Anyone else really struggling with hay fever? I always seem to struggle around this time. Whatever pollen is in the air doesn't agree with me.

Excited to deliver my paper--based on fresh work for next book Writing’s Maker—"Hester Thrale Piozzi's Minced Meat for Pyes: Scrapbook Composition as Life Writing"--to @oxford18thc.bsky.social next Tuesday. Many thanks to @ballasterros.bsky.social and @davidftaylor.bsky.social for the invitation

Can't wait. All welcome!

We're delighted to welcome Barney Ronay @barneyronay.bsky.social, Chief Sports Writer for The Guardian, to the English Faculty on 3 March. He'll be in conversation w/ Prof David Taylor discussing everything from the politics of sport to the changing nature of Britain’s media landscape. All welcome!

This Tuesday we'll be hearing @gabriellabird.bsky.social & @davidftaylor.bsky.social talk about reviving Centlivre's The Busy Body in a collab between @orangetreetheatre.bsky.social @creationtheatre.bsky.social & Oxford's Cultural Programme. 5.30 @ Seminar Room East, Mansfield College. All welcome!

I (and, I think, the whole audience) had such fun at last night’s performance of ‘The Busy Body’ by Susanna Centlivre, put together by @davidftaylor.bsky.social, @creationtheatre.bsky.social, @orangetreetheatre.bsky.social!! It was kinda like a 1709 version of The Importance of Being Earnest :D

We're excited to reveal our programme for the term, featuring @davidftaylor.bsky.social, Gabriella Bird Katharine Boehm, @juliepark.bsky.social, and Peter Sabor. As always, all welcome!

The ruins of Godstow Abbey amid the frost and freezing fog.

Inscription issue 6 (out spring 2026) is all about cuts / tears. Here is our call for papers. Talk to us if you have an idea for an article!

Does anyone else have trouble renewing their BSECS (@bsecs.bsky.social) membership with Wiley? This is the 3rd year in a row that my card has been declined and the process to rectify this is time consuming and infuriating.

Just read Ciaran Carson's Fishing for Amber. It's an astonishing book. A masterpiece. I can't believe it's not better known.

This sonnet by Gillian Clarke. Beautiful.

Good to see Michael John Goodman's The Charles Dickens Illustrated Gallery getting some festive attention. Completely open-access & reusable & remixable & with a range of Dickens's illustrators beyond the familiar original ones including Fred Barnard, Charles Green & Harry Furniss 👇.

Brush up your Shakespeare! Read along with our monthly webinar or just drop in to hear the conversation: english.web.ox.ac.uk/english-facu... Please repost!

This poem by Mary Robinson, published in The Morning Post in 1800, addressed to that newspaper's "Type," really must be the only poem about a typeface (as well as in a typeface) written in the #19thc. (But, gosh, I would be happy to hear of others.) Here are the first 2 stanzas. #BookHistory

Oxford folk - get yourselves to the North Wall to see Creation Theatre's Christmas show, Hansel & Grettel. It's fabulous. Took our 8yo this evening and we booked to go again as soon as we got home. The final medley is worth the ticket price alone. Tickets: creationtheatre.co.uk/show/hansel-...

Pringles are biscuits, not crisps (potato chips). For the second time this week, a student has blown my mind.

Did you know that Leigh Hunt kept a *Hair Book*? Yes, a *Hair Book*: an album of locks belonging to literary greats. And the good folk @ransomcenter.bsky.social have digitized it. Thanks to my student @sadpphicstanza.bsky.social for telling me about this.

For those who missed the press around the William Blake discoveries (mentioned in our previous post), catch up here: www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/about/media/...

Luminous Port Meadow

Paul Sandby, c.1759 - Old Chairs to Mend. London Museum.

(And on the subject of near-perfect sonnets, this — from @ravoon.bsky.social’s Last of the Coalmine Choirboys — is magnificent. “…the sun has gone / to pieces in the song-forsaken sky”)

It’s always life-affirming when you enjoy a reading so much you buy the book the next day, then you re-read properly and it’s even better than you remember. I’m loving @niaandthepoems.bsky.social’s Backalong, and the title sonnet is so close to ideal form you could almost mistake it for perfect.

This essay by Fara Dabhoiwala is stupendously good. Both scholarly detective work and storytelling of the highest order. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

you could ask your library to order if you want

🧵SALT🧵 It's been snowing in the UK and the road gritters are out in force, begging the question: Have you ever wondered where that grit actually COMES from? The answer is more magical, beautiful and fascinating than you probably realised. 1/14

one highlight from San Francisco’s MOMA ast week - Hans Haacke's "Blue Sail" (1965; chiffon, oscillating fan, fishing weights, and thread) ✨

We're excited to be talking the digital #18thcentury with Nicole Pohl and @jarona7.bsky.social of the @eenlightenment.bsky.social tomorrow (19th) from 12.30-1.45pm. Do join us in Seminar Room East at Mansfield College. A sandwich lunch will be provided.

Co-teaching a special option on 'Word & Image' for our finalists with the wonderful @ljpowell.bsky.social has been the best teaching experience of my career... ...and the cherry on top is that for our final class today we were joined by T. J. Clark, who is as lovely and generous as he is brilliant.

I'm so excited to be working with Creation Theatre & @orangetreetheatre.bsky.social on a script-in-hand staging of Susanna Centlivre's wonderful comedy The Busy Body! Tickets: Oxford (24 Jan) creationtheatre.co.uk/show/thebusy... Richmond, London (26 Jan): orangetreetheatre.co.uk/whats-on/the...

I'm trying to write today about "papyromania"--an obsession w/ the illusionistic representation of paper--& about a 1780 watercolor by Samuel Lewis, a detail of which you see here. Kind #18thc & art history Bluesky pals, what is the paper object marked w/ the letter N & the word Isleworth? thanks!

Hello! Hope we're not late to the party over here. Here's our list of speakers for this term. Do join us next week for what promises to be a fascinating session from by Electronic Enlightenment team.