Joseph Phelan
New York
As seen in:
Medium,
MSN UK,
UOL Notícias,
Yahoo Life,
BBC,
Terra,
The Guardian,
Aol,
National Geographic Traveler,
Taylor & Francis Online
and
Convergence works with organizers and activists on the frontlines to produce content that sharpens our collective practice and promotes strategic debate.
Articles by Joseph Phelan
Who is liable for direct-to-consumer lab testing?
Ever had a patient bring in a packet of test results you never ordered and countless questions on results for tests you’ve never even heard of? If not, prepare yourself. Direct-to-consumer (DTC) lab testing began modestly in 1977 when the FDA approved at-home pregnancy tests. Over the last 50 years, it has evolved into a multi-billion-dollar industry offering hundreds of tests without a prescription.
Italias idealiserte Cinque Terre
The Siege of Paradise Regissør: Gar O'Rourke ( Irland) TURISME / Færre enn 4000 mennesker bor i Italias Cinque Terre, men likevel besøker rundt fire millioner turister stedet hvert år. Denne ekstraordinære ubalansen er kjernen i The Siege of Paradise. Her ble familieboliger gjesterom, fiskebåter ble turistbåter og virksomheter tilpasset seg for å betjene strømmen av besøkende.
Italy's idealized Cinque Terre
The Siege of Paradise Regissør: Gar O'Rourke ( Irland) TOURISME / Fewer than 4000 people live in Italy's Cinque Terre, yet some four million tourists visit the place each year. This extraordinary imbalance is at the heart of The Siege of Paradise. Here, family homes became guest rooms, fishing boats became tourist boats, and businesses adapted to serve the influx of visitors.
Are birds born knowing how to sing? It depends…
You might assume that all birds find their voices in the same way. However, two very different mechanisms shape birdsong across the avian world. Some species are born with their songs already in place, while others must learn through listening and practice. And the route they follow depends entirely on their family tree. For species such as flycatchers , tunes are largely innate.
Gar O'Rourke’s latest documentary, The Siege of Paradise, examines Cinque Terre’s tourism balancing act
Perched along Italy’s dramatic Ligurian coastline, the five villages of Cinque Terre are home to fewer than 4,000 people. Yet every year, around four million tourists pour into their narrow streets, all of them seeking a postcard-perfect Mediterranean fantasy. It’s an extraordinary demographic imbalance, and one that sits at the heart of Irish filmmaker Gar O’Rourke’s sumptuous new documentary The Siege of Paradise.
From plot to plate: Berlin’s restaurants are relishing in ingredients from the city’s allotments
Garden variety: An allotment complex northeast of Berlin (Image: Jan Scheunert/Zuma Press Wire via Alamy Berlin’s ‘brutal lokal’ movement promotes growing, raising and foraging food from the region. Now the city’s best restaurants are getting behind it too. Today, Berlin has 870 community gardens with roughly 70,000 allotment plots.
From plot to plate: Berlin’s restaurants are relishing in ingredients from the city’s allotments
Agriculture might not be the first thing that comes to mind when sampling the delights of Berlin. It’s a sprawling metropolis, cross-hatched by boulevards and large cement buildings. Yet tucked between the city’s warehouses, apartment blocks and train lines is one of Europe’s largest collections of urban allotments. For well over a century, Berliners have used allotments – kleingärten or schrebergarten in German – to spend time outside and grow fruit, vegetables and herbs.
The (Second) Rise of Caffeine-Free Coffee
Featured photo by Javier Molina As consumers increasingly seek to cut out substances like alcohol and caffeine, decaffeinated coffee is growing in popularity The first commercial decaffeination process was invented by German coffee merchant Ludwig Roselius in the early 20th century.
Hearts and crafts: discover the artistic side of Italy's Amalfi Coast
Click here to download and save as a PDF Standing 11 metres beneath Positano’s Church of Santa Maria Assunta, I’m face to face with vivid frescoes in colours so bright they might have been completed yesterday. Buried in AD79 by the same Vesuvian eruption that engulfed Pompeii, this Roman villa lay undiscovered until 2003 – and is one of Italy’s most significant recent archaeological finds.
