“I’ve got a blank space, baby”: Untangling Organizational Strategies in Early Modern Manuscript Compilations

How do you organize the texts you copy into blank notebooks? In this blog, Holly Riach reflects on the manuscripts she consulted at the Huntington Library, California, and explores what a blank page can tell us about the production and organization of textual collections in early modern England.

Mocking the Monarch: What Do Memes About Queen Elizabeth II Have In Common With Unruly Spectators of Renaissance Spectacle?

Beowulf vs. Grettir: the 11th-century hero showdown you did need

We have all seen the Avengers, so we know who the strongest one is. But what about the heroes of old? What would happen if, let’s say, Beowulf, the great Geat warrior would have to fight against Grettir the Strong? What happens when Anglo-Saxon epic clashes against Icelandic sagas? Read to find out!

Whose words are they, anyway? Visiting 'Elizabeth and Mary: Royal Cousins, Rival Queens'

In this blog, Clodagh Murphy reflects on her recent visit to "Elizabeth and Mary: Royal Cousins, Rival Queens" at the British Library. The first exhibition to consider both queens jointly, "Elizabeth and Mary" tells their remarkable story through the queens’ ‘own words’.

Enlightened Spaces: The eighteenth-century interior and the study of decorative arts at Leiden University

The University has long fostered the study of the decorative arts and domestic culture and has produced several notable specialists in this field. A new series of public lectures on the eighteenth-century interior organised by Alexander Dencher continues this tradition.

#ArchiveEmotion: my eighteenth century telenovela

In a previous post, I mentioned the slow-pace of working with archives. Reading through metres of paper is however anything but boring. Besides finding material for our research we often find extremely interesting stories. Think of it as a paper telenovela of people that lived hundreds of years ago.

Where have all the women gone? Challenging structural patriarchy and rethinking feminist art history

Where have all the women gone? It can be difficult, sometimes, to find evidence of female participation in the arts and culture of the early modern period. Catherine Powell explores how we can locate women and their participation by asking different questions.

LUCAS Explains #11: How would you complain about the weather if you woke up in the Middle Ages?

With the arrival of autumn, the weather has become rainier. Complaining about such bad weather seems to be a Dutch tradition. How would you have complained about it, though, if you had lived in the year 900? Sander Stolk explains how you can find out using newly available digital tooling.

Looking at the Past: The Task of the Theatre Historian

What would it be like to travel to the past and watch a production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet at the Royal Theatre Drury Lane in 1812? Fernanda Korovsky Moura reflects on how the theatre can help us recreate and understand the past – without a time machine!