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perspectives
FirstRand is recognised as a highly innovative business that encourages and rewards original thinking from its people. It has created Perspectives, a portal of original, specifically commissioned content, to provide writers, authors, artists, thinkers, academics, researchers and visionaries a platform to share new ideas and unique concepts.
Featured article
Superhero films − how big genres live and die
Although the superhero genre has been around since the mid-1940s, over the past two decades these films have occupied the top spot among all genres available to us, on the big and small screen alike.
Read moreHillbilly Elegy: a memoir of a family and culture in crisis by JD Vance
Appalachia. No place like it. A place often romanticised and, consequently, misunderstood. A place that holds deep secrets and unspeakable tragedy.
12.2018 | Pete van der Walt
Science fiction becomes science fact
First the dreamers, then the engineers … how much of the technology in our lives today do we owe to stories of an imagined future?
12.2018 | Alistair Duff
AI Series: Can machines make ethical choices?
Once we start to see our ethics reflected back to us in the form of machine decision-making, are we going to like what we see?
01.2018 | Barry Morisse
Travelling through Africa with a salty narrator
Arja Salafranca reviews Zukiswa Wanner’s Hardly Working, a travel memoir brimming with astute observations and wry humour.
11.2018 | Arja Salafranca
Why good old children’s stories, close up, are as scary as anything
Children’s stories aren’t all pudding and pie. Look closely at the popular nursery rhymes, for instance, and you’ll notice patterns of plague, prostitution, human sacrifice and burning at the stake.
06.2018 | Tiffany Markman
Killer ratings: our obsession with true crime TV series
Are TV audiences evolving into bloodthirsty voyeurs, desperate for more true tales of violence and crime? Or are other factors propelling the true crime genre up the popularity charts?
08.2019 | Jared Orlin
The ethical sources of terrorist power: Understanding asymmetric war
Conventional wars are fought between states. Asymmetrical wars are different, and so are the weapons.
07.2017 | Mervyn Frost
Don’t worry about the last fish in the sea
Catching the last fish in the sea should be the least of your worries. Here’s why.
06.2018 | Jon Stillwell
Have you floated before? Money for nothing
The sensory deprivation tank seems fundamentally different to all other luxuries. It promises nothing.
06.2017 | Deena Dinat
Why service delivery successes in South Africa don’t always translate into community satisfaction
Despite the refrain to the contrary, living standards in South Africa today are much higher than at any point in the history of the country.
10.2017 | Frans Cronje
Anger Series: Taking a long hard look at anger (and violence)
Read the headlines on any given day and you’ll find a new story in which the violent details take your breath away. How do we begin to fix that?
12.2017 | Martin Scheepers
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