“It’s a disease superhighway.” The shocking new ecosystem that’s evolving in our oceans
Wonderful waste as horse poo can be made into plastic substitute A method by which horse manure can be converted into a sustainable product that could be a substitute for some plastics is in development – and the …
You have to win a lottery to attend this winter solstice event
The cold moon, the last supermoon of the year, is visible tonight Keep your eyes high in the sky this week to see the last supermoon of the year. December’s full supermoon, also called the cold moon, will be at its …
You have to win a lottery to attend this winter solstice event Original
This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK). In a few weeks’ time, just 38 lottery winners — chosen from 16,000 global applicants — will stand in the darkness of Newgrange’s 5,200-year-old chamber in Ireland’s Boyne Valley in anticipation of an astronomical magic trick. For 17 minutes during a narrow five-day window around the winter solstice in December, a precise beam of light will connect them to the astronomical mastery of the monument’s Neolithic builders.
Inside the distillery crafting spirits on the edge of the world Original
This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK). The bus from Tórshavn winds through a landscape pulled from Norse mythology. The route is flanked by dramatic, almost otherworldly scenery — cliffs looming above, valleys plunging below. For 90 minutes, I watch the Faroe Islands pass by: peaks shrouded in mist, lambs trailing their mothers up steep, rugged hillsides, entirely unconcerned by the ever-shifting weather.
How the Faroe Islands reversed a brain drain
The small community found a big answer to an ageing population crisis There's a question that sooner or later confronts those who grow up in a small community: do I stay, or do I go? The overwhelming number of people across Europe that stump for the latter areleaving large swaths of some countries completely hollowed out.
Is AI the key to predicting solar storms?
On Sept. 1, 1859, the most intense geomagnetic storm in recorded history paid Earth a visit. This colossal solar outburst, which led to telegraph systems catching fire and aurorae lighting up skies down to the tropics, became known as the Carrington Event, in honor of English amateur astronomer Richard Carrington, who determined that a major coronal mass ejection (CME) was to blame for these curious happenings.
Gliese 12 b, a potentially habitable exoplanet close to Earth
Astronomers are constantly adding to the ever-expanding catalog of more than 5,000 confirmed exoplanets. But Gliese 12 b, located 40 light-years away in the constellation Pisces, could be the most sensational find to date. Its discovery is outlined in a paper published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The planet, which is a bit smaller than Earth and similar in size to Venus, has an estimated surface temperature of 107 degrees Fahrenheit (42 degrees Celsius).
Astronomers measure a supermassive black hole’s spin
Supermassive black holes lie in the centers of all large galaxies. And a group of astronomers including researchers from MIT and NASA have, for the first time, measured how fast one of these behemoths is spinning. They did so by analyzing the aftermath from the black hole’s recent meal of star stuff. This pioneering technique makes use of tidal disruption events (TDEs), which occur when a star passes too close to a black hole and is torn apart as a result.
The Jewish ‘monopoly’ of the slave trade in the early Middle Ages: the origins of an enduring historical motif
ABSTRACT Phelan examines the evidence to support the claim that the assertion that Jews played a leading role in the slave trade in the period following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire originated with the work of a number of late nineteenth-century historians, particularly Heinrich Graetz and Wilhelm Roscher.
Home - Whisky Magazine
Known as The Accelerator and The Brake, Charles and Sandy Gordon played complementary – but vastly contrasting – roles in the history of their family-owned Scotch whisky business. Today, renowned whisky writer Dave Broom is telling their story through the medium of film and a very special House of Hazelwood collaboration. Whisky Magazine readers have an exclusive opportunity to preview to the film by clicking here. Visit House of Hazelwood to pre-order a bottle from 19 September.
