Battle Readings is a regularly updated compilation of articles, essays, and opinion pieces relevant to the themes of the Battle of Ideas.
Choose a theme from the listing on the left to narrow your search, or view all readings.
Samantha Asumadu, Guardian, 8 July 2013
Computers could take some tough choices out of our hands, if we let them. Is there still a place for human judgement?
Steven Poole, Aeon, 13 May 2013
Mark Pagel, Penguin, 28 March 2013
Jill Cook, British Museum Press, 18 February 2013
Located in one of the city's historical neighbourhoods, Artéria's Manifesto Building proposes a model for an integrated urban rehabilitation, encompassing social, cultural and economical interventions: a holistic approach that involves the local community.
Inês Revés, Domus, 8 February 2013
The merits of its grand and enduring aesthetic make it impossible to ignore and, despite its disgusting content, also make it hard not to love.
Richard Brody, New Yorker, 1 February 2013
It’s hard to deny that in its quest for instant accessibility, contemporary art has lost something of the sense of purpose that it enjoyed when it was genuinely pushing at the boundaries of moral and social consensus. It is no surprise that art is so popular these days, when it is so easily consumed and digested.
Peter Aspden, Financial Times, 4 January 2013
As Wired for Culture demonstrates, the greatest intellectual threats posed to freedom and autonomy today are those put up by evolutionary biologists and psychologists
Angus Kennedy, spiked, 27 December 2012
We still view European history as taking off with the Renaissance and Enlightenment, but this position gets more out-of-date the more we learn
Richard Swan, Independent, 17 October 2012
There's so many prizes today's writers aren't bothered about who wins. The purpose awards serve now is to tell readers what to read.
Miguel Ceia, Independent, 16 October 2012
Are the Germans still European?
"To contribute to Battle of Ideas is to add a few words to a giant, communal speech-bubble out of the gap-toothed mouth of British opinion. It is a strong reminder that the joys of free, uncalculated speech and the right to attack orthodoxies can in no way be assumed in 2012 – that we use them or lose them."
Piers Hellawell, composer; professor of composition, Queen’s University Belfast