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When he brought the Elgin Marbles to Britain Lord Elgin was accused of vandalism by his contemporaries (read more)

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Featured Article: Bullying

A Bully Free Zone sign at a school in Berea, Ohio

Bullying is the act of intentionally causing harm to others, through verbal harassment, physical assault, or other more subtle methods such as spreading rumors.

Bullying usually is characterized by direct or overt behavior, observable actions against an individual or group. However, bullying may also be indirect or covert, in which subversive acts that are more difficult to detect are perpetrated against the victim. Bullying may involve physical actions such as hitting, kicking, or hair pulling, or it may be verbal in nature, involving the use of hurtful nicknames, telling lies, or making fun of the victim.

The traditional response to bullying has been to impose the responsibility to change upon the victim—telling them to fight back, to ignore it, to blend in more with the crowd, or to avoid the person bullying them so as not to provoke them. In general, this approach has failed, and in the worst instances has escalated the violence to school shootings and/or suicide of the victim.

A different approach puts the responsibility to change on all those involved, including the individual who bullied, and the bystander—the other members of the community within which bullying has occurred. This approach recognizes that it is not only the victim of bullying who needs support, but the bully also needs both punishment and counseling, and the bystander, often ignored in the problem of bullying, needs empowerment.

The problem of bullying can be seen not as an individual character flaw but rather as a societal problem. The desire for power over others, attained through physical or other forms of violence, is a problem that has been observed in human history. Its solution requires change both in human nature and in human relationships, such that every individual feels valued and respected within their community. When this is achieved, bullying will cease.

Popular Article: Dark romanticism

"The Raven," Edgar Allan Poe's work of dark romanticism, as illustrated by Gustave Doré

Dark romanticism is a literary subgenre that emerged from the Transcendental philosophical movement popular in nineteenth-century America. Transcendentalism began as a protest against the general state of culture and society at the time, and in particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard and the doctrine of the Unitarian church, which was taught at Harvard Divinity School. Among Transcendentalists' core beliefs was an ideal spiritual state which "transcends" the physical and empirical and is only realized through the individual's intuition, rather than through the doctrines of established religions. Prominent Transcendentalists included Sophia Peabody, the wife of Nathaniel Hawthorne, one of the leading dark romanticists. For a time, Peabody and Hawthorne lived at the Brook Farm Transcendentalist utopian commune.

Works in the dark romantic spirit were influenced by Transcendentalism, but did not entirely embrace the ideas of Transcendentalism. Such works are notably less optimistic than Transcendental texts about mankind, nature, and divinity.

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