Current issue

Here are a selection of excerpts from the current issue. You can see more in the current issue page here

Planet magazine has been offering a radical approach to the culture and politics of Wales and the world for half a century. You can read a little more about our history here

In a series that proposes how society could change for the better in response to Covid-19, Charlotte Williams interviews anti-racist activists across Wales to reflect on how the lockdown period amplified public consciousness about racial inequality in an extraordinary way, and what needs to be done to ensure that this translates into meaningful action.

Our Welsh Keywords offers contemporary perspectives on the meaning of words in Welsh, inspired by Raymond Williams’ Keywords. In this issue, Sara Huws explores the fascinating history of how a word for ‘witch’ shape-shifted into one for ‘scientist’. What is the gender dimension of this etymological journey, and what does this mean in an era of pandemic and big data?

M. Wynn Thomas remembers his friend Emyr Humphreys, who died in 2020 aged 101, a Welsh European until the end. He reflects on what Humphreys’ work tells us today about the ideological power of the image, the complexities of the postcolonial condition, and what it really takes to be a politically committed writer.

In eulogies stretching from Jan Morris’ square mile to San Francisco, Angharad Price, Gray Brechin and Mike Parker remember an epoch-defining foreign correspondent and writer whose most beloved muse was Wales, and whose work continued to push boundaries up until her death in 2020 aged ninety-four.

Support and Sponsorship

Planet is hosted in the Old College at Aberystwyth University. For more information about the New Life for the Old College project see https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/oldcollege/ Planet receives financial support from the Welsh Books Council and is sponsored by The School of English, Communication and Philosophy and The School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies at Cardiff University. For more information about how you or your organisation can support us please contact us here.