Politics, Society
Rob Riemen
The War and the Future
On the occasion of the Nexus Conference 2022: The War and the Future
Essays
Nexus has been publishing essays in Dutch on art, culture, politics and philosophy for over twenty years. Now, we are making some of the best essays from our archive available in English online. The essays are available to our members and supporters. New essays will be added regularly.
Nederlandstalige essays uit het tijdschrift vindt u aan de Nederlandse kant van de website.
Culture, History, Politics, Society
Robert Cooper
Hope and Dover Beach
The big questions today are whether politics has been or will be captured by the forces of darkness – so that we will be robbed of our hopes and our future; and whether, having lost faith in faith, we are now going to lose faith in politics too
Culture, Politics
William Deresiewicz
Wokeness on Campus: The Reign of Stupidity
There are no competing ideologies or rival schools [...] There is only assent. And when there’s but a single ideology, it isn’t just an ideology. It’s a religion. Its ideas aren’t ideas; they are dogmas.
History, Politics
Richard J. Evans
Brexit: Refighting the Second World War
Football has sometimes been described as a substitute for war
Politics
Kate Brown
Kiss the Ground: Life Support in Controlled Environments
MIT Professor Kate Brown on how consumerism is eating away a just and livable future
Philosophy
Humberto Beck
The Return of Ivan Illich in Times of Corona
It will depend on us whether the coronavirus will result in a new catastrophe, or in a new beginning.
History
Simon Winder
Goodbye to History
The author of Danubia and Germania shows what we can learn from 20th-century German history.
Humanism, Philosophy
George Steiner
The Life of the Mind
Can the life of the mind, the love of truth and beauty, be sustained in a time of materialism and mass democracy?
History
Catherine Nixey
The Evil of Christianity
‘Good’ and ‘evil’ as fundamentally opposed came into the world with Christianity. This wasn’t good.
Philosophy
Bernard-Henri Lévy & Aleksandr Dugin
The Return of Settembrini and Naphta in the 21st Century
Lévy and Dugin fight for the soul of Europe in the spirit of Thomas Mann’s Settembrini and Naphta.
Philosophy
Antonio Damasio
Arcadia, But Not for Long
What should we choose: ‘Broadway Boogie-Woogie’, colorful, edgy, expanding modern urbanity – or a rustic hill overlooking an Alpine lake?
Literature
G.K. Chesterton
A Defence of China Shepherdesses
There are ideal conceptions and real men in every calling.
Politics
Ana Palacio
The Mutating World
Ana Palacio charts the history of the baby boomers and analyses threats to liberal democracy today.
History
Adrienne Clarkson
A Refugee’s Life
The story of how a child of Chinese refugees who came to Canada as a two-year-old became Governor-General.
History
Gopalkrishna Gandhi
Time Ticks Away
Gopalkrishna Gandhi reflects on his childhood, his famous grandfather, and the struggle against nuclear armaments.
History
Benjamin Ferencz
Ruminations of the Last Nuremberg Prosecutor
Benjamin Ferencz, last living prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials, on his life and work.
Culture, Music
An Education in Counterculture
A conversation on counterculture with Patti Smith, Lenny Kaye and Sean Wilentz.
Literature
Bernard-Henri Lévy
A Letter to Jean Deprun
Bernard-Henri Lévy writes to an unlikely hero: his teacher at the École Normale Superieure, Jean Deprun.
Literature, Politics
Aykan Erdemir
Teaching Transgression
Aykan Erdemir writes to his teacher, Nalan Göker, who taught him about rules and when to break them.
Literature
Leon Wieseltier
The Cheese Man
Leon Wieseltier on his first encounter with philosophy in a small Brooklyn delicatessen.
Politics
Kishore Mahbubani
Letter to Mr. S. Rajaratnam
Kishore Mahbubani writes a letter to his teacher, the Singaporean statesman S. Rajaratnam.
Politics
Colm Tóibín
Between Laughter and Despair
Colm Tóibín on Europe, the powerlessness of the European institutions and what it means to be European.
Culture
Ágnes Heller
The Human Soul in All Its Moods
Heller on what great works she would have her students read, see and listen to in her ideal school curriculum.
History
Adam Zamoyski
A Letter to My Teacher
Zamoyski writes to his history teacher, who awakened in him ‘a fascination with objects which could help one penetrate the past.’