boom of popular vampire culture in the…Feminism9 min readFeminism9 min read
