Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

David Francis Taylor @davidftaylor.bsky.social · Mar 4

Anyone else really struggling with hay fever? I always seem to struggle around this time. Whatever pollen is in the air doesn't agree with me.

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Julie Park @juliepark.bsky.social · Mar 2

Excited to deliver my paper--based on fresh work for next book Writing’s Maker—"Hester Thrale Piozzi's Minced Meat for Pyes: Scrapbook Composition as Life Writing"--to
@oxford18thc.bsky.social next Tuesday. Many thanks to @ballasterros.bsky.social and @davidftaylor.bsky.social for the invitation

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David Francis Taylor @davidftaylor.bsky.social · Feb 18

Can't wait. All welcome!

Faculty of English, University of Oxford @engfac.bsky.social · Feb 17

We're delighted to welcome Barney Ronay @barneyronay.bsky.social, Chief Sports Writer for The Guardian, to the English Faculty on 3 March. He'll be in conversation w/ Prof David Taylor discussing everything from the politics of sport to the changing nature of Britain’s media landscape. All welcome!

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Faculty of English, University of Oxford @engfac.bsky.social · Feb 17

We're delighted to welcome Barney Ronay @barneyronay.bsky.social, Chief Sports Writer for The Guardian, to the English Faculty on 3 March. He'll be in conversation w/ Prof David Taylor discussing everything from the politics of sport to the changing nature of Britain’s media landscape. All welcome!

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Oxford 18th-Century Literature & Culture @oxford18thc.bsky.social · Feb 9

This Tuesday we'll be hearing @gabriellabird.bsky.social & @davidftaylor.bsky.social talk about reviving Centlivre's The Busy Body in a collab between @orangetreetheatre.bsky.social @creationtheatre.bsky.social & Oxford's Cultural Programme.

5.30 @ Seminar Room East, Mansfield College. All welcome!

Poster for Susanna Centlivre's The Busy Body, showing a masked eighteenth-century woman.

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Chloe Wilcox @sadpphicstanza.bsky.social · Jan 25

I (and, I think, the whole audience) had such fun at last night’s performance of ‘The Busy Body’ by Susanna Centlivre, put together by @davidftaylor.bsky.social, @creationtheatre.bsky.social, @orangetreetheatre.bsky.social!! It was kinda like a 1709 version of The Importance of Being Earnest :D

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David Francis Taylor @davidftaylor.bsky.social · Jan 25

Thanks, Chloe!

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Oxford 18th-Century Literature & Culture @oxford18thc.bsky.social · Jan 15

We're excited to reveal our programme for the term, featuring @davidftaylor.bsky.social, Gabriella Bird Katharine Boehm,
@juliepark.bsky.social, and Peter Sabor.

As always, all welcome!

Week 4: Tues. 11 Feb., 5.30-7pm
DAVID TAYLOR (Oxford) and director GABRIELLA BIRD
Reviving Susanna Centlivre’s The Busy Body for the 21st-century Stage

Week 6: Tues. 25 Feb., 5.30-7pm
KATHARINA BOEHM
(University of Passau, Germany)
Tangible Pasts: Antiquarian Culture and the Novel in the Eighteenth Century

Week 7: Tues. 4 March., 5.30-7pm
JULIE PARK (Penn State University)
Hester Thrale Piozzi’s Minced Meat for Pyes: Scrapbook Composition as Life Writing
* Joint event with the Romanticism Seminar*

Week 8: Tues. 11 March, 12.30-1.45pm
PETER SABOR (McGill University)
“The capital pen of a sister author”: Reading Frances Burney with Jane Austen
* Sandwich lunch provided*

Weeks 4, 6, 8: Seminar Room East, Mansfield College
Week 7: Massey Room, Balliol College

All welcome.

SEMINAR LEADERS:
Ros Ballaster, Christine Gerrard, Nicole Pohl, Tess Somervell, David Taylor, Carly Watson, Abigail Williams.

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David Francis Taylor @davidftaylor.bsky.social · Jan 12

The ruins of Godstow Abbey amid the frost and freezing fog.

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Inscription: the Journal of Material Text @inscriptionjournal.bsky.social · Jan 8

Inscription issue 6 (out spring 2026) is all about cuts / tears. Here is our call for papers. Talk to us if you have an idea for an article!

