Nâzım Hikmet, photographed by Hans-Joachim Koch at the IV German Writers’ Congress, January 1956, in East Berlin / Wikipedia They take the pages and burn the ink,But the words—oh, the words—Are fire in our hearts,Grains of dust in the wind.

Making Madness Visible explores how societies have pictured insanity, from medieval fools to modern brain scans. Alvise Sforza Tarabochia shows how these images not only reflect but also shape ideas of madness, defining boundaries between sanity and insanity while questioning their stability across history and culture. For World Mental Health Day 2026, the author guides the reader through five images from their monograph, exploring how madness and mental health have been depicted historically.

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Today's Fun Friday post introduces a new anti-censorship tool — Word Wipe allows you to see what a world redacted of words banned by the US government looks like.

A creepy medieval case of identity theft. The deadliest prison disaster in US history. Chilling gothic fiction from Ghana. Conjuring spirits in 1800s

Shannon McSheffrey and Marisa Portolese are now Fellows, while Krista Byers-Heinlein joins the RSC College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists.