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How often when we think of a landscape do we imagine it wet? It is nearly always dry; nearly always ‘England’s green and pleasant land’. But for many people, both now and in the past and certainly into the future,…
Professor Tim Ingold is Chair in Social Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen, is a Fellow of both the British Academy and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and one of our most influential and innovative thinkers on the relationship between…
It was with some sadness that I heard of Pete Seeger’s death this morning. It seemed strangely coincidental with the showing of the Coen Brothers’ latest film, “Inside Llewyn Davis”, which focusses on a folk singer (loosely modelled on Dave…
Perhaps because this Thursday sees the 365th anniversary of the execution of King Charles I, both BBC History Magazine and History Today feature the British Civil Wars on their front pages this month. If these journals aren’t always where the…
Sometimes it feels uncomfortable being white (I can hear black reader/friends/students laughing at this – “you should try black” they might say.) Viewing Steve McQueen’s great movie 12 Years a Slave provided just one of those moments for the largely…
Our colleagues in Theology and Religious Studies are hosting Professor Alec Ryrie from the University of Durham this week. Professor Ryrie will give a paper, ‘Faith, Doubt and the Problem of “Atheism” in Post-Reformation Britain’, this Wednesday (January 15th) between 5.30 and…
Are there limits to the intellectual inquiries historians may make? Our knee-jerk reaction to this, of course, would usually be – should usually be – ‘no’. I wrote a few months ago about Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch’s recent Silence: A Christian…
Happy new year! Today’s my first day back since the Christmas and New Year break, so apologies for the late good wishes. I was reflecting over Christmas about travel: so many of our staff and students leave Cheltenham for the…
In an age in which historians have long since abandoned the ‘great men’ theory of history, how do we define – should we even use – the term ‘world historical figure’? Our discipline now rightly prefers to complicate our vision of…