Culture & Religion

When Amy Chua released her memoirs of mothering her children, she created a national debate over parenting. She also meant to shine a light on America’s undeserved self-confidence. 

Facebook’s recent acquisition of a small e-book design company has some wondering if the social media giant now holds the future of the publishing industry in its hands.

Individual reasoning can often lead to mistakes—Newton dedicated himself equally to alchemy—while reasoning in groups has been shown to produces better results. Why?

The human brain is adept at recognizing similar items and placing them into categories. In a new study, M.I.T. neuroscientists have identified the brain activity that seems to control this skill. 

The modern social science classic Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus will soon turn twenty. The book reinforces gender stereotypes that hurt society, says Niobe Way. 

Twitter was conceived as a platform for people to give status updates about themselves, but how we use the medium has changed. Twitter should respond by allowing 280 characters. 

In the male-dominated field of comedy, female comics need to stick together. In the spirit of solidarity, Margaret Cho names her favorite up-and-coming female performers. 

Slavoj Žižek is rarely at home in his flat in the Slovenian capital: he is philosophy’s answer to Bob Dylan, frontman of a live roadshow that shows no sign of ending.

An army of 800,000 crafters has made Etsy a hot start-up: profitable, well capitalized, growing. Rob Kalin, its on-again, off-again founder, insists on Etsy’s antiquated values.

Supporters of the hacker-activist group Anonymous have announced plans to create their own social network, to be called AnonPlus, after their Google+ accounts were shut down. 

Our sense of smell is the most powerful when it comes to evoking memories, so when smells vanish, we lose a whole dimension of the world. Now a new movement wants to change that. 

Big Think is searching for a tagline and we want your help! Below you’ll find a long list of taglines suggested by Big Think’s staff and friends. You will find […]

After Tatiana de Rosnay’s novel about the French Holocaust was rejected by some 20 publishers for its dark context, it was finally picked up and promptly sold 5 million copies. 

Artist and recluse Terrence Malick is this year’s winner of the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival. But it has been left to Brad Pitt to explain the film director’s unique working style. 

I feel badly for a couple I know who have recently divorced after several decades of marriage but are still bound together by the family home that they cannot sell. […]

Overturning a California law which prohibited the sale of violent video games to minors, the Supreme Court has ruled that violent cultural expression is protected by the First Amendment. 

A conference that recently brought artists and technologists together glimpsed at the future which, among other things, consists of 3-D printing and online graffiti. 

Opposition groups in Egypt want to postpone the September elections, fearing that the more unified Muslim Brotherhood and members of the former regime will gain too much influence.

Amid a dearth of female role models in leadership positions in Japan comes one positive move, the government is debating mandatory quotas to get more women into public office.

If traditional media companies fail to adapt their business models to the realities of today’s open source world, companies like Boxee will be happy to fill the void.

iPhone photo-sharing service Instagram is just 8-months-old and already has 5 million users. But revenue is almost zero. Such a start-up could monetize its success, but should it?

While the selling of ideals for romantic love may contain elements of authentic love, they largely consist of myths and social order politics that jam the brain and body’s communication network.

The past few weeks have seen two developments that show that we’re on the verge of home 3-D printing really breaking out into the mainstream, says Forbes’ Alex Knapp. 

iCloud music service, iTunes in the Cloud, will let users do more with their iTunes digital music than they have been able to do before. Why not streaming? Here’s the backstory.

“I don’t know enough about the inner workings of (The New York Times) to offer definitive judgments, but from the outside it looks like Keller did a pretty good job.”

How can you most effectively communicate given the 140-character limit of Twitter? Who better to ask than the former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky. 

New forms of writing will bring, as they always have, new ideas and new elements of creative genius.

The Author James Frey reflects on his bestseller A Million Little Pieces, and how he has changed as a writer since his public shaming on Oprah. 

New Journalism pioneer Gay Talese talks about the difference between incorporating storytelling into journalism and invention, as displayed by writers such as James Frey.

Mozart was a slow learner, Michael Jordan played junior-varsity, and Ted Williams refused dates to practice baseball. It all goes to show innate genius doesn’t actually exist, says David Shenk.