Culture

Culture coverage from Lahti Finland Wire.

Culture
Can Gadi Eisenkot turn the ‘disaster bloc’ into Israel’s next government?
On Sunday, Israeli President Isaac Herzog announced he would grant Gadi Eisenkot – main challenger to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – the opportunity to form a new government in Israel.
SyndicatedBenedict Moleta, PhD student, Department of International Relations, Australian National University9 Nov 20265 min read
Culture
10 years after Leonard Cohen’s passing, his grappling with the divine lives on
Right now, Leonard Cohen is on many of his fans’ minds.
SyndicatedMatthew Robert Anderson, Adjunct Professor, Theological Studies, Concordia University6 Nov 20265 min read
Culture
Justice, accountability, more questions: what Russell Brand’s guilty verdict means for victim-survivors
British comedian and actor Russell Brand has been found guilty of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault, related to multiple victims, after a four-week trial in London.
SyndicatedAnastasia Powell, Professor of Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University6 Nov 20265 min read
Culture
From 18th-century false ballots to the second JFK and double Dan Sullivans, a brief history of spoiler candidates and the unsuccessful legal challenges to them
Less than a week before Election Day, The New York Times reported that people with links to Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola’s U.S.
SyndicatedDrew Kurlowski, Associate Professor of Political Science, Coastal Carolina University30 Oct 20266 min read
Culture
Booker prize 2026: a diverse list to inspire all sorts of readers – six experts review the nominees
When the Booker prize was first launched in 1969, its aim was to get more people reading and to stimulate discussion about contemporary literature.
SyndicatedTory Young, Associate Professor in Department of English Literature, Anglia Ruskin University30 Oct 20267 min read
Culture
‘What we leave behind is not as important as how we’ve lived’: remembering actor Patrick Stewart
At the end of Star Trek: Generations (1994), surveying the wreckage of the crashed USS Enterprise he captained for nearly a decade, Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) muses to his first officer, William Riker (Jonathan Frakes):
SyndicatedChris Comerford, Senior Lecturer in Communication and Media, University of Wollongong30 Oct 20264 min read
Culture
The Crucible: Arthur Miller’s morality tale was as much a reaction to his own marital failings as it was to the ‘red scare’
Written at the height of the cold war “red scare”, Arthur Miller’s 1952 play The Crucible was a retelling of the 17th-century Salem witch trials (1692-93) which soon became the classic parable of mass hysteria.
SyndicatedJan Machielsen, Reader in Early Modern History, History, Archaeology and Religion, Cardiff University23 Oct 20265 min read
Culture
Hokusai’s Great Wave is one of 46 prints of Mount Fuji – seeing them together changes everything
When I first saw Katsushika Hokusai’s Clear Day with a Southern Breeze (also known as Red Fuji, 1830-1833), I was struck by its lustrous red resonating against the receding blue of the sky.
SyndicatedDominik Havsteen-Franklin, Professor of Arts Psychotherapies & Creative Health, Brunel University of London22 Oct 20263 min read
Culture
From ‘A Little Princess’ to ‘Black Panther,’ how Hollywood films have reimagined the South Asian epic ‘Ramayana’
American audiences will be able to watch an English-dubbed version of “Ramayana,” a Hindi film based on a South Asian epic tradition, in theaters in November 2026.
SyndicatedSohini Sarah Pillai, Assistant Professor of Religion, Kalamazoo College14 Oct 20265 min read
Culture
Possessed nuns and sexual deviance: the history behind Ken Russell’s highly-censored film The Devils
The long-awaited director’s cut of the late Ken Russell’s 1971 film The Devils will be released this month, featuring previously unseen censored material such as the notorious “rape of Christ” sequence.
SyndicatedPhilip C. Almond, Emeritus Professor in the History of Religious Thought, The University of Queensland13 Oct 20265 min read
Culture
How a botched execution and proposed livestream of a firing squad fit in to the US’ death penalty history
The failed lethal injection of convicted Tennessee murderer Christa Pike, and the proposed livestreamed execution by firing squad of US Army major Nidal Hasan, sentenced to death for 13 murders, drew the world’s attention to America’s excep…
SyndicatedCarolyn Strange, Professor of History, School of History, ANU, Australian National University12 Oct 20264 min read
Culture
How geopolitical tensions tainted the 2026 Asian Games
The 2026 Asian Games in Japan drew to a close on October 4 following two weeks of competition between 45 countries and territories across 43 sports.
SyndicatedJung Woo Lee, Senior Lecturer in Sport and Leisure Policy, University of Edinburgh6 Oct 20264 min read