Topic description and stories

An illustration from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, illustrated by John Tenniel

Alice through the ages: revisiting a classic at 150

14 Sep 2015

A five-day programme of events at Homerton College, Cambridge, will celebrate the publication, 150 years ago, of Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice in Wonderland...

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Words for mud and mountain, wind and wetland: answers on a postcard, please

01 Apr 2015

‘Dumberdash’ is an old Cheshire term for a short but violent storm. A ‘lumpenhole’ is a deep trench for fluid farmyard waste. The man who remembers...

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Travellers under open skies: writers, artists and gypsies

30 Oct 2014

In her new book Representations of the Gypsy in the Romantic Period , Sarah Houghton-Walker provides a fascinating insight into writers’ and artists...

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Image from a 14th century manuscript of the Romance of the rose, one of the best-known texts of the Middle Ages

Conquering a continent: how the French language circulated in Britain and medieval Europe

22 Jan 2014

A 13th-century manuscript of Arthurian legend once owned by the Knights Templar is one of the star attractions of a new exhibition opening today at...

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SOCCs appeal: online learning versus the classroom

13 Aug 2013

MOOCs – or massive open online courses – have been touted a cure for the education sector’s ills by some, but merely the latest symptom of it by...

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Cambridge launches first Creative Writing degree

26 Mar 2013

The University of Cambridge’s first Master of Studies (MSt) in Creative Writing will explore the art of writing in all its many forms and guises, not...

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Dickens letter

Ever your affectionate Father, Charles Dickens

07 Feb 2012

A letter written in 1868 by Charles Dickens, the bicentenary of whose birth falls today, to his son Henry, who had newly arrived at Cambridge...

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Poet Clare Holtham and Uzbek chieftain in Afghanistan, early 1970s

For lust of knowing what should not be known

12 Nov 2011

Clare Holtham (1948-2010) had a huge enthusiasm for learning. After a troubled childhood, which led to a spell of homelessness, she became an...

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