Penguin

ECOLOGY: A tangle of interconnected life. Developments in ecology and technology herald a new Copernican revolution: Language, the bastion of supposed human superiority, also belongs to nature and machines. Can an expanded definition of intelligence improve our relationship with other beings?

WOMEN: Art done by men is simply given more attention: in collections, in exhibition programs, in art literature, in the art market. But what about the large number of female artists over the past 500 years?

RACE THEORY: In the United States, Republicans ban the study of racism. In Denmark, the Folketing has decided that the universities are «European». Viktor Orbán in Hungary had gender studies removed, and in Poland, social anthropology has become a favorite object of hatred. In Norway, the government sets up a commission due to fears of debate about "racist structures". The Norwegian public has copied this right-wing narrative from the United States – the notion that critical race theory, ie academic knowledge, should be a "societal problem". The background is an African-American intellectual heritage that began with the thinker Phillis Wheatley over 200 years ago.

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE: Is it possible to get something positive out of a recognition that civilization and the globe are about to go down?

TRAPPED: In two autobiographies, we get to know Tara Westover and Katy Morgan-Davies, respectively, who were both brainwashed, manipulated, abused and held captive by their own family – until they finally manage to escape.

In his eagerness to defend reason and enlightenment, Steven Pinker forgets that this may include more than what he himself puts into the concepts.

Solitude is at times an interesting reflection on the many qualities of loneliness, in a time when we are almost always associated with others. 

Marina Abramovic's autobiography is as uncompromising and confrontational as her performance art.

The critic is testing how art can benefit citizens in civil society. We need the criticism more than ever!