‘Montaigne was pleased with playing with his Cat’: Philosophers and Felines (Journal Articles I Will Never Write, No. 36)

Fascinated that In Our Time is one of the BBC’s most popular podcasts among under 35s. The young people demand three academics and a peer discussing Demosthenes, apparently. And they’re right to do so.

How your email finds me

@emjlynajsh.bsky.social and I are delighted to be running this conference on EM practical texts, generously supported by @themhra.bsky.social, and with fabulous keynotes by @endeeekay.bsky.social and Laurence Publicover. Abstracts due by 24th November!

Born With Teeth - worth it if only for the line “Beaumont and Fletcher get away with it” @the-rsc.bsky.social

Throwback to History Showoffs at @southwarkcathedral.bsky.social! Thanks so much again to @scienceshowoff.bsky.social for letting me blab on about 17th-century Lockdowns and the appearance of Matt Hancock in Ben Jonson’s ‘The Alchemist’! m.youtube.com/watch?v=zdv1...

Playing for Leeds since - checks notes - 1629 @jonathanhealey.bsky.social 👀

Now that the paperwork is through, I'm delighted to reintroduce myself as Dr Caroline Taylor! Thank you so much to my examiners - Prof Gill Woods and @racheljwillie.bsky.social - and my wonderful supervisors - @oldfortunatus.bsky.social and @davidftaylor.bsky.social - for all their support! #PhDone

The duality of being an ECR in seventeenth-century theatre

There are some English words which I had no recourse to use before starting my DPhil on plague and theatre that I now only know how to spell in the early modern way. Is it ‘putrefy’, ‘putrify’, or ‘putryfye’. They all look right to me!

Very much looking forward to seeing this! Although I’m not sure that suggesting that a man who wrote 126 sonnets to another man was in fact attracted to men quite counts as a “queer reimagining” of his life (as it was described in Tatler today). It’s probably just historically accurate.

The couple sat on the same row as me in the library keep leaning over their desks to kiss each other’s necks. I just had a heart attack when Word crashed and I couldn’t save the edits I’ve made to my thesis. We are not having the same library experience. (Word has sorted itself out. I have not)