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Fifteen Eighty Four

Academic perspectives from Cambridge University Press

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Romanticism and the Corona Virus

I have been asking myself what wisdom or solace the Romantic poets might offer us during this time of death and fear and self-isolation. We won’t be climbing Mont Blanc or Mount Snowden anytime soon,...

Michael Ferber | 13 May 2020

The Pandemic, as seen from the First World War

Endless war. I caught onto this phrase several decades ago, already several decades into my work on the literature and history of the First World War. There, as the conflict wore on, the phrase gained...

Vincent Sherry | 13 May 2020

Behavioural Science and the UK’s Initial Response to the Coronavirus Pandemic

In the early stages of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s strategy to tackle the coronavirus pandemic, much was made of, and much criticism was directed at, the advisory input from behavioural scientists....

Adam Oliver | 13 May 2020

Pandemic: One Traditional Approach

There is an image, associated with the covid-19 pandemic, that I am unable to forget among the countless reports of the crisis one encounters every day in newspapers and online. It is not an image of...

Frederick Neuhouser | 13 May 2020

Songs for a Sad Season

Singer-songwriter John Prine fell ill with the Covid-19 virus in March and eventually succumbed to it on April 7. He was a balladeer of the common man, a poet of everyday life with a knack for folding...

James Chandler | 13 May 2020

In Search for an Anchor: Using international law to discuss transitional governance

A common language and forum for debate on state transitions is essential today. Our age is indeed characterised by the increasing involvement of diplomatic actors in the constitutional and transitional...

Emmanuel H. D. De Groof | 13 May 2020

Hoarding in Times of Corona: Thoughts on Storage, Stuff, and the Future

Toilet paper has become the unlikely posterchild of the coronavirus. Toilet paper, and its absence. Much has been written about what seems, at first sight, an unlikely association: after all, diarrhea...

Astrid Van Oyen | 13 May 2020

South Africa

Tucked away in my North Yorkshire home, in the surreal tranquility of Newton-on-Ouse—since the floods of February and March a little welcome sunshine has brought out the bluebells to replace the daffodils...

David Attwell | 12 May 2020

Thursday

Last week my fifteen year old son wrote a short piece of fiction, entitled ‘Thursday’, that reflected on how strangely anonymous the days become when we are...

Peter Boxall | 12 May 2020

London

London, under the conditions of social isolation, has been turned inside out. Its centre is empty; its peripheries are full of people. The streets of the city’s suburbs, in the unseasonable...

Matthew Beaumont | 12 May 2020

Pandemic: All for Nothing? Or Learning Opportunity?

Sooner or later, our pandemic triggers a heartfelt question from its reflective victims: Why us? Of course, we can sketch a biological answer in terms of viral mutation and transmission, but that only...

Paul K. Moser | 12 May 2020

Waiting for the Zombies

For years Hollywood has been filming the viral apocalypse, and now at last we seem to be trapped in it—though our virus is not as fast-acting or as deadly as those on film. Nor is it as interesting...

H. Porter Abbott | 12 May 2020