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 The Great Courses has made available a free and rather timely course--Building Your Resilience: Finding Meaning in Adversity. Divided into 24 lectures and taught by Molly Birkholm, the course gets introduced with the following text: Recent research shows that we grow into our best and most joyful selves not when we avoid our problems […] <i>Building Your Resilience: Finding Meaning in Adversity</i>–A Free...

It’s odd to think that the gray-faced, gray-suited U.S. Cold Warriors of the 1950s funded Abstract Expressionism and left-wing literary magazines in a cultural offensive against the Soviet Union. And yet they did. This seeming historical irony is compounded by the fact that so many of the artists enlisted (mostly unwittingly) in the cultural Cold […] The Art of the New Deal: Why the...

There are many roads through the coronavirus crisis. One is denial, which only makes things worse. Another is service and self-sacrifice, a choice we honor in the medical professionals putting their lives at risk every day. For most of us, however, the best course of action is non-action—staying home and isolating ourselves from others. Days […] How to Find Emotional Strength & Resilience During...

A few years ago we featured the Japanese art of chindōgu, or the invention of amusingly "useless" inventions. The chindōgu canon includes such simultaneously sensible and nonsensical objects as miniature toecap umbrellas (to keep one's shoes dry in the rain) and chopsticks fitted with miniature fans (to cool down ramen noodles before consumption). Today we present […] Japanese Designer Creates Free Template for an Anti-Virus...

From Duke University Press comes free books on pandemics and contagion. They write: "Amid the worldwide spread of COVID-19, it’s a challenging time, and our thoughts are with those affected by this disease. In support and solidarity, we are providing free access to the following books and journal articles to help build knowledge and understanding […] Free Books About Pandemic & Contagion from Duke...

Disease modeling as a science has come into its own lately, for heartbreakingly obvious reasons. What may not be so obvious to those of us who aren't scientists is just how critical data can be in changing the course of events in an outbreak. Virus outbreaks may be “acts of God” or acts of unregulated […] Simulating an Epidemic: Using Data to Show How...

Yesterday, the United States surpassed China, becoming the world leader in COVID-19 infections. It's not hard to understand why. Social distancing remains very uneven. Domestic travel continues unchecked. Asymptomatic carriers stay on the move. Starting on the coasts, COVID-19 is now moving inexorably across the nation, coming to a city or town near you. If […] Spring Break vs. COVID-19: Mapping the Real Impact...

Americans have long been accused of growing socially distant, bowling alone, as Robert Putnam wrote in 2000, or worse becoming radicalized as "lone wolves" and isolated trolls. But we are seeing how much we depend on each other as social distancing becomes the painful normal. Not quite quarantine, social distancing involves a semi-voluntary restriction of […] What Happened to U.S. Cities That Practiced–and Didn’t...

COVID-19 is a serious, highly communicable disease. It is not a hoax, and it will continue to spread until it is contained with widespread testing and a vaccine. At present, scientists seem to know little about all the forms of transmission or the possibility of reinfection. Older people and the immunocompromised are certainly more at […] Watch “Coronavirus Outbreak: What You Need to Know,”...

The past few weeks have reminded us just why viruses have been such a formidable enemy of humanity for so long. Though very few of the countless viruses in existence affect us in any way, let alone a lethal one, we can't see them without microscopes. And so when a deadly virus breaks out, we […] How a Virus Spreads, and How to Avoid...

A public service announcement from Vox. It's worth coupling this with our previous post: Quarantined Italians Send a Message to Themselves 10 Days Ago: What They Wish They Knew Then. Related Content: Use Your Time in Isolation to Learn Everything You’ve Always Wanted To: Free Online Courses, Audio Books, eBooks, Movies, Coloring Books & More […] Why Fighting the Coronavirus Depends on You is...

It’s not like we’re maestros…it’s a moment of joy in this moment of anxiety. —Emma Santachiara, Rome As reported by The New York Times, Ms. Sanachiara, age 73, has joined the vast choir of ordinary Italians taking to their balconies and windows to participate in socially distant neighborhood singalongs as coronavirus rages through their country. The Internet […] Italians’ Nightly Singalongs Prove That Music Soothes the...

Countries like the US, England, France, Spain and Germany are about 9-10 days behind in the COVID-19 progression. For our benefit, the video channel called "A THING BY" asked Italians to record a message they wish had heard 10 days prior. Let's take careful note of what they have to say. Related Content: Why You […] Quarantined Italians Send a Message to Themselves 10...

All of us have tried to come to grips with the coronavirus in different ways. Here on Open Culture we've featured online courses to get you conversant in the science around the pandemic, but readers of this site will also have sought out the most pertinent works of history and literature. That goes especially for […] The History of the Plague: Every Major Epidemic...

From Vox comes a short explainer that delves into why viruses like COVID-19 have often first taken off in China. They write: As of early March 2020, a new coronavirus, called COVID-19, is in more than 70 countries and has killed more than 3,100 people, the vast majority in China. That's where the virus emerged […] Why New Diseases Like COVID-19 Keep Appearing in...

The coronavirus has spread out of China, into South Korea, Japan and now Italy. We're settling into the reality that we're likely facing a pandemic. It's time to educate ourselves--to take some free courses on COVID-19. In response to the outbreak, Imperial College London has put together a free course (offered through Coursera) called "Science […] Free Courses on the Coronavirus: What You Need...

Johns Hopkins has created an interactive website that tracks the spread of the coronavirus around the globe. The site is updated daily, if not several times per day. And it shows the number of confirmed coronavirus cases around the globe (along with the precise location on a map), the number of people who have recovered […] Interactive Web Site Tracks the Global Spread of...

The techno-futurist prophets of the late 20th century, from J.G. Ballard to William Gibson to Donna Haraway, were right, it turns out, about the intimate physical unions we would form with our machines. Haraway, professor emeritus of the History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, proclaimed herself a cyborg […] Electronic Musician Shows How He Uses His Prosthetic...