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 110, THE (POLITICAL) RED-GREEN ALLIANCE
/in Civics, Monthly Blog/by Penelope J. CorfieldIf citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2020) Call it a political RED-GREEN alliance. Call it a loose political RED-GREEN federation. Even a move towards a full-blown RED-GREEN party merger? But enough shilly-shallying. It’s time for action. The global climate emergency makes that clear enough. If there are any continuing doubters, then […]
MONTHLY BLOG 109, HONOURING VERA BÁCSKAI (1930-2018)
/in Civics, Monthly Blog/by Penelope J. CorfieldIf citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2020) Vera Bácskai in 2016 in image taken from Youtube Interview in Hungarian: © Tabudöntök: Bácskai Vera a Petőfi Körrol (2016) Behind the invariably calm, genial and ecumenical welcome accorded by Vera Bácskai to her many friends and colleagues around the world, there was a hit […]
MONTHLY BLOG 108, Why must Humans beware the Midas Touch?
/in Civics, Monthly Blog/by Penelope J. CorfieldIf citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2019) PJC REVIEWS CHARLES DICKENS A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1843) ADAPTED FOR STAGE PERFORMANCE BY LAURA TURNER (2010; updated 2019) Viewed at Palace Theatre, Appleton Gate, Newark NG24 1JY 16 November 2019 Cast (alphabetically): The Chapterhouse Touring Company – Gareth Cary; Matthew Christmas; Eliza Jade; Graham […]
MONTHLY BLOG 107, Reasons for unrepentant (relative) Optimism about the coming of Green Politics
/in Civics, Monthly Blog/by Penelope J. CorfieldIf citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2019) Fig.1 Greta Thunberg (b. 2003), Swedish environmental activist; author of No One is Too Small to Make a Difference (2019) In response to my October BLOG about Greener Cities, I got many queries about how I could plausibly state that ‘I am an unrepentant […]
MONTHLY BLOG 106, Cities Greener Still and Greener
/in Civics, Monthly Blog/by Penelope J. CorfieldIf citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2019) Scrapbook Silhouettes: available EBay (2019) Towns and cities are wonderful human creations. They allow large numbers of people to live together at high density, reasonably successfully, without spreading all over Planet Earth. The mixture of collective and individual organisation that enables this process to […]
MONTHLY BLOG 105, Researchers, Do Your Ideas Have Impact? A Critique of Short-Term Impact Assessments
/in Civics, Monthly Blog/by Penelope J. CorfieldIf citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2019) Clenched Fist © Victor-Portal-Fist (2019) Researchers, do your ideas have impact? Does your work produce ‘an effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia’? Since 2014, that question has […]
MONTHLY BLOG 104, Is it Time to Look beyond Separate Identities to Find Personhood?
/in Civics, Monthly Blog/by Penelope J. CorfieldIf citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2019) Collectively, the 15th International Congress on the Enlightenment (ICE), focusing upon Enlightenment Identities, was a huge triumph. For five days in Edinburgh in July 2019 some 2000 international participants rushed from event to event. There were not only 477 learned panel presentations and five […]
MONTHLY BLOG 103, WHO KNOWS THESE HISTORY GRADUATES BEFORE THE CAMERAS AND MIKES IN TODAY’S MASS MEDIA?
/in History, Monthly Blog/by Penelope J. CorfieldIf citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2019) Image © Shutterstock 178056255 Responding to the often-asked question, What do History graduates Do? I usually reply, truthfully, that they gain employment in an immense range of occupations. But this time I’ve decided to name a popular field and to cite some high-profile cases, […]
MONTHLY BLOG 102, ARE YOU AN OPTIMIST? HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW YOUR OWN TEMPERAMENT?
/in Civics, Monthly Blog/by Penelope J. CorfieldIf citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2019) The Cheshire Cat, famed for its indestructible grin … from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, as depicted by John Tenniel for the book’s classic 1865 edition. © image in public domain Are you an optimist? This question is one of my favourite opening […]
MONTHLY BLOG 101, ARE YOU A LUMPER OR SPLITTER? HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW YOUR OWN CAST OF MIND?
/in History, Monthly Blog/by Penelope J. CorfieldIf citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2019) The terminology, derived from Charles Darwin,1 is hardly elegant. Yet it highlights rival polarities in the intellectual cast of mind. ‘Lumpers’ seek to assemble fragments of knowledge into one big picture, while ‘splitters’ see instead complication upon complications. An earlier permutation of that dichotomy […]