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...writing for us, a curious posterity; we can delight in the astonishing completeness of their records but must still be very careful about how we interpret them. In the other sections we will look at two pieces of evidence and invite you to have a go at analysing them critically. We can begin to answer the questions posed here from the evidence in the programmes; but...

...writing about “primitives”, they were also intrigued by elements of their own culture, in particular “wild” and “primitive” practices and cognitive operations, based not in some far-off distant shore or in some time before time, but right in their midst, in the delirium of Romanticism, superstitious “folk” traditions and more. All kinds of anxieties about...

...writing of the words and the composition of the tune now inseparable from them. William Williams’ hymns were a staple of Welsh-language Christian worship right through the intervening period, while the Peter Williams’ translation of this hymn was included in many English language hymnals in Wales and beyond. Among Welsh-speaking congregations, a range of tunes have...

...write? What started as amateur history research expanded, and now I chair Wilfred Owen’s Edinburgh 1917-2017, a literary community celebrating the centenary of the poet’s time in Edinburgh. Looking at Owen through the lens of the city has led to a decade of research and thrown up some interesting questions. Not least about the meeting between Wilfred Owen, Siegfried...

...writing career extended from the 1770s, when Enlightenment writing was at its height, to his death in 1832, by which time Romanticism was in full flood. Schubert's important work was concentrated into a period of 15 years at most. Goethe for many years enjoyed esteem and status beyond that of any literary figure in Europe. Schubert was, until long after his death,...

...writing my second book at the moment, which pushes forward my interest in wartime endurance and resilience. This one is focused on smoking in wartime British society and culture during the period c. 1850 to c. 1950. I’m looking at smoking from as many angles as I can within this context, including the economics of tobacco supply, the everyday experience of smoking on...