Çiğ Köfte and Rosé Wine: Neo-Arabesk Mashups, Guilty Pleasure, and Play

Arabesk music ‘portrays a world of complex and turbulent emotions peopled by lovers doomed to solitude and a violent end’. Saniye Ince reflects on guilty pleasure and play, exploring neo-arabesk, a contemporary Turkish music genre, and its ties to the country’s food culture.

Saniye Ince • March 03, 2022

The Aesthetics of Contemporary Animation: Melding 2D & 3D Techniques

Since the first Toy Story (1995) much modern animation has been created utilising 3D techniques. In this blog, Miguel Mira explores how two recent animations, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and Arcane (2021), utilise both 2D and 3D capabilities to generate a new aesthetic sensibility.

Miguel Mira • February 17, 2022

Squid Game and the Significance of Derivative Television

Quite some “Netflix Originals” are actually derivative. While often understood as a derogatory term, Evert Jan van Leeuwen argues how significant the derivative character of popular culture can be by exploring Squid Game’s close-intertextual relations to earlier deadly-gameshow stories.

Evert-Jan van Leeuwen • November 05, 2021

Challenging Assumptions - Looking & Seeing

Archival research is extremely rewarding, whether you find documents that corroborate a hypothesis or that contradict it. Yet, balancing between contradicting sources can be tricky. In this post, Andrea talks about documents that challenged her preconceptions about the social fabric of New Spain.

Andrea Reyes Elizondo • October 13, 2021

Digital Theology: A Short Introduction through Art

Nobody knows exactly what is going on, especially when the subject is that of theology, belief and myth. In spite of doubt, some people try their luck and open up about their faith through art.

Bernardo Bremm • September 30, 2021

Entering Bo Burnham’s Inside: Reframing Internet Conventions

In Inside performer Bo Burnham attempts to come to terms with performing for an audience, via the internet, alone. He intermingles multiple conventions in a singular performance that speaks volumes about our contemporary digital age. Have a look Inside: “Come on in the water is fine.”

Miguel Mira • July 01, 2021

Antigone in Kinshasa

The documentary Les fantômes de Lovanium commemorates the 1969 and 1971 student revolts against Mobutu. While Congolese painter Sapin Makengele visualizes the tragedy that took place, students and other bystanders start to share their stories. Through their stories, the spirit of Antigone emerges.

Astrid van Weyenberg • November 19, 2020

Looking at the Past: The Task of the Theatre Historian

What would it be like to travel to the past and watch a production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet at the Royal Theatre Drury Lane in 1812? Fernanda Korovsky Moura reflects on how the theatre can help us recreate and understand the past – without a time machine!

Fernanda Korovsky Moura • September 17, 2020

LUCAS Explains #9: How come French people all have to know 350 year old poems by heart written for a king?

Summer is over and it is time for children to go back to school, where we expect them to gain basic knowledge and skills. But what makes one book more important than another when creating a national curriculum? Céline rethinks the role of one of the most popular books in the French education.

Céline Zaepffel • September 15, 2020

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