Home - Whisky Magazine
Known as The Accelerator and The Brake, Charles and Sandy Gordon played complementary – but vastly contrasting – roles in the history of their family-owned Scotch whisky business. Today, renowned whisky writer Dave Broom is telling their story through the medium of film and a very special House of Hazelwood collaboration. Whisky Magazine readers have an exclusive opportunity to preview to the film by clicking here. Visit House of Hazelwood to pre-order a bottle from 19 September.
How much sleep do you actually need? We asked experts what's the perfect amount (and how to get it)
Bedroom with striped yellow wallpaper It’s no secret that sleep is incredibly important and for so many of us who struggle to sleep it can often feel that no amount of sleep is ever enough. Of course, there is a recommended amount of sleep that's needed in order to function. Eight hours is what usually pops up, but is this a myth? It can be tricky to know if you need eight hours every night, or if you can get away with less.
Grape minds: Hear from women at the forefront of Britain’s roaring wine sector
The English and Welsh wine sector is experiencing a period of unprecedented success. We meet the women heading up the vino boom and taking on wine’s big guns We are an island of wine lovers. The average Briton, research suggests, drinks 120 bottles of wine annually. In 2020 alone, approximately 1.77 billion bottles were consumed across the country, with millions of cooped up oenophiles opting for wine as their go-to lockdown tipple.
Portrayals of Love
Culture Portrayals of Love Johannes Vermeer’s treatment of love distinguished him from his peers. (Photo by VCG Wilson/Corbis via Getty Images) Vermeer and the Art of Love, by Aneta Georgievska-Shine, Lund Humphries, 160 pages. Johannes Vermeer, the seventeenth-century Dutch artist of the “fine painter” school, led a private life.
Borys M. Kowalsky
Borys M. Kowalsky holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Toronto. A former secondary and post-secondary educator (the latter at Georgian College of Applied Arts and Technology in Barrie, Ontario), Kowalsky has written, lectured, or given academic papers on topics in political philosophy, history and philosophy of art and music, and education, as well as on current political issues, such as critical race theory and the war in Ukraine.
Do bee bricks work in the fight to save the bees?
Bee bricks are the new solution for dwindling pollinators being touted by Brighton and Hove. But do bee bricks work? Bee conservation experts weigh in In recent decades the UK’s bee population has been under significant strain. Pollinators—including bees—have been in a state of decline since the 1970s, with some species suffering more than others. Honeybee hives in England, for example, are believed to have declined by close to 50 per cent between 1985 and 2005.
Saints, Knights, and Dragons
Culture Saints, Knights, and Dragons Vittore Carpaccio is a splendid example of someone who can reach out and entertain us across a span of 500 years. St. Augustine in his studio (also known as Vision of St Augustine), 1502-1507, by Vittore Carpaccio (ca 1465-1525 or 1526). School of San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, Venice. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images) Upon entering the Vittore Carpaccio exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, we see a picture of two women sitting on a balcony.
Our Histories Are Tied Together: Liberation in a Global Context
The following is a transcript of the video above, from our webinar on “Remaking the Economy: Redefining Leadership.” View the full webinar here. Seema Agnani: I think if we want to work towards shared understanding of one another’s history, you have to think about it within the global context. It’s understanding race, and in some places, like in India, for example, it’s also there are issues of persecuted communities because of their faith. Gender comes into play quite a bit.
Why British wine could be your next favourite wine region
British wine might not be the first thing you think of when trying fine vinos, but this young industry is rapidly racking up plaudits. We take a closer look According to a recent OECD report, the average Briton drinks the equivalent of 120 bottles of wine every year. Money.co.uk, meanwhile, suggests that in 2020 alone, approximately 1.77 billion bottles were consumed across the UK.
White Supremacy and the Disinformation Wars Original
Joseph Phelan: […] Platform accountability doesn’t happen without organizing, right? We can do all the lobbying we want and pay the high price lobbying firms. We can get as many op-eds as we want, et cetera, et cetera. But it actually comes down to organizing. Sign up for our free newsletters By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners. Organizing is contesting for power at the individual and group level.
Telling Better Stories to Fight Disinformation
Sabrina Joy Stevens: […] we’ve got to be thinking in terms of relationship, we’ve got to be thinking in terms of who are we actually connected to, versus trying to say, convince the people who are spreading the false information intentionally.
