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This is the second in a series of three posts about the SHS conference in Durham. Day 2 broke dull and damp, but breakfast was excellent, and afterwards I wandered down in the rain to the venue for the first panel. I had planned to go to one of the panels with two early modern…

It’s been a busy spring and summer. This is the first in a short series of posts about the Social History Society Conference in Durham. At the beginning of July it was off to Durham for the Social History Society Conference. I drove up, because the trains would have taken me twice as long and…

This is the fifth and last in a series of short posts about the Sound Faith: Religion and the Acoustic World 1400-1800 conference at the University of York from 12-14 June 2024. The final panel was ‘The Soundscape of the English Parish Church and Beyond’, chaired by Ros Oates. It opened with a very engaging online paper…

This is the fourth in a series of short posts about the Sound Faith: Religion and the Acoustic World 1400-1800 conference at the University of York from 12-14 June 2024. Day 2 started with Panel 5: The Sound of Manuscript and Print in which I was speaking with Katherine Butler (Northumbria University) and Alexander Fisher (University…

This is the third in a series of short posts about the Sound Faith: Religion and the Acoustic World 1400-1800 conference at the University of York from 12-14 June 2024. There was then a tea, coffee & cake break before the second keynote: Felipe Ledesma-Nuñez (Harvard)’s ‘Coya Huarmi: Reconstruction of a Song, a Vessel, and…

This is the second in a series of short posts about the Sound Faith: Religion and the Acoustic World 1400-1800 conference at the University of York from 12-14 June 2024. On the official first day, I was up early editing blog posts (I did say I was treating the trip in part as a writing…

This is the first in a series of short posts about the Sound Faith: Religion and the Acoustic World 1400-1800 conference at the University of York from 12-14 June 2024. I arrived in York on Thursday at about 11 in the morning, having decided to treat the trip as a sort of writing retreat. I…

Today, I am very pleased. Yesterday I received the proofs of my article on John Roberts. I started work on this as a palaeography training project before I began my PhD in 2011, so it’s been a long time coming. His first mention on my blog, I think, was back in 2012. He (which is…

A keynote paper given at The Experience of Loneliness in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries Conference, 29-30 June 2021 Postscript: In August 2022, after 8 months of negotiations, I was given a 2 day a week indefinite teaching and scholarship contract and a 2 day a week indefinite teaching and scholarship contract with an end…