Category: Academia

Wolfenbüttel – where Jägermeister and scholarship meet

The little northern German town of Wolfenbüttel is known for two things: Jägermeister and the Herzog August Bibliothek or HAB. While the popular digestif is made with a large variety of herbs and spices, the HAB research library is the meeting place of a large variety of scholars from all around the world, who gather… Continue reading Wolfenbüttel – where Jägermeister and scholarship meet

Keeping the customer satisfied

Strike action might be entering the hot phase later this year as the Universities and Colleges Union (UCU) has approved ‘a marking boycott to be implemented from 28 April if university employers still refuse to thrash out a deal over pay’. The Universities and Colleges Employers Association ‘have so far refused to engage in any… Continue reading Keeping the customer satisfied

CfP: Urban Ritual and Ceremony in Pre-Modern Europe, c.1300-c.1700

A one-day conference to take place at Northumbria University on 29 May 2014. Recent years have witnessed a proliferation in the study of ritual and ceremony in pre-modern European towns. Once considered a topic of only marginal interest, the study of late medieval and early modern ritual and ceremonial practices now lies at the forefront… Continue reading CfP: Urban Ritual and Ceremony in Pre-Modern Europe, c.1300-c.1700

The survey that didn’t surprise us

Some surveys shock us, others fill us with a sense of relief that it’s not just us. The recent Research Excellence Framework (REF) survey undertaken by the University and College Union (UCU) does both. The summary of key findings  states that nearly two thirds of the 7,000 respondents said they thought the REF had ‘a… Continue reading The survey that didn’t surprise us

Beating the queue and staying warm at the British Library

Recently, an American friend of mine posted this picture of the morning queue a the British Library on Facebook. It seems to say a lot about an unashamed nerdiness (or rare regard for learning) in this country as well as about the British love for queuing. Having grown up in Germany, I usually find myself… Continue reading Beating the queue and staying warm at the British Library

Creating and Preserving the Digital Republic of Letters

Earlier this week I attended the excellent Durham conference on ‘Intellectual Networks in the Long Seventeenth Century’. With a theme like this it seemed inevitable for participants to talk about the early modern Republic of Letters and to draw parallels between early modern and modern networks around the (known) world. So I had the honour… Continue reading Creating and Preserving the Digital Republic of Letters

Library badges of honour

I collect library cards like badges of honour. I’ve got some I’ve had for a long time – from the British Library, the Bodleian and an out-of-date one from Cambridge University Library. Of course, I also have a CARN (County Archives Research Network) ticket and one for the National Archives. More recently, I have also… Continue reading Library badges of honour

Foreign Languages and the Historian

If you don’t have any foreign languages as a historian you’re stuffed. This is not just true for those of us who decide to undertake research on a foreign country or do any sort of comparative or transnational study. My own work on a seventeenth-century English republican thinker took on its very own dynamics when… Continue reading Foreign Languages and the Historian

Academic Tourism

We’re all tourists in academia. With short-term contracts being so common, it’s more or less natural to slide from PhD into hourly-paid teaching, into a Post-Doc, a fellowship, or a maternity/ research leave cover. Many of us are well into our thirties before we get the first full-time permanent job, if we haven’t succumbed to… Continue reading Academic Tourism