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.

Filter Blog Posts

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.

View Blog Post

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.

View Blog Post

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…

View Blog Post

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…

View Blog Post

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…

View Blog Post

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…

View Blog Post

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.

View Blog Post

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

View Blog Post

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.

View Blog Post

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…

View Blog Post

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?

View Blog Post

Snowdrops outside of the St Edmund Hall Library.

A Day in the Life at Teddy Hall Library

4 May 2022

View Blog Post

Rhys Thomas

Impacts of New Health Information on Health Behaviours

8 Mar 2022

View Blog Post

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?

View Blog Post

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.

View Blog Post

Rewiring the Brain

2 Feb 2022

View Blog Post

What is the most popular Christmas song of all time?

What is the most popular Christmas song of all time?

13 Dec 2021

View Blog Post

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

Teddy Hall at Christmas

7 Dec 2021

View Blog Post

By-Elections, 1821 Style

23 Nov 2021

View Blog Post

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…

View Blog Post

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…

View Blog Post

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.

View Blog Post

The Old Library with scaffolding on its roof

‘For books in the Library’ or the uncertain fate of £10: An account of donations by Francis Cherry and Henry Partridge

16 Jun 2021

‘For books in the Library’ or the uncertain fate of £10: An account of donations by Francis Cherry and Henry Partridge

View Blog Post

A bug’s life: a route to sustainability

9 Jun 2021

View Blog Post

Cells Diagram of biological and Sim cells

Microbes and the Biological World

2 Jun 2021

View Blog Post

Greenland icevap

No veil of uncertainty at COP26, please!

25 May 2021

The UK will be hosting the next UN Climate Change Conference this year, and we need to ensure the policymakers are fully onboard.

View Blog Post

Professor Paul Matthews

What starts Alzheimer’s disease?

19 May 2021

Alzheimer’s disease may start with a  “…. toxic interaction between microglial genetic susceptibility, aging and a long-term unhealthy balance of blood fats in the body”.

View Blog Post

The Future of Finance

12 May 2021

View Blog Post

Descartes

Descartes goes to Hollywood

5 May 2021

What possible connection could there be between the philosopher René Descartes, androids, zombies, and Hollywood? More than you might have originally thought.

View Blog Post

Reconstructing d’Holbach

28 Apr 2021

Begun in 2018, Digital d’Holbach will provide the scholarly community with the first critical edition of the complete works of one of the most important thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment.

View Blog Post