Zoom Witches

Should I Ask Over Zoom?

M. Mahdi Roghanizad and Vanessa K. Bohns | Social Psychological and Personality Science | 27th December 2021 | PDF

Paper detailing a study into whether asking for help via different forms of communication — face to face conversation, video call, audio call, email — can affect whether the desired support is offered. The results are intriguing: in person requests are by far the most effective, but few of the helpseekers who took part in the experiments seemed to be aware of this. Email is the worst (5,094 words)

The Swedish Witch Trials

Jennie Tiderman-Österberg | Folklife | 25th October 2021

The height of the witch trials in Sweden, between 1668 and 1676, is known as det stora oväsendet or "The Great Noise". About 300 people, mostly women, were executed — three times as many as in the past century. Folk traditions were at odds with the new state Lutheran religion. The climate was cooling, milk yields were down, plague and poverty were rife. A scapegoat was found (3,280 words)

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Podcast: Pages 1 - 28 | Friends of Shakespeare And Company Read Ulysses. Will Self begins this reading project celebrating a century since James Joyce's Ulysses was first published in its entirety (56m 38s)

Video: Pass The Ball | Vimeo | Nathan Boey | 2m 38s. Animation project in which many artists from different countries made a three-second video about a small red ball. The resulting video stitches all of the work together in a rapid burst of styles and colours.

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