Cameron Allan McKean
Editor, Aeon+Psyche
Cameron is a writer, editor and underwater anthropologist in Melbourne, Australia. After a decade in Tokyo working as an arts journalist, he began doctoral studies at Deakin University involving fieldwork with scientists and divers at coral reefs in the Pacific Ocean. Cameron is a former books and culture editor for The Japan Times, and a past contributor to CNN, ArtAsiaPacific, Dwell, Apartamento, and art-agenda.
Edited by Cameron Allan McKean
essay
Philosophy of language
The geometry of other people
Some friends are ‘close’. Others are ‘distant’. But our spatial descriptions of social life are more than just metaphors
David Borkenhagen
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Earth science and climate
When does after begin?
Three earthquakes hit Mexico City on the same date in 1985, 2017 and 2022. The coincidence left the city stranded in time
Lachlan Summers
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Anthropology
A glimpse of the world’s heart
I wanted to visit Colombia’s sacred mountains. But there are some places we cannot go – and some things we cannot know
Nick Hunt
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Cities
The haunting of modern China
In Nanjing, Hong Kong and other Chinese cities, rapid urbanisation is multiplying a fear of death and belief in ghosts
Andrew Kipnis
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Art
Negative capability
When it comes to our complicated, undecipherable feelings, art prompts a self-understanding far beyond the wellness industry
Aparna Chivukula
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Human rights and justice
Do not forget them
Thousands of Indigenous children suffered and died in residential ‘schools’ around the world. Their stories must be heard
Steve Minton
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Genetics
Evolution without accidents
Despite advances in molecular genetics, too many biologists think that natural selection is driven by random mutations
James A Shapiro
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Psychiatry and psychotherapy
Tōjisha-kenkyū
This radical movement makes space for people with mental health and other challenges to study (and celebrate) themselves
Satsuki Ayaya & Junko Kitanaka
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Earth science and climate
Deep warming
Even if we ‘solve’ global warming, we face an older, slower problem. Waste heat could radically alter Earth’s future
Mark Buchanan
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Anthropology
How to mourn a forest
The Marind people of West Papua deploy mourning not only to grieve their animal and plant kin but as political resistance
Sophie Chao
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Physics
Time is an object
Not a backdrop, an illusion or an emergent phenomenon, time has a physical size that can be measured in laboratories
Sara Walker & Lee Cronin
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History of ideas
Disorient yourself
Now associated with childhood fun, the swing has a near-universal history of ritual transgression and transformation
Javier Moscoso