Jennifer Egan's fiction asks whether our experience is now technologically mediated to the point that we routinely mistake the map for the territory. In her book A Visit from the Goon Squad, she evokes a world where the pressure constantly to self-reinvent threatens to erode our sense of identity.
William Davies interviews the co-founder of Action for Happiness to explore the philosophy, politics and economic implications of the happiness agenda
The Berlusconi era may be nearing its end, but media populism remains a danger across Europe and requires new political forms of organisation to combat it
The SlutWalk protests may be inspired by commendable principles to prevent sexual violence. But the misreading of the Toronto police’s statements stop us asking harder questions about sexuality and gender relations
Owen Jones' new book documents the changes that have turned the working class into an object of fear and ridicule
Real Democracy Now, if it had done nothing else, has rescued a supine Spanish electorate from the stultifying boredom of the recent election period. However, people still turned out to vote. So what’s new?
Germany's decision to decommission its nuclear power stations is the outcome of a half century of anxiety about technocratic modernity.
Our universities are under attack, with the Coalition determined to throw them to the mercy of the market. Support is growing for a Manifesto for Higher Education that sets out demands on universities and the government, but will it reignite the student movement?
As Scotland faces the prospect of a vote on independence, the Festival of Britain 2011 is underway in central London. Designed to celebrate the anniversary of the 1951 exhibition and capture the spirit of modern Britain, the festival instead reveals a Union in crisis and denial
The English no longer know who they are. The Scottish do. Labour must learn from the Scots in rediscovering an optimistic Englishness that embraces the future with confidence
Critics of Israel are increasingly accused of delegitimising Israel and encouraging antisemitism. This creates a climate of suspicion in which the onus is on critics to somehow demonstrate that they are not antisemitic.
A campaign is launched to express 'no confidence' in the British government's policy on higher education. Does it go far enough?
