Courtesy, as it is understood today, is defined more through its affiliation with other words denoting manner, temper and the observance of etiquette than as a concrete attribute to self-presentation delineated by set boundaries. [...] Grace, politeness and fellow consideration are, no doubt, qualities attached to courtesy, but as the word itself suggests, it once referred to a whole mode of behaviour, the practice of which was upheld in medieval courts.

It can be said that Modernity emerged from British society’s repulsion of four years of brutal trench warfare on the Western front during the First World War. New innovations such as mustard gas, tanks, and heavy artillery fuelled a maelstrom of death and destruction on massive scales, leading to hundreds of thousands of casualties on [...]

In his essay ‘Ars Nova’ (1962), Maurice Blanchot presents an argument against a certain kind of ‘order’ in poetics by claiming that: If the musician renounces with austere rigor the continuity of a unified work…, he does so not in order to deny all coherence or the value of form, or even to oppose the [...]

The last judgement is the youngest day, and it is a day surpassing all days. Not that judgement is reserved for the end of time. On the contrary, justice won’t wait; it is to be done at every instant, to be realized all the time, and studied also (it is to be learned). Every just [...]

Walter Sickert’s painting, Ennui, depicts idleness, isolation and weariness of thought brought on by profound boredom. The two figures in the painting are near each other but they are facing opposite directions, conveying a sense of isolation and languor, creating a heavy atmosphere. Sickert’s painting does not depict a scene but an experience ― that [...]