Penelope J. Corfield is a historian, lecturer and education consultant. She currently serves as the President of the International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ISECS).
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MONTHLY BLOG 90, CELEBRATING HUMAN DIVERSITY AMIDST HUMAN UNITY
/in Civics, Monthly Blog/by Penelope J. CorfieldIf citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2018) How do we combat racism, which does exist, without endorsing the idea of separate human ‘races’, which don’t exist? All humans share one big world-wide family-tree. Maybe squabbling, maybe prejudiced, maybe many things, lots of good as well as bad – but all sisters […]
MONTHLY BLOG 89, AS THE LANGUAGE OF ‘RACE’ DISAPPEARS, WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE THE ASSAULT UPON RACISM?
/in Civics, Monthly Blog/by Penelope J. CorfieldIf citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2018) Hands around the Globe: © WikiClipArt 2018 Many people, including myself, have declared that the language of ‘race’ should become obsolete.1 (Indeed, that is slowly happening). Talk of separate human ‘races’ is misleading terminology, since all humans belong to one species: homo sapiens. […]
MONTHLY BLOG 88, HOW I WRITE AS A HISTORIAN
/in Monthly Blog, Skills/by Penelope J. CorfieldIf citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2018) Invited by Buff-Coat to comment on how I compose works of history, the answer fell into nine headings, written as reminders to myself: 1 Learn to enjoy writing: writing is a craft skill, which can be improved with regular practice.2 Learn to enjoy it.3 […]
MONTHLY BLOG 87, BURNED BOATS
/in Autobiography, Monthly Blog/by Penelope J. CorfieldIf citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2018) Firework-flames @ Clipart flames-clipart.html (2018) What to confess this month, having burned boats last month, about my intention to finish a big never-ending writing project? First message: yes, it’s good to announce THE BOOK END, even if it still remains tantalisingly-nigh-but-not-yet-quite achieved. Burning one’s […]
MONTHLY BLOG 86, COMPLETING A BIG PROJECT
/in Autobiography, Monthly Blog/by Penelope J. CorfieldIf citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2018) © Clipart 2018 at https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=book+clipart+silhouette This is a tempting-fate BLOG, dedicated to all, like myself, who are currently in the throes of completing a big writing project. Three days from the end (metaphorically speaking), there comes a great knockout blow. You hear that someone […]
MONTHLY BLOG 85, WORKING WITH WORDS
/in Monthly Blog, Skills/by Penelope J. CorfieldIf citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2018) A lot of the fun of being a writer comes from the sheer pleasure of working with words. Not only inventing new ones (see BLOG/84, November 2017). But additionally the multifarious challenges of finding the mot juste; of avoiding repetition of favoured words; and […]
MONTHLY BLOG 84, INVENTING WORDS
/in History, Monthly Blog/by Penelope J. CorfieldIf citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2017) Speakers and writers constantly adopt and play with new words and usages, even while the deep grammatical structures of language evolve, if at all, only very slowly. I remember an English class at school when I was aged about twelve or thirteen when we […]
MONTHLY BLOG 83, SEX AND THE ACADEMICS
/in Civics, Monthly Blog/by Penelope J. CorfieldIf citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2017) Appreciating sex means appreciating the spark of life. Educating numbers of bright, interesting, lively young adults is a sexy occupation. The challenge for academics therefore is to keep the appreciation suitably abstract, so that it doesn’t overwhelm normal University business – and absolutely without […]
MONTHLY BLOG 82, WRITING PERSONAL REFERENCES
/in Monthly Blog, Skills/by Penelope J. CorfieldIf citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2017) What do today’s academics spend their time doing? Next to marking essays and planning research applications, one of the most common tasks is writing personal references for past and present students (and sometimes for colleagues too). Happily, such evaluations are not presented anonymously.1 Yet […]
MONTHLY BLOG 81, RESPONDING TO ANONYMOUS ACADEMIC ASSESSMENTS
/in Monthly Blog, Skills/by Penelope J. CorfieldIf citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2017) (*) This BLOG follows its matching BLOG/80 (Aug. 2017) on ‘Writing Anonymous Academic Assessments’ The first arrival of anonymous assessments of one’s own research is almost invariably annoying. There’s something about the format which gives the author-less verdict a quality of Olympian majesty. And, […]