Digital Humanities and the Quest for Academic Respectability

Intervention at Higher Education Academy Summit 'Towards a Pedagogy for the Digital Humanities', Lewes, 7 May 2014 Andrew Sanders, in his Short Oxford History of English Literature (2000), has outlined the ideological and social influences which shaped the emergence of the study of English as an academic subject in the nineteenth century....

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A Modern Memento Mori

It's that time and that moment when a laptop gives the greatest pleasure. It's late in the evening. You've cleared a lot of e-mails (although a terrifying number still remain), so you can indulge in some web surfing. There's a good track on Spotify and a glass of wine seems in order. Then, your hand catches the glass, and suddenly...

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Dennis the Paywall Menace Stalks the Archives

A story that hit the news this week was a report that the Prime Minister David Cameron is distantly related to the comedian Al Murray, and that they both had ancestors who worked for the East India Company. This news item was part of the publicity for the release online of 2.5 million genealogical records which are part of the India Office...

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Charles Babbage and King's College London

King's College London has the unfortunate distinction of having given away Charles Babbage's Difference Engine. The scientific instrument collections formed by George III and kept at Kew were presented to King's College in 1841 and displayed in the George III Museum in the Strand building, opened by Prince Albert in 1843. The displays...

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