The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads from June 2012

Legendary Graphic Designer Milton Glaser on Art, Purpose, and the Capacity for Astonishment
Legendary Graphic Designer Milton Glaser on Art, Purpose, and the Capacity for Astonishment

“That’s the great benefit of being in the arts, where the possibility for learning never disappears.”

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Limbic Revision and How Love Rewires the Brain
Limbic Revision and How Love Rewires the Brain

“Who we are and who we become depends, in part, on whom we love.”

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Why Writers Write: George Orwell on the Four Universal Motives for Creative Work
Why Writers Write: George Orwell on the Four Universal Motives for Creative Work

“All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery.”

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What Is Art? Favorite Famous Definitions, from Antiquity to Today
What Is Art? Favorite Famous Definitions, from Antiquity to Today

“Art is not a thing — it is a way.”

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Against Positive Thinking: Uncertainty as the Secret of Happiness
Against Positive Thinking: Uncertainty as the Secret of Happiness

Exploring the “negative path” to well-being.

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Susan Sontag on Censorship and the Three Steps to Refuting Any Argument
Susan Sontag on Censorship and the Three Steps to Refuting Any Argument

“A just/ discriminating censorship is impossible.”

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Alice in Wonderland as a Subway Map
Alice in Wonderland as a Subway Map

“‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.”

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Alan Turing: Church, State, and the Tragedy of Gender-Defiant Genius
Alan Turing: Church, State, and the Tragedy of Gender-Defiant Genius

On the man who was caught between the past and the future in clothes a size too small, and profoundly changed our lives anyway.

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Mrs. Robinson’s Disgrace: Tracing the Evolution of Women’s Rights in a Victorian Lady’s Journals
Mrs. Robinson’s Disgrace: Tracing the Evolution of Women’s Rights in a Victorian Lady’s Journals

How the most private of frontiers became a public front for the gender dialogue.

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A Brief History of Alchemy, Pseudoscience & Transmutations, from Ancient China to Craig Venter
A Brief History of Alchemy, Pseudoscience & Transmutations, from Ancient China to Craig Venter

What Richard Nixon has to do with cinnabar and diamonds.

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