Giorgione’s "Adoration of the Shepherds" ~ The Imaginative Conservative
In the pre-COVID world, one of the most delightful things to do around the holidays was to visit an art museum and look at a few of the paintings that tell the stories we commemorate on these days. Over the past twenty years, I’ve enjoyed taking such tours. In my experience by far the most popular and satisfying would be “The Christmas Story in Art” tour that the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC offered every December.
Defining Racialized Misinformation and Disinformation
Jacquelyn Mason: I always like to start off by saying that each and every one of us is susceptible to spreading misinformation, or we’ve all believed false content at some time, right? Misinformation is false content. But the person sharing doesn’t realize that the content is false or misleading. I can give a few examples of this.
Greenland: Life at the top of the world
Two wildlife photographers on the thrill and importance of documenting the frigid natural beauty of Greenland Greenland is a wild, hostile place. It’s isolated, cold and sparsely populated: it spans two million square kilometres, making it the world’s largest island, but is home to just 60,000 people. It's a landscape that is simultaneously stunning and barren, with around two-thirds of the country sitting within the Arctic Circle, and 80 per cent of it blanketed with ice.
On Liberal Learning
Since Allan Bloom's bestselling classic Closing of the American Mind revealed the depths of the problems in American higher education, there have been numerous good books written on the decline of the liberal arts, the relentless ideological assault on the Western tradition, and the overwhelming power and appeal of scientific, vocational, and professional schooling.
Liberal Learning and Human Nature
Culture Liberal Learning and Human Nature A new book claims that the liberal arts can be valuable for citizens and communities alike. Stone Lagoon one-room school house Northern California off Route 101. (Photo by: Visions of America/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) The Death of Learning: How American Education Has Failed Our Students and What to Do about It by John Agresto (2022, Encounter Books), 256 pages.
Uncivil Modernity
Culture Uncivil Modernity Hartle is hopeful we might re-establish the socio-political relevance of the natural law, moral virtue, and the concept of the common good. Portrait of Michel Montaigne, circa 1578, (1939). (Photo by Print Collector/Getty Images) What Happened to Civility: The Promise and Failure of Montaigne’s Modern Project by Ann Hartle (2022, University of Notre Dame Press), 190 pages.
Why butchers are calling on Brits to buy less meat
Butchers are urging people to choose quality meat cuts over quantity as they fight to keep their industry alive—but as living costs rise, is it too much to ask? It’s common knowledge that both veganism and vegetarianism are on the rise across the UK. Studies suggest around ten per cent of the country now refers to themselves as vegetarian, while three per cent say they’re vegan—when combined, that equates to around 9 million people.
IT - Italy's plan to save Venice from sinking
Venice is a stunning oddity. It is a city built atop around 120 islands, crisscrossed by 177 canals, and is best explored – when on foot at least – via the use of its 391 bridges. It is a watery maze of a city, full of tiny footpaths and tucked away squares, hidden museums and secluded, centuries-old churches. But all is not well in "La Serenissima". Indeed, if drastic measures are not taken, the city's days could be numbered.
Italy's plan to save Venice from sinking Original
In November 2019, Venice suffered its second-worst flooding event since records began almost 100 years ago. It created headlines around the world, with onlookers stunned by the incredible images of Saint Mark's Square, one of the city's lowest lying and most iconic areas, covered in feet of water. The tide reached a peak height of 187cm (6.1ft) above sea level, resulting in more than 80% of the city being under water.
Classical Raphael
Raphael aphael Santi (1483–1520), along with Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, is one of the three artistic titans of the Italian High Renaissance. Yet unlike the other two, he hasn’t gotten the widespread admiration in the United States that he deserves. In part, that is because he has never been the subject of bestselling novels or Hollywood epics.
