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Dr Michael Hrebeniak describes himself as inveterately curious about people and places. His fascination for a messy patch of Cambridge, best known for its traffic jams and retail park, has led him to create with words and film ‘a deep map’ of the layers of human experience on the fringes of the city. 

In her new book Representations of the Gypsy in the Romantic Period, Sarah Houghton-Walker provides a fascinating insight into writers’ and artists’ portrayals of wanderers. Her study focuses on a period when gypsies’ fragile place in the landscape, and on the margins of society, came increasingly under threat.  

A symposium taking place on Tuesday (23 September 2014) at Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Botanic Garden will unite artists, writers, scientists and literary scholars to look at the poet John Clare’s close engagement with the natural environment as a botanist as well as poet.

̽��ֱ��Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman turned a Yorkshire clergyman into a literary celebrity.  Three hundred years after his birth on 24 November 1713, Laurence Sterne’s quirky take on the novel continues to inspire. Dr Mary Newbould explores Sterne’s lasting impact.

CS Lewis, creator of some of the most-loved children’s stories and also a scholar of medieval and early modern literature, died half a century ago on 22 November. A scholarship to be set up in his name will support an outstanding graduate to study at Cambridge ̽��ֱ��

American Civil War poetry that sheds light on a neglected chapter of the era’s literary history has been recovered and made freely available online after 150 years.

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s first Master of Studies (MSt) in Creative Writing will explore the art of writing in all its many forms and guises, not just novel writing, according to Course Director Dr Sarah Burton.

Don’t miss the chance to learn about the rich cultures of the early British Isles in a series of free talks and readings at the Faculty of English, taking place this Saturday (3 November) as part of Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Festival of Ideas.

Is tragedy the perfect dramatic form for our current predicament? Or has the classic idea of catharsis through viewing the suffering of others become much more problematic in an age of 24/7 news and the internet? An event at this year's Hay Festival will investigate.

Over the past few years, the genre of ‘nature writing’ has seen a new sense of urgency, fostered by a growing awareness of a natural world under pressure. Dr Robert Macfarlane, from the Faculty of English, believes that writers have played, and continue to play, a central role in conservation by engaging our hearts and our minds.