This author has not written his bio yet.
But we are proud to say that Penelope J. Corfield contributed 196 entries already.
If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2014) The art of public presentation in the academic world and beyond has improved no end, during my working lifetime. But still there are some who do it badly. Often noted personalities think that their notability will suffice, in lieu of a structured talk. They […]
If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2014) It really wasn’t done – for centuries. Women, respectable women especially, did not speak in public from public platforms. They do sometimes, anachronistically, in period films. So the script-writer of The Duchess (dir: Sam Dibb, 2008) decided that the famous eighteenth-century Duchess of Devonshire […]
If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2014) Not everyone shakes hands. But those who do are expressing an egalitarian relationship. As a form of greeting, the handshake differs completely in meaning from the bow or curtsey, which display deference from the ‘lowly’ to those on ‘high’.1 In one Jane Austen novel, […]
If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2014) TV’s Pride and Prejudice (1995) provided many memorable images, not least Colin Firth as Mr Darcy diving into a pool to emerge reborn as a feeling, empathetic human being. This transformation gains extra impact when contrasted with the intense formality of his general deportment. […]
If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2014) Quotations should never be mangled and should always be cited honestly, with due attention to context. Yes – absolutely yes. It’s axiomatic for all scholarship – but also for proper communications. It does happen that words are taken out of context and twisted into […]
If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2014) When we talk for a living and don’t do it to a written script, there’s always a chance of getting the words wrong. Mostly it doesn’t matter. Phrases can be rephrased, self-corrections swiftly made. The sentences flow on and listeners hardly notice. Yet sometimes […]
If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2014) The aim is to get everyone involved in a really good discussion, aiding the speaker and the seminar/lecture participants alike. By ‘good’, I mean critical but supportive. Any criticisms, of course, should be directed at the paper, not at the speaker: as in football, […]
If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2014) What does it take for individuals to disappear from recorded history? Most people manage it. How is it done? The first answer is to die young. That deed has been achieved by far too many historic humans, especially in eras of highly infectious diseases. […]
LEARY OF LEAR AT THE NATIONAL Review of play seen on 29 April 2014 No, sorry to say, I was not happy with Simon Russell Beale’s Lear at the National. I was not helped by the fact that my partner, who’d never seen Lear on stage, discovered that he hated both the play and the […]
If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2014) What does it take to get a long-surviving reputation? The answer, rather obviously, is somehow to get access to a means of endurance through time. To hitch a lift with history. People in sports and the performing arts, before the advent of electronic storage/ […]
Penelope J. Corfield is a historian, lecturer and education consultant. She recently served as the President of the International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ISECS).
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