Topic description and stories

Crummock Water, Cumbria

Landscape, literature, life

29 Feb 2012

Over the past few years, the genre of ‘nature writing’ has seen a new sense of urgency, fostered by a growing awareness of a natural world under...

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pineapple

'Picture This #16', Portrait of a pineapple, Fitzwilliam Museum.

16 Feb 2012

The painting is part of the pineapple’s success story as the ultimate status symbol of 18th century England.

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Alexander Crummell 1866

The remarkable story of Alexander Crummell

20 Oct 2011

A talk at the University of Cambridge’s Festival of Ideas this evening will focus on the extraordinary life of Alexander Crummell – the son of a...

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Isaac Newton's Index Chemicus

All is not what it seems: the blurred boundaries between alchemy and medicine

21 Sep 2011

An international conference taking place at Cambridge University later this week will reveal that for many centuries alchemy and medicine were deeply...

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Cooking the books

The edible nature of words

12 Sep 2011

A workshop at Cambridge University tomorrow will celebrate the rich and varied relationship between words and food, both metaphorically and literally...

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15th-century manuscript

A scriptorium of commonplace books

01 May 2010

A digital archive of 500-year-old 'filofaxes' offers extraordinary insight into early thought and writing practices.

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Rethinking

Rethinking eccentricity

01 May 2009

Miranda Gill traces shifting 19th-century perceptions of eccentricity, from its association with the intoxicating lure of modernity and fashion to...

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