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The Grokkist letter Once a month. Danu's letter, what's alive in the community, the Snackables. The Press New writing as it's published, and letters from the editor.

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The Grokkist letter is Danu's monthly letter about the whole Grokkist community: what people are making and thinking about, gatherings coming up, and a handful of Snackables, small good things worth your time.

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WonderEntangled ValeSnackables

🏰 Empire

A podcast I've been binge-listening to. Historians William Dalrymple and Anita Anand explore the stories, personalities and events of empire across history — lots of well-researched murder and mayhem, and thoughtful navigation of the challenges of colonial legacy today. To see if it's for

Grokkist Press

12 May 2023 · 1 minute

Murder, mayhem, and grappling with colonial legacy — a podcast on Empire

goalhanger.com

A podcast I've been binge-listening to. Historians William Dalrymple and Anita Anand explore the stories, personalities and events of empire across history — lots of well-researched murder and mayhem, and thoughtful navigation of the challenges of colonial legacy today. To see if it's for you, dive in at the four-part series on the murky history of the Koh-i-Noor diamond.

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Replies from signed-in readers. They open in their own space, so you can sit with the piece first.

Keep reading

Nearby on the shelf.

Surprise meWild Margin

🗞️ The Myth of the Informed Citizen

Nicholas Carr traces a recurring fantasy of modern life: that each new communication technology, from the telegraph to the internet, would produce wiser citizens and healthier democracies — and how each expansion of information instead bred new forms of confusion and overload. At its centr

Grokkist Press · 1 min

GroundedSoma Isles

🎨 Sculpting with Tree Sap and Time

A 15-minute documentary following Kyoto artist Mine Tanigawa as she creates sculptures from urushi lacquer, a material used in Japan for over 7,000 years. Less a 'making of' than a portrait of attention: raw tree sap transformed through layer upon layer of colour, polishing and curing, eac

Grokkist Press · 1 min

GroundedEntangled Vale

👁️ Iris Murdoch and Love as a Way of Seeing

Matthew Crawford revisits Iris Murdoch as a philosopher pushing back against thin, hyper-rational models of human life. For Murdoch, morality isn't mainly abstract reasoning but attention — the difficult practice of seeing the world, other people and oneself more clearly. Her radical claim

Grokkist Press · 1 min