This interactive lecture is a chance to learn about and to work with playbills from Georgian England. These documents advertised the performance of plays and provide a fascinating window onto theatrical culture in the second half of the eighteenth century. Together, we'll think through how these ephemeral documents were used, their value as historical evidence,...

Tickets now available for zoom option only.   This first Lunar Lecture of 2023 will explore the notebooks of the early nineteenth-century chemist Sir Humphry Davy, best known for his miners' safety lamp, known as the Davy lamp. Professor Sharon Ruston is leading a research council funded project to transcribe all of Davy's 75 surviving...

Humour plays a big part in how we communicate with each other and is an important way in which we form and maintain relationships. In this lecture I will draw on some key ideas in linguistics to explore how the language of comic literature interacts with our knowledge of the world. This in turn enables...