Category Archives: Country

The idea of Antarctica

Edgar Allen Poe’s novel ‘The Narrative Of Gordon Pym’ (1838) evokes the belief, prior to the exploration of Antarctica, that a lost civilisation may be contained within its icy borders. Rather than the black-skinned inhabitants of deepest darkest Africa, this furthest reach of the world would reveal a race of Hyperboreans, with a culture that [...]

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Yantra from Ahmedabad

Yantras are square charms whose power is based on words and diagrams. The above yantra was obtained from a market in Ahmedabad, India and contains the principles of India geomancy on which much architecture is based. Vastu Shastra gives particular meaning to the cardinal points. In the Vastu Purusha Mandala, the earth is represented by [...]

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From heresy to beauty products–the idea of South in France

It is tempting to position the South as a victim of the North. Certainly, the conflict between the French North and South appears to be a story of ruthless oppressor that violently subjugates a peace-loving and tolerant victim. Is that necessarily so? Whichever way, French history straddles a cultural fault-line that continues to move in [...]

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John Stanley Martin – Australia as an Iceland of the south

One way of reading an antipodean country like Australia is through the lens of its symmetrical opposites. For many, Australia has been compared to Nordic countries. One of Australia’s leading Nordicists, John Stanley Martin, unfortunately passed away this week. Here he talking about the commonality between Australia and Iceland. John Stanley Martin, descendent of the [...]

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Vertiginous Africa

Tourist images of the African continent are dominated by scenes of safari adventures. While these entail their own colonial associations – Africa as nature rather than culture – there is a more phenomenological dimension to the African experience for westerners. This suggests a continent that we look down to. Virgin Airlines have just released their [...]

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