St Edmund Hall Blog

The St Edmund Hall blog brings you the latest thought in academic research and interesting artefacts from our archive and library.

Please note that any opinions or views expressed by blog contributors are not shared or held by St Edmund Hall.

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A book cover showing a group of nuns standing in front of a building, with the title The Life of Nuns: Love, Politics, and Religion in Medieval German Convents

Voices from the past: The surprising stories told by medieval German nuns

20 Jun 2024

The newly published book by Hall Fellow Professor Henrike Lähnemann explores the life of medieval German nuns, told through their diaries, letters and artworks. It opens up for the first time the rich surviving heritage of…

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Letter from John Mill to Thomas Smith (Cumbria Record Office DMH_10_3_3_1r)

“I have receiv’d by the hands of mr Fleming”: Thomas Smith, the Fleming Family and St Edmund Hall

22 May 2024

Librarian James Howarth continues the story of a recently discovered 17th-century letter sent by Principal John Mill to the Bishop of Carlisle. Here he turns his attention to its connection to the early career of one of the Hal…

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Library and Chapel frontage include false windows at north end

“A Library is a thing that will universally please”: The donations of Thomas Smith, Bishop of Carlisle and the earliest image of the Old Library

28 Feb 2024

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Cover of Theater Programme for Israel Zangwill's play

Melting Pots, Salad Bowls and Kaleidoscopes: Unpacking Metaphors for Multiculturalism

20 Feb 2024

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The team watch the sunset over the dunes.

Climate research in the Kalahari Desert: the KAPEX field campaign

9 Feb 2024

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J T W Greenidge

Officers and Gentlemen? An Aularian ‘actor’ & architect, Evelyn Waugh and the Bride of Frankenstein

22 Jan 2024

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Library display case

Celebrating Marriage

1 Aug 2023

Staff members at Teddy Hall are celebrating multiple weddings in 2023! An Old Library Exhibition was created to mark the occasion.

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Detail of frontispiece illustration of 'Le Secretaire des Dames', Paris, Desnos c.1772 (Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal)

A Soldier’s Bivouac, Incense for Marguerite, and Gambling Debts. Eighteenth-Century Fugitive Poetry and Everyday Note-Taking

16 Jun 2023

Eighteenth-century ‘poésie fugitive’ was produced, published, used, and reused in a wide variety of ways; a series of almanacs bound with a notebook shows its proximity to everyday life.

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Determinisma nd englitenment by ruggero Scito

Determinism and Enlightenment: the collaboration of Diderot and d’Holbach

24 May 2023

Ruggero Sciuto’s Determinism and Enlightenment: the collaboration of Diderot and d’Holbach is the April volume in the Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series.

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St Edward's Crown

“Ye sight was very splendid & great”: Teddy Hall witnesses and celebrations of Coronations past

2 May 2023

As the Coronation of Charles III on 6 May 2023 approaches, Librarian James Howarth investigates connections between Aularians and the Coronations of the last 350 years.

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A picture of a utility-based crystalline silicon solar panel array

The Inevitable Energy Transition

10 Mar 2023

Our current insatiable appetite for energy has had direct ramifications on geopolitical tensions and triggered current and future climate disasters. It is only a question of time until we move towards sustainable and renewable…

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The evolution of the universe, if we could see it from the outside

How to find holes in the universe

28 Feb 2023

We cannot study the shape of the universe by looking at it from the outside. Many other mathematical settings also show this lack of an outside view. Geometry and Topology allow us to get our head around shape from an entirely…

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VIEW OF THE ARCO VALLEY IN THE TYROL, 1495 BY ALBRECHT DURER (1471-1528, ITALY)

Crossing the Alps in the Renaissance: German immigrants in northern Italy

21 Feb 2023

During times of war, religious tension, and political strife, people and goods still made their way across the Alps into northern Italy. Connections traversed geographical and social boundaries as people from all walks of life…

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List of books “Bought out of mr Churchill’s Study” (New Ledger Book, p.342)

‘Bought out of Mr Churchill’s study’: John Mill, the Old Library and the Churchill Family

14 Feb 2023

What a list of books in the Hall’s oldest record reveals about the construction of the Old Library collection, the beginnings of postgraduate study and a Principal’s attempts to ingratiate himself with an aristocr…

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International day of women and girls in science 2023

Celebrating International Day of Women and Girls in Science through the Library

10 Feb 2023

This International Day of Women and Girls in Science, the Library is exploring our collections to celebrate some of the women who have led the way through the male-dominated field of climate science.

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Image: Benefactors’ Book: initial letter for the entry recording John Rawlinson’s bequest to the Hall

Where there’s a will….

28 Oct 2022

How a bequest by Principal Rawlinson in his will of 1631 still pays out today

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Making and receiving impact in Nepal

28 Oct 2022

When I considered projects in my application for the Matt Greenwood Travel Scholarship, I worried I might not fully embrace Matt’s gifts of adventure, courage, and concern for others.

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Poem, Story & Scape in the Work of Kevin Crossley-Holland’

“He was my bridge to Oxford and beyond”: Kevin Crossley-Holland and Bruce Mitchell

24 Oct 2022

Aularian Kevin Crossley Holland is a poet, translator and re-teller of medieval poetry, romance, and folklore for all ages. However, his relationship with Old English got off to a rocky start until a sympathetic tutor and an ag…

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Habiti d'huomeni et donne venetiane, con la processione della Serma Signoria et altri particolari, cioè trionfi, feste et cerimonie publiche della nobilissima città di Venetia.

Papering over protest in sixteenth-century Venice

15 Jun 2022

Historians work on sources, but what can the absence of sources tell us?

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Snowdrops outside of the St Edmund Hall Library.

A Day in the Life at Teddy Hall Library

4 May 2022

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Rhys Thomas

Impacts of New Health Information on Health Behaviours

8 Mar 2022

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An artist's concept of how other habitable rocky planets in the universe might appear

What has Earth’s Magnetic Field Ever Done for Us?

16 Feb 2022

Is a magnetic field an essential criterion on the planet habitability list?

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Teddy Hall Library celebrates International Day of Women and Girls in Science

Celebrating International Day of Women and Girls in Science 2022

9 Feb 2022

Using the Library to celebrate and showcase St Edmund Hall’s own Women in Science.

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Rewiring the Brain

2 Feb 2022

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What is the most popular Christmas song of all time?

What is the most popular Christmas song of all time?

13 Dec 2021

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Alexandra Troubetzkoy (1910-1994) Front Quad in Snow (1966)

Teddy Hall at Christmas

7 Dec 2021

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By-Elections, 1821 Style

23 Nov 2021

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Dr Lee of Lambeth

Teddy Hall’s self-proclaimed Bishop of Dorchester

13 Oct 2021

A recent arrival in the Hall Archives is a scrapbook on the life of Dr Frederick George Lee, Aularian and Victorian “character”. He was a clergyman, an antiquarian, a Jacobite and the founder of the Order for Corp…

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Team in Northwest Kenya in April 2021

Uncovering invisible rivers in Kenya

21 Jul 2021

Some of the largest rivers on Earth are in the sky. Around the world, great streams of water vapour flow a few hundred metres above the ground while remaining invisible to people living below. These rivers play a fundamental ro…

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Is it Unjust for Multinational Corporations to Pay Taxes to Corrupt Regimes?

22 Jun 2021

In this short blogpost, I consider the issue of tax and corruption in the international tax arena.

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