Classical Raphael
Raphael was one of the grandest portraitists of all time, whose pictures illustrated the humanistic principles of Western civilization. Detail from Raphael's Saint Catherine of Alexandria, circa 1507. (National Gallery, London/Wikimedia Commons) Raphael Santi (1483–1520), along with Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, is one of the three artistic titans of the Italian High Renaissance. Yet unlike the other two, he hasn’t gotten the widespread admiration in the United States that he deserves.
Losing Forward: Lessons from Organizing for Narrative Change
How can community groups shift narratives? A ballot initiative campaign from 2020 provides some important lessons. That year, community organizing groups and labor unions across California launched a campaign to take on the corporate loophole in Proposition 13 and reclaim billions of dollars for public schools and public services. They knew they faced an uphill battle.
Picasso's Blue Period - The American Conservative
An exhibit of Pablo Picasso's Blue Period work displays some of the artist's most melancholy paintings. The strong should go ahead and take what they want: Such a quasi-Nietzschean maxim is dynamite in the head of an impressionable young person, and that is what Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) likely heard while in his late teens.
Dubái, la ciudad en el desierto que lucha para no ser engullida por arena
El desierto nunca estuvo lejos de las puertas de Dubái. La capital del emirato homónimo, convertida ahora en un moderno centro financiero que, con sus tres millones de habitantes es la ciudad más poblada de Emiratos Árabes Unidos (EAU), está flanqueada por el mar, por un lado, y por una alfombra de arena aparentemente interminable por el otro. La suya es una historia improbable de éxito, la de un adormecido pueblo pesquero que en 50 años se transformó en una brillante metrópolis urbana.
Dubai, a cidade no deserto que luta para não ser engolida pela areia
A desertificação ameaça o abastecimento de alimentos em Dubai. Seu nascente setor de tecnologia verde poderá conter as areias invasoras? Foto: Travel Wild/ Alamy / BBC News Brasil O deserto nunca esteve longe dos portões de Dubai. A capital do emirado de mesmo nome, agora convertida em um moderno centro financeiro que, com seus 3 milhões de habitantes, é a cidade mais populosa dos Emirados Árabes Unidos, é cercada pelo mar de um lado, e por um tapete de areia aparentemente interminável do outro.
Dubai, a cidade no deserto que luta para não ser engolida pela areia
A desertificação ameaça o abastecimento de alimentos em Dubai. Seu nascente setor de tecnologia verde poderá conter as areias invasoras? O deserto nunca esteve longe dos portões de Dubai. A capital do emirado de mesmo nome, agora convertida em um moderno centro financeiro que, com seus 3 milhões de habitantes, é a cidade mais populosa dos Emirados Árabes Unidos, é cercada pelo mar de um lado, e por um tapete de areia aparentemente interminável do outro.
Dubai, a cidade no deserto que luta para não ser engolida pela areia
A desertificação ameaça o abastecimento de alimentos em Dubai. Seu nascente setor de tecnologia verde poderá conter as areias invasoras? O deserto nunca esteve longe dos portões de Dubai. A capital do emirado de mesmo nome, agora convertida em um moderno centro financeiro que, com seus 3 milhões de habitantes, é a cidade mais populosa dos Emirados Árabes Unidos, é cercada pelo mar de um lado, e por um tapete de areia aparentemente interminável do outro.
Greenland: how the Arctic destination is becoming an unlikely mecca for extreme sports enthusiasts
Greenland is a vast country of ice and biting winds, a place where temperatures slip to -50°C and days can have as few as three hours of sunlight. It's isolated, largely uninhabitable and very, very cold. For some, these won't be the most inviting attributes, yet for a growing number of adrenalin-seeking adventurers, this frozen outpost at the top of the world is establishing itself as the hottest of destinations.
How Dubai is pushing back its encroaching deserts
How Dubai is pushing back its encroaching deserts (Image credit: Travel Wild/ Alamy) Desertification threatens food supply in Dubai. Can its fledgling green tech sector help to stem the encroaching sands? T The desert has never been far from Dubai's doorstep. Now a modern financial hub of some three million people, the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) most populous city remains surrounded on one side by sea, on the other by a seemingly endless carpet of sand.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Joseph
Contact Joseph, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack