St Edmund Hall Blog
Research
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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Letting the dead rest? Ethical encounters in the archives
12 Mar 2025
A day in the archives in Antwerp is transformed by the discovery of handfuls of human hair among an otherwise ordinary stack of court records.
How your social media posts can help behavioural ecologists understand wildlife
30 Oct 2024
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…
Melting Pots, Salad Bowls and Kaleidoscopes: Unpacking Metaphors for Multiculturalism
20 Feb 2024
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.
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.
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…
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…
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…
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.
Papering over protest in sixteenth-century Venice
15 Jun 2022
Historians work on sources, but what can the absence of sources tell us?
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?
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…
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.
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.
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”.
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.
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.
Developing a Next Generation SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine
23 Mar 2021
Discussion on the need for and research leading to a next generation vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 capable of targeting multiple variants.
Understanding Endometriosis
15 Mar 2021
Endometriosis is one such condition, affecting an estimated 1.6 million women in the UK alone and 190 million worldwide.
Reading Gone Awry
9 Mar 2021
We’ve all done it—used a word incorrectly, believing it means one thing when it really means another: saying “disinterested” when we mean “lacking in interest,” or “prostrate…
What Will Genomics Mean for You?
3 Mar 2021
The first human genome was sequenced nearly 20 years ago, but what impact will this have for you? Understanding the information in our genes is already helping to decipher the molecular basis of rare diseases. Now genomic…
Are European Universities Building Alliances as Rhizomes?
24 Feb 2021
Using the concept of rhizome to examine the newly-established European University alliances and their influence on the formation of European students and re-formation of the idea of University.