A long-form essay newsletter that uses anthropology and cultural theory, especially liminality and rites of passage, to examine modern life, from Halloween to the internet. Readers get original, idiosyncratic arguments that connect scholarly concepts like van Gennep and Turner to contemporary culture.
Website: https://www.themonotrope.com/
Long-form essays on psychedelic research, covering pharmacology, policy, philosophy of mind and the cultural and anthropological contexts of DMT and related compounds. Writing is by Stephen Page and draws on academic sources, including coursework from an Exeter MSc, to examine how psychedelic experience and its history are interpreted.
A tea newsletter presenting in-depth field research on pu'er tea from a research trip to Menghai, Yunnan. It combines history, ethnography, agronomy and processing analysis with a candid, irreverent voice.
Long-form essays that use historical narrative and economic and social analysis to explain why the world works as it does, from healthcare pricing to kinship societies to national development. Readers get carefully reported, argument-driven explanations of big questions.
Essays by a former special forces operator that use military history, combat anecdotes and training to explore how fear, death and purpose shape a person's life. Each issue draws a lesson from war or the gym, such as why calm water and a dark night can be assets, or why accepting one's mortality makes one more alive.
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