by eleanorh | Oct 30, 2020 | Uncategorized
This piece was originally published on the University of Reading’s Special Collections blog. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, I thought I would have to place my PhD research on hold. The stakes for me were high: only a few months before in October 2019 I had...
by eleanorh | Oct 26, 2020 | Uncategorized
In the academic year of 1982/83, students and lecturers of evening and day-time literature classes – organized by what was then the University of London’s Extra-Mural Department – founded a Literature Association which they...
by eleanorh | Oct 19, 2020 | Uncategorized
The coronavirus crisis has ushered in its own language. Covid-secure, social distancing, the R rate. These phrases have now become familiar. Some of this language is new but Covid-19 has also revived older words. Chancellor Rishi Sunak referred to ‘furlough’...
by eleanorh | Oct 12, 2020 | Uncategorized
Like Alessandro Manzoni’s I promessi sposi/The Betrothed, Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron (ca. 1349-1353) is set during a pandemic: the Black Death of 1348-49, which killed at least 50% of the Italian population. You can read Italian and English versions on Decameron...
