̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Department of Modern and Medieval Languages

Ukraine’s cultural heritage faces destruction

fpjl2 — Tue, 15 Mar 2022 15:55:11 +0000

Ukraine has a cultural inheritance that has outlasted atrocities and Soviet oppression, writes Dr Olenka Pevny. We must ensure it survives Russia's brutal invasion.

Mind Over Chatter: What is the future?

ns480 — Thu, 27 May 2021 13:22:48 +0000

Season 2, episode 1

This second series of Mind Over Chatter is all about the future - and in this first episode we’re going to be considering what the future even is… Have you ever wondered how time works? It turns out, the answer is a lot more complicated than we thought.

Join our wondering and wonderful conversation with philosopher of science Dr Matt Farr, whose work focuses particularly on what it means for time to have a direction, professor of psychology Nicky Clayton, who looks at the evolution and development of intelligence in non-verbal animals and pre-verbal children, and professor of linguistics and philosophy, Kasia Jaszczolt whose research interests combine semantics, pragmatics, and the metaphysics of time

We’ll be talking about everything from physics to linguistics… and from broken eggs to Einstein’s theory of relativity.

Subscribe to Mind Over Chatter

Key points

[04:28] - Does time actually go from past to present to future? And does time really ‘flow’?

[09:53] - How do B-theorists deal with entropy? Can you un-break an egg?

[14:12] - Recap of the first portion of the episode, reviewing A-theory, B-theory and C-theory of time

[18:58] - How the mind understands the subjective concept of time

[27:11] - ̽��ֱ��Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and how the way you talk about language affects the way you perceive and think about things

[30:21] - Recap of the second portion of the episode

[34:02] - How do the mental and linguistic concepts around time fit with philosophical concepts and physics of time?

[45:46] - Is there a conflict between the psychological and linguistic models of time and the way physics handles time?

[48:20] - Recap of the last portion of the episode

Mind Over Chatter: ̽��ֱ��Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Podcast

Cambridge to launch Polish Studies programme

ag236 — Fri, 14 Jul 2017 09:54:26 +0000

̽��ֱ��signing will mark the grant of 15 million złotys (approximately £3.1 million), allocated to the ̽��ֱ�� of Warsaw by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education, to endow in perpetuity a Polish Studies Programme at Cambridge.

̽��ֱ��programme will provide opportunities for research collaboration, as well as teaching in Polish language, literature and culture.

̽��ֱ��programme’s research output will be complemented by a series of high-profile public events that will aim to stimulate research in Polish culture and society, and promote greater understanding of Poland’s role in European history as well as its position as a rising economic power.
̽��ֱ��new initiative will build on the success of the existing four-year pilot programme in Polish Studies at the ̽��ֱ��, led by Dr Stanley Bill of Cambridge’s Department of Slavonic Studies and supported by the Foundation for Polish Science (FNP), the M.B. Grabowski Fund, the Zdanowich Fund and Cambridge’s School of Arts and Humanities.

Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, Vice-Chancellor of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, signed the agreement with the Rector of the ̽��ֱ�� of Warsaw, Professor Marcin Pałys.

Professor Martin Millett, Head of the School of Arts and Humanities at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “We are delighted to be strengthening this relationship with our colleagues in Poland, which is not only of strategic importance to the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, but of significant import at this time in the history of Europe.”

“ ̽��ֱ��continuity of Polish Studies at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge is an opportunity for both parties to develop teaching and research cooperation,” said Assistant Professor Maciej Duszczyk, Vice Rector for Research at the ̽��ֱ�� of Warsaw. He added: “An Advisory Board for the new Polish Studies programme at Cambridge –consisting of representatives from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, the ̽��ֱ�� of Warsaw, and the Foundation for Polish Science—will be tasked with setting the framework for our collaboration.”

̽��ֱ��agreement was concluded with the support of Poland’s Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

In the autumn, representatives of both universities will meet in Warsaw to take part in an event to mark the enhanced collaboration.

Polish language, literature and culture will be a permanent feature of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s research and teaching following the signing, today, of an agreement with the ̽��ֱ�� of Warsaw.

We are delighted to be strengthening this relationship with our colleagues in Poland, which is not only of strategic importance to the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, but of significant import at this time in the history of Europe.

Prof Martin Millett

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

To the death

amb206 — Mon, 13 Jul 2015 10:34:48 +0000

Two of the most famous duels in English literature take place at the beginning and end of that giant among novels, Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa.

In the first encounter, Robert Lovelace, Clarissa’s would-be suitor, is challenged to a duel by her brother, James Harlowe. Their antipathy dates back to a “College-begun” tiff and has been inflamed by Lovelace’s interest in Clarissa and her sisters. During their bout, Lovelace has the chance to kill Harlowe but “gives him his life”. ̽��ֱ��incident helps to establish Lovelace, “a finished libertine”, as a man who lives his life as a sort of extended duel, continually challenging fate itself.

As the book draws to a close, Clarissa’s cousin William Morden seeks to avenge her death in a duel with Lovelace. In doing so, Morden ignores Clarissa’s pleas that “vengeance is God’s province” and that her good-natured cousin should not risk losing his life to a guilty man. Letters are exchanged as the details of the duel are fixed; rapiers are chosen over pistols. When Morden kills Lovelace, the villain perishes but the victor risks carrying a moral burden that will never leave him. ̽��ֱ��lack of a winner is one of the great paradoxes of the duel.

