'END(ING)'

By Magdalena Styś Illustration by Helena Nascimento Thirty-seven years after its  initial publication, The End of History remains the sleep paralysis demon of any history enthusiast, political science student, or smug teenage contrarian. In 1989, American political science scholar Francis Fukuyama argued that “something very fundamental has happened in world history”: alongside the conclusion of…

By Weichen Zhang Illustration by Madelene Nitzsche Nighttime comes after the end of daytime, and then the sun comes up from the east. A new day, another cycle. At a larger time scale, people all over the world observe season cycles in a year, with one season swiftly following the end of the previous. The…

By Molly O’Toole Illustration by Célia Mortureux Ten years from the moment considered to ignite an era of “post-truth” media and information, our political and cultural worlds feels all the more foggy and confusing. Incidences such as Brexit and the election of Donald Trump are considered by some cultural critics to have solidified “post-truth” as…

By Erato Vaitsi Illustration by Taylor Brunnschweiler Mark Fisher was a cultural critic and theorist, who drew inspiration from Deleuze and Guattari (Seaton, 2021). The concept which he is most famous for is capitalist realism, which captures both the sense that capitalism is the only viable political and economic system, and the impossibility of imagining…

By Yanely Lopez Illustration by Helena Nascimento Facebook Notification: “It’s Kristina’s birthday today! Say Happy Birthday.” Yet Kristina isn’t here anymore to see them. To see her ‘Happy 38th’ wishes. The photos, comments, or memories we share on her wall. But her digital presence remains, as a persistent echo of her life, frozen in time…

By Lucia Deon Illustration by Merel Hamminga In modern storytelling, we are faced with a constant paradox: the fixed psychological need for endings and the increasing absence of mediums that are capable of giving them to us, much less satisfactory ones. This tension raises the question of why we need endings in storytelling and what…