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A high level inquiry reported last month that more than half of the British public has a negative body image. Cambridge academic Andy Martin reflects on the idea of beauty and our pursuit of the unattainable.

A new book by Professor Emma Wilson from the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages looks at how death is addressed through modern artworks based in visual media.

Is tragedy the perfect dramatic form for our current predicament? Or has the classic idea of catharsis through viewing the suffering of others become much more problematic in an age of 24/7 news and the internet? An event at this year's Hay Festival will investigate.

Europe is in crisis and its future is said to depend on Germany. ̽»¨Ö±²¥most comprehensive study of Germany's early modern history ever undertaken, published this week, questions just how much we know about its past - and how much we understand it as a result.

We are addicted to language. By way of proof, Andy Martin – lecturer in the Department of French and author of books on Napoleon, Bardot and surfing – takes a vow of silence. Spending a day in New York without words, he discovers a liking for one of the most over-used expressions of the era.

Having just returned from a year spent documenting the language and culture of the remote Inughuit community of north-western Greenland, Dr Stephen Leonard describes how he witnessed first-hand the manner in which globalisation and consumerism are conspiring to destroy centuries-old cultures and traditions.

A new study of wrongdoing and its cultures in Spain from 1800 to 1936 will explore the fascination of popular versions of crime and other misdemeanours.

An endangered Greek dialect spoken in Turkey has been identified by Dr Ioanna Sitaridou as a "linguistic goldmine" because of its closeness to a language spoken 2,000 years ago.

A €1 million study will shed light on the role of cultural memory of the soviet era in Russia, Ukraine and Poland.