Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Katie Murphy @manymanyplies.bsky.social · 6d

Obligatory Oxford-academic's-first-trip-to-the-Schwarzman photo.

A view askew of the geometrically complicated ceiling of the new Schwarzman Humanities building at Oxford.

Katie Murphy @manymanyplies.bsky.social · 7d

Its revival seems, well, timely. I should have advertised earlier but have been ill, & didn't know if I'd be able to make it. Very glad to say I will. I'm looking forward to talking about distraction, attention, & the necessity of boredom, now and in the seventeenth century.

Katie Murphy @manymanyplies.bsky.social · 7d

Scholars from Oxford, & poets & writers of more independent attachment, met to discuss & write theology, poetry, & natural knowledge. It thrived in the 1620s & 1630s, & was abrupted by the Civil Wars, in which Cary died: its eirenicism extinguished in the brute polarisation of the mid-century.

1 2

Katie Murphy @manymanyplies.bsky.social · 7d

The new Great Tew Circle revives the c17th reading & discussion group, engine of thinking on reasonable religion, peaceable controversy, & natural philosophy, wch met at the manor house of Lucius Cary, & involved Jonson, Hobbes, the Earl of Clarendon, Edmund Waller, Abraham Cowley, &c.

1

Katie Murphy @manymanyplies.bsky.social · 7d

Great Tew Circle redux! I will be giving a talk on *Saturday evening* at the parish church in the village of Great Tew, in the Cotswolds, under the title 'The Anxiety of Variety: Attention Crisis in the Seventeenth Century'. Come, if you can! www.charlbury.info/events/10338

The Great Tew Circle 2.0 | charlbury.info

www.charlbury.info

1

Katie Murphy @manymanyplies.bsky.social · 8d

This should be a blast! John Donne and architecture, cfp below.

Dr Leah Veronese @leahveronese.bsky.social · 8d

Very excited to be running this conference with Paul Norris. Delighted to have @mcculloughp.bsky.social as our keynote speaker. We can't wait to hear your ideas! Please share widely

Poster: detail from Lincoln's Inn stained glass window showing palatial buildings, with a forest covered landscape beyond. In the foreground are two men in hats and cloaks having a little chat. A dog runs towards them from the right. In the centre of the poster is a black circle containing the following text

TEXT:
Call for Papers on John Donne and Architecture
13th January 2026
Lincoln College, Oxford
Keynote Speaker: Professor Peter McCullough
Please send abstract of up to 250 words to Leah Veronese-Clucas (leah.veronese-clucas@univ.ox.ac.uk) & Paul Norris (paul.norris@bnc.ox.ac.uk) by 14th November 2025

Call for Papers

John Donne’s Architecture

Submission Deadline: 14th November 2025

Event Date: 13th January 2026, Lincoln College, Oxford

Keynote Speaker: Professor Peter McCullough.

We welcome 150–250 word abstracts for twenty-minute papers relating to any aspect of Donne and architecture from critics and historians of literature, architecture and related fields. Potential topics include (but are not limited to):

The use of buildings in rhetoric or the arts of memory.
Donne’s metaphorical use of architecture, as well as related disciplines such as geometry, cartography, and visual art.
The buildings in which Donne lived, worked and preached (e.g. the Chapel Royal, York House, St Paul’s Cathedral, Lincoln’s Inn Chapel, St Dunstan’s in the West, etc.) and their influence on his life and work.
Donne’s encounters with buildings on his travels through Europe.
The relationship of literary to architectural form.
Please send proposals or enquiries to Leah Veronese-Clucas (leah.veronese-clucas@univ.ox.ac.uk) and Paul Norris (paul.norris@bnc.ox.ac.uk).

1 4

Reposted by Katie Murphy

Georgina Wilson @georginaemw.bsky.social · 9d

Today is publication day for PAPER AND THE MAKING OF EARLY MODERN LITERATURE! Available in paper or digital form www.pennpress.org/978151282744... @pennpress.bsky.social

9 63 230

Katie Murphy @manymanyplies.bsky.social · 8d

Haven't followed Czech politics for ages, and now discover I have to get my head round parties and groupings called 'Motorists for Themselves', 'That was enough!', 'Stan' (acronym for 'Mayors and Independents'), and 'Together'. I already knew about 'YES' and the Pirates.