In Touché: ̽��ֱ��Duel in Literature, Dr John Leigh (Medieval and Modern Languages) explores expositions of duelling in three centuries of writing. ̽��ֱ��first ever book devoted exclusively to the depiction of duelling in fiction, drama and poetry, Touché is pan-European in its scope and scholarly in its unpacking of contests that range from the comic stand-offs between Sir Lucius O’Trigger and Captain Jack Absolute in Sheridan’s ̽��ֱ��Rivals to the elegantly orchestrated cut and thrust of Dumas’s musketeers.

When Richardson wrote Clarissa, in the mid-1700s, duelling had long been illegal in Britain. With beautiful irony, laws renewed over the centuries made it a practice punishable by death. Arguments against duelling shifted over the centuries: framed in the 17th century as a theological wrong, it was condemned as barbarous (and non-classical) in the 18th century, and, finally, in the 19th century as an unseemly display of primitive urges. In his famous 1841 study of fashionable delusions, Charles Mackay likened duellists to “two dogs who tear each other for a bone, or two bantams fighting on a dunghill for the love of some beautiful hen”.

But its appeal endured, in literature as in life. Duels feature in the works of dozens of British writers: Tobias Smollett was prodigiously fond of duels (his sword-happy characters include the wonderfully named Roderick Random and Peregrine Pickle) as were Sir Walter Scott, William Thackeray and GK Chesterton. Among the many French writers intrigued by duelling are Molière, Hugo and Maupassant. In Russian literature, Anton Chekhov and Alexander Pushkin (the latter an inveterate duellist) are masters in the telling of stories in which the duel plays a pivotal part.

̽��ֱ��sheer theatricality of the duel makes it an irresistible literary device, whether to demonstrate a gentleman’s valour in facing down a rogue or to mock the posturing of a foolish buck. ̽��ֱ��richness of the drama lies in the stage directions: the count-down to the allotted hour, the scene at dawn or dusk, the pacing out of the exact distance between opponents, the checking of weapons, and the sobbing of bystanders. ̽��ֱ��deeper fascination, for the reader, is with the process by which words become deeds and the freedom of the nobleman is enmeshed in an utterly inexorable, irrevocable process.

Duelling is a posh pursuit, imbued with notions of privilege and sportsmanship. Fencing and swordsmanship, like dancing and riding, were accomplishments that defined the wellborn young man. Likewise, many of the most celebrated bouts in fiction depict noble combatants seeking to uphold or defend family honour against slur or slight. As Leigh writes, the duellist is the “antithesis of the bourgeois, because he fights not for gain from his adversary but to declare who or what he is”.

But there are notable exceptions. Charles Dickens, most of whose characters are working or middle class, incorporates duels in several of his novels. In Pickwick Papers, duels generally assume the form of a comic set piece. “A duel in Ipswich!... Nothing of the kind can be contemplated in this town,” says the magistrate, summoned to halt plans for a confrontation between Samuel Pickwick and Peter Magnus. In Nicholas Nickleby, the protagonists are highborn but the message to the reader is that all life hangs on a thread. ̽��ֱ��tragedy of Lord Frederick Verisopht’s death, at the hand of Sir Mulberry Hawk, is set against the majesty of the rising sun and the running river - and the “twenty tiny lives” present on every blade of grass.

Leigh divides his text into themes, slotting duels into categories of ‘comical’, ‘poignant’, ‘judicial’, ‘romantic’ and ‘grotesque’. In a chapter devoted to the ‘paradoxes of the duel’, he explores the incompatibility of a pursuit steeped in style and swagger with the seriousness of its likely outcome – the finality of death. ̽��ֱ��elegant language of duelling, sometimes couched in French, and its insistence on carefully regulated protocol, seemingly elevates it from the notion of brutal murder. But, in the end, the calculated nature of duelling is perhaps even more chilling.

̽��ֱ��noblest of duelling weapons is the sword. Firearms bring a certain sense of anonymity; sometimes they gain an identity all of their own. In his poem Eugene Onegin, Pushkin describes in steely detail the mechanisms of the pistols loaded by Onegin and Lenski. “ ̽��ֱ��weapon,” writes Leigh, “acquires a sinister life of its own, as one action leads mechanistically and remorselessly to another, before the final, fateful event is triggered.” In stark contrast, as Lenski’s life ebbs away, the poet turns to nature to describe the slow fall of snow and the sudden grip of cold.

̽��ֱ��slaughter that took place in the muddy trenches of the First World War eclipsed the aristocratic notion of duelling as a test of nerve and a clean way of settling scores. But single combat remained, for some, an idealised form of warfare. Leigh writes that the Australian Spitfire pilot Richard Hillary recounts in his book ̽��ֱ��Last Enemy that: “In a fighter plane, I believe, we have found a way to return to war as it ought to be, war which is individual combat between two people, in which one either kills or is killed.”

Duels have been considered anachronistic for some four hundred years – but we remain fascinated by those who could take lives after taking exception.

Touché: ̽��ֱ��Duel in Literature is published by Harvard ̽��ֱ�� Press. John Leigh is a Fellow of Fitzwilliam College, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Inset image: French cased duelling pistols by Nicolas Noel Boutet. Single shot, percussion, rifled, .58 caliber, blued steel, Versailles, 1794-1797. Exhibit in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Dr John Leigh has written the first book exclusively devoted to the duel in literature. In Touché, he offers a compelling picture of the ways in which novelists, playwrights and poets have used duelling as a trope to reveal the extent of manly valour, trickery and sheer foolishness.

̽��ֱ��duellist fights not for gain from his adversary but to declare who or what he is

John Leigh

G. Durand - Harper's Weekly

" ̽��ֱ��Code Of Honor—A Duel In ̽��ֱ��Bois De Boulogne, Near Paris", wood engraving by Godefroy Durand

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

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