Signs of Resistance: Punctuation Politics in Nineteenth-Century Arabic
Signs of Resistance: punctuation politics in nineteenth-century arabic I recently introduced myself to an online editor as ‘a researcher of English literature in the UK, working on punctuation. Originally, this was a project on brackets in Renaissance writing, but I’ve been sucked into so many rabbit hole vortices of curious punctuation that I guess I […]
Hear ye, hear ye, Greengrocer’s, breathe a sigh of relief
hear ye, hear ye, Greengrocer’s, breathe a sigh of relief August saw a lot of things the world did not need, such as anti-corona-mask protests everywhere, the Trumpian banshee Kimberley Guilfoyle screaming her head off about the best which was yet to come, and her husband’s self-published 29,99 dollar book on the apocalyptic plans of commie candidate […]
Still Library Isolated: Another Punctuation Book Review
still library isolated: another punctuation book review Libraries are open now, that is, you can go pick up pre-ordered books. I live a little out of town, so I’m just getting my long list ready, and when the day comes to cycle a few tens of kilometres and I pick up my darlings…I shall be […]
‘A sad hand at your punctuation’: If writer’s don’t care, why should we?
‘A sad hand at your punctuation’: if writers don’t care, why should we? When I lived in Scotland while doing my PhD, I once threw a 90s music party for which people were asked to come dressed in what that era requires: garish make-up, pigtails, baggy shirts, large loud patterns. My flatmates didn’t believe it […]
Back to Basics: What is Punctuation?
back to basics: what is punctuation? I’ve been working on an encyclopaedia entry on punctuation in literature in the past couple of days, and it’s been a lot of fun, thinking about – well, so many things: With punctuation, you need to unpick its relationship between rhetoric and grammar, that it has a perpetual foot in […]
The Scandalization of Punctuation: Dot. Dot. Dot.
Back in early autumn last year, I came across the Brilliant Club, a charity which sends researchers into schools, teaching their work to 14-year olds. The groups are small, and half of the participants come from less advantaged backgrounds. The kids visit your institution at the beginning and at the end of the seven-weeks course, write […]
Splendid Isolation Book Two: Punctuation and Progress
As we continue social distancing from others and working at home in our pyjamas (welcome to the life of an academic), I’m continuing my punctuation book review with a handy little quarto by Norwegian media researcher Bard Bord Michalsen. Signs of Civilization: How Punctuation Changed History (2019) intrigued me for its provocative title. Apart from the inevitable […]
You have a Point: Typography and Punctuation in Early Modern Texts
It’s conference time! One can never start too early. For the SRS 2020 in Norwich, I’m proposing a panel on those marks on pages which are not words (working title above!). I posted a call for papers on Twitter a couple of days ago, and would you know it, for once that thing did its networking magic, […]
and death i think is no parenthesis
So, my fellowship starts next month, but I’m giving a paper on the project at my old uni in Geneva, and started some research. I’ve done a fair bit of that already, since the brackets were an alternative PhD project, and have been with me for many years now; but it’s alwas nice to return […]