2

Katie Murphy @manymanyplies.bsky.social · 12d

New Scottish poetry magazine, ed. by poets Tom Docherty and Molly Vogel, seeks submissions! First issue spring 2026. (Scottish in that the editors are based in Scotland; poems of all kinds & origins considered: short & long; in verse or prose; formal & less so.)

www.arderythhouse.com

About

www.arderythhouse.com

2

Katie Murphy @manymanyplies.bsky.social · 13d

Louise Curran wrote a really great review of the new Cambridge ed of SCG in Cambridge Quarterly recently, 'Richardson's Punctilios': academic.oup.com/camqtly/arti...

Richardson’s Punctilios

In a letter to the poet Stephen Duck in 1741, Richardson met criticisms of his latest work-in-progress, Pamela in Her Exalted Condition (the socially eleva

academic.oup.com

2

Katie Murphy @manymanyplies.bsky.social · 15d

Okay maybe AI is great after all.

Zoe Drayson @zoedrayson.bsky.social · 16d

When a typo in your Google search leads to new and exciting philosophical positions

AI Overview: "Dental realism"refers to the philosophical debate about whether teeth exist independently of human perception, a concept rooted in metaphysical realism. While realism asserts an objective reality for teeth, idealist philosophies contend that teeth's existence is tied to our consciousness and perception. Philosophers use this idea, for example, to discuss the ethics of tooth extraction, examining whether a procedure impacts a real entity or merely a subjective experience.

4

Katie Murphy @manymanyplies.bsky.social · 15d

If the theme of the group can just be the items in the group, listed, then any four things is a group. I like the chutzpah, though it makes the game a lot harder.

4

Katie Murphy @manymanyplies.bsky.social · 18d

It is true that my copy of _Johann Heinrich Alsted, 1588-1638_ is unlikely to inspire an article on How Kathryn Murphy Read Her Hotson.

2

Katie Murphy @manymanyplies.bsky.social · 18d

It's possible you told me this in 2004.

1

Katie Murphy @manymanyplies.bsky.social · 18d

Long before 'cozzy livs' and 'platty jubes', Scots were suffering from the 'shakky trimmles'.

1 2

Reposted by Katie Murphy

The British Lichen Society @britishlichensociety.org.uk · Sep 5

An opportunity of a lifetime for budding lichenologists. The National Trust and the Royal Botanics, Edinburgh are offering a PAID lichen traineeship in #Scotland! The work programme looks fascinating and a great opportunity to develop skills. Deadline: 3/10/2025. www.asva.co.uk/jobs/trainee...

1 48 100

Katie Murphy @manymanyplies.bsky.social · 29d

What do people who don't use Bible Gateway use as a first stop when they want to compare multiple translations of the Bible, across multiple languages? Because this has just flung a spanner into my afternoon:

1 1

Reposted by Katie Murphy

John McCafferty @jdmccafferty.bsky.social · Sep 8

Margareta de Heer, Still Life with Roses, 1651

(Amsterdam Museum)

1 3 6

Katie Murphy @manymanyplies.bsky.social · Sep 8

If only I'd thought of that, responds Keir Starmer.

Headline: "Senior Labour figures tell Keir Starmer to stop making mistakes"

1 4

Reposted by Katie Murphy

John McCafferty @jdmccafferty.bsky.social · Sep 4

Still life of flowers & vases By Orsola Maddalena Caccia [born Theodora], 1596-1676 an artist and Ursuline nun who ran a studio that supported an Ursuline convent at Moncalvo, where she was abbess. (Dorotheum/private collection)

4 8

Katie Murphy @manymanyplies.bsky.social · Sep 4

Thinking about the weight we put on underlinings and marks in the margin of early modern books, as I revisit a book unopened for 15 years on my shelves, and have no idea how to interpret the marks I made or what I thought significant.

1 7

Katie Murphy @manymanyplies.bsky.social · Sep 2

To be fair, I have just read Bonjour Tristesse for the first time, and really liked it. So not all teenagers...!

1

Katie Murphy @manymanyplies.bsky.social · Sep 2

I too only read WH in adulthood -- might even have been in my 30s -- and thought: guys, grow UP.

2 4

Katie Murphy @manymanyplies.bsky.social · Sep 1

I always wonder if University College School has a kindergarten.

1 2

Katie Murphy @manymanyplies.bsky.social · Sep 1

I like this very much, except: aren't 'fragile' and 'expédier' words in French? Which raises the prospect that these are not accidental canonizations, but perfectly knowingly instantiated patrons of frangibility and haste...

1 7