Arts & Culture | The Walrus

Illustration of a young brown woman in a suit, telling jokes from onstage at a comedy club. The young, diverse audience laughs. Several male comics, older and white, stand outside the spotlight looking moody and resentful.

Arts & Culture / June 2020

The Comedy Culture War

May 25, 2020May 25, 2020 - by Erika Thorkelson

A new wave of comics is rejecting stand-up’s tired tropes

Vintage and damaged photo of a girl and her father playing outdoors. The father is wearing a yellow shirt and shorts and carrying his daughter, a child with pigtails. They are standing in front of a bungalow with an open door.

Arts & Culture

Why Nostalgia Is Our New Normal

May 7, 2020May 7, 2020 - by David Berry

For hundreds of years, doctors thought nostalgia was a disease. Now, it’s a name for our modern condition

Illustration of an interconnected network of people, separated by a blazing yellow network that resembles a cable and separates the people into different boxes. The colour scheme is green, orange, and purple––a conceptual illustration of the internet network.

Technology

This Is the Internet We Were Promised

April 29, 2020May 1, 2020 - by Angela Misri

The World Wide Web hasn’t felt this supportive since it was invented. Why did it take a pandemic?

A photograph of the poet, Bronwen Wallace, in black and white. She is wearing jeans, a white shirt, and a scarf tied around her neck. Her hands are in her pockets and she is smiling at the camera.

Arts & Culture / May 2020

The Poet Whose Work Helped Set the Stage for #MeToo

April 24, 2020April 27, 2020 - by Anita Lahey

Twenty-seven years after her death, Bronwen Wallace’s feminist poetry feels newly relevant

Illustration of two hands reaching for one another across the frame and unable to touch. Behind the hands are blocks containing text that says "Quarantine: Contagious Disease" in all capital letters.

Arts & Culture / COVID-19

The Plague Story We’re Living Through

April 16, 2020May 1, 2020 - by Michael Lista

Romeo and Juliet reminds us that all the best human things are unhygienic—sex, kissing, a touch from the person you love

Illustration of a ghostly figure walking off a white grid and into darkness. Behind the person is a ghostly collage of all the data they've left behind––photos, passwords, location pins, emails, and text messages. The background is midnight blue.

May 2020 / Technology

The Digital Afterlife

April 8, 2020April 11, 2020 - by Brian J. Barth

The ongoing legal battle to decide who owns our data after we die

A celestial nebula composed of a latticework of green beads, with a line of yellow threaded throughout, and small circles outlined with brown and blue beads.

April 2020 / Visual Art

How One Artist Captures the Night Sky in Beads

April 3, 2020April 13, 2020 - by Pamela Young

The otherworldly beadwork of Margaret Nazon

Sports

Sports under Quarantine

March 30, 2020May 1, 2020 - by Benjamin Hertwig

With the closure of arenas, a sports fan laments the loss of community

An image of the grand banks of Newfoundland, with a series of houses lining the perimeter of the banks. The photo is styled in red and pink hues, so the water appears a dark salmon colour and the houses and sky are paler shades of pink.

Arts & Culture

The Poet Who Warns Us Not to Revere the Past

March 26, 2020March 26, 2020 - by Mark Callanan

The work of Newfoundland poet Tom Dawe tackles the dangers of nostalgia

The singer, Riit, holds a microphone onstage and closes her eyes as she sings. She is wearing a dark blouse and a long, translucent green skirt. Behind her onstage is another musician.

April 2020 / Music

A New Sound for Inuit Music

March 12, 2020March 27, 2020 - by Carly Lewis

Riit’s new album fuses throat singing and electropop, pushing the borders of both genres