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David Francis Taylor @davidftaylor.bsky.social · Jan 2

Are they specifically targeting theatre scholars?! 😆

David Francis Taylor @davidftaylor.bsky.social · Jan 2

Back in 2022 Wiley apologized and said their IT dept was aware of the card block issue and were working hard to solve it.

I can only assume those IT people at Wiley still working hard.

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David Francis Taylor @davidftaylor.bsky.social · Jan 2

Does anyone else have trouble renewing their BSECS (@bsecs.bsky.social) membership with Wiley?

This is the 3rd year in a row that my card has been declined and the process to rectify this is time consuming and infuriating.

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David Francis Taylor @davidftaylor.bsky.social · Dec 30

Just read Ciaran Carson's Fishing for Amber.

It's an astonishing book. A masterpiece. I can't believe it's not better known.

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David Francis Taylor @davidftaylor.bsky.social · Dec 19

This sonnet by Gillian Clarke. Beautiful.

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Chris Louttit @drchrislouttit.bsky.social · Dec 14

Good to see Michael John Goodman's The Charles Dickens Illustrated Gallery getting some festive attention. Completely open-access & reusable & remixable & with a range of Dickens's illustrators beyond the familiar original ones including Fred Barnard, Charles Green & Harry Furniss 👇.

Explore an Online Archive of 2,100+ Rare Illustrations from Charles Dickens’ Novels

As Christmastime approaches, few novelists come to mind as readily as Charles Dickens. This owes mainly, of course, to A Christmas Carol, and even more so to its many adaptations, most of which draw i...

www.openculture.com

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Emma Smith @oldfortunatus.bsky.social · Dec 13

Brush up your Shakespeare! Read along with our monthly webinar or just drop in to hear the conversation: english.web.ox.ac.uk/english-facu...
Please repost!

English Faculty / Oxford World's Classics Shakespeare Webinar Series with Professor Emma Smith

english.web.ox.ac.uk

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David Francis Taylor @davidftaylor.bsky.social · Dec 10

Definitely 'waved'.

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David Francis Taylor @davidftaylor.bsky.social · Dec 8

Possibly my favourite episode.

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Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social · Dec 7

This poem by Mary Robinson, published in The Morning Post in 1800, addressed to that newspaper's "Type," really must be the only poem about a typeface (as well as in a typeface) written in the #19thc.
(But, gosh, I would be happy to hear of others.)
Here are the first 2 stanzas.
#BookHistory

To the New Type of the Morning Post (27 January 1800)
Ye Sable Legions, here you stand/ A thousand Subjects to command!/ All dimly clad in leaden mail,/ To triumph o'er your Victim pale!/To blur the white and spotless scene,/ And sport your Columns dark between! Ye Sable Legions! Fate decrees// That, 'midst your triumphs, you should please;/ That Mirth and Wisdom should combine/ To regulate each blacking line;/That Wit should in your Ranks appear, And Beauty drop the frequent tear,/When tales of tnender sorrow prove/ That Souls of Lead can yield to Love."

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David Francis Taylor @davidftaylor.bsky.social · Dec 6

Oxford folk - get yourselves to the North Wall to see Creation Theatre's Christmas show, Hansel & Grettel.

It's fabulous. Took our 8yo this evening and we booked to go again as soon as we got home. The final medley is worth the ticket price alone.

Tickets:
creationtheatre.co.uk/show/hansel-...

Hansel & Grettel - Creation Theatre

Family Christmas show at The North Wall Arts Centre, Oxford from Creation Theatre, specialists in site specific and digital theatre.

creationtheatre.co.uk

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David Francis Taylor @davidftaylor.bsky.social · Dec 5

Pringles are biscuits, not crisps (potato chips).

For the second time this week, a student has blown my mind.

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David Francis Taylor @davidftaylor.bsky.social · Dec 3

Did you know that Leigh Hunt kept a *Hair Book*? Yes, a *Hair Book*: an album of locks belonging to literary greats.

And the good folk @ransomcenter.bsky.social have digitized it.

Thanks to my student @sadpphicstanza.bsky.social for telling me about this.

CONTENTdm

hrc.contentdm.oclc.org

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Bodleian Libraries @bodleian.ox.ac.uk · Dec 2

For those who missed the press around the William Blake discoveries (mentioned in our previous post), catch up here: www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/about/media/...

Engravings discovered on reverse of copper plates thought to be the earliest produced by William Blake

www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk

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Richard Ovenden @richove.bsky.social · Dec 2

Luminous Port Meadow

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