Page 5

Contributors

complex By James Robins

p. 52 Philosophy Arthur Schopenhauer's doctrine of pessimism By Tom Whyman

p. 56 Travel An atheist joins a Ramadan fast By J. R. Patterson

p. 60 Ideas Paul B. Preciado's controversial "autotheories" By Kaya Genç

BOOKS

I F E R TA P IA S D E R C H

J E N N

I L LU ST R AT IO N B Y

C OV E R

p. 64 Reviews Nadine El-Enany on an intimate biography of Edward Said; Mathew Lyons on God; Rhian E. Jones on Japanese science fiction; Andrew Mueller on statues; Christopher Shrimpton on revolutionary Cairo; Lucy Popescu on travel writing

POETRY

p. 51 Sean O’Brien p. 55 Menna Elfyn p. 59 Gerard Smyth p. 63 Alexander Shurbanov

Samira Ahmed is a BBC presenter and visiting professor of journalism at Kingston University Joseph Allchin is the author of Many Rivers One Sea: Bangladesh and the Challenge of Islamist Militancy (Hurst)

Jem Bartholomew is a freelance reporter based in London

Alice Bell is co-director of the climate charity Possible. Her latest book is Our Biggest Experiment: An Epic History of the Climate Crisis (Bloomsbury)

Marcus Chown's latest book is The Magicians: Great Minds and the Central Miracle of Science (Faber & Faber)

Nadine El-Enany is a reader in law at Birkbeck, co-director of the Centre for Research on Race and Law, and author of (B)ordering Britain (Manchester University Press)

Ray Filar is a writer and performance artist, writing

a PhD on contemporary challenges for the UK sexworker movement. They are a member of SWARM

Kaya Genç is based in Istanbul and is the author of The Lion and the Nightingale, Under the Shadow and An Istanbul Anthology (Bloomsbury)

Zoe Holman is an Australian journalist, author and poet based in Athens

Mathew Lyons is a historian, writer and author of The Favourite: Ralegh and His Queen (Constable)

Andrew Mueller is the author of I Wouldn’t Start from Here: A Misguided Tour of the Early 21st Century (Portobello)

Emma Park is a freelance writer, podcaster and former teacher

J. R. Patterson is a writer and former farm labourer and musician

Lucy Popescu is editor of the anthology A Country to Call Home (Unbound)

and a literary critic

Alex Riley is an awardwinning science writer and the author of A Cure for Darkness: The Story of Depression and How We Treat It (Ebury)

James Robins is a journalist and the author of When We Dead Awaken: Australia, New Zealand, and the Armenian Genocide (Bloomsbury)

Michael Rosen is a poet and broadcaster. His latest book is Many Different Kinds of Love: A Story of Life, Death and the NHS (Ebury)

Christopher Shrimpton is a writer with an interest in censorship and blasphemy issues

Laurie Taylor is president of the Rationalist Association and the presenter of Thinking Allowed on BBC Radio 4

Tom Whyman is a writer and philosopher. His first book is Infinitely Full of Hope (Repeater Books)

The views expressed in New Humanist are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Rationalist Association

New Humanist | Autumn 2021