Liberal Arts – what is it and why study it? Part I
January 4, 2018
Liberal Arts degrees have expanded across universities in Britain over the last few years and their development reflects a growing sense that it is by knowledge across a range of disciplines that new ideas and perspectives can develop. The Liberal Arts degree at the University of Nottingham has been built to foster these links as …
The Pain and Pleasure of Learning
May 18, 2014
There is a rather simplistic thought that every single action you perform, you do because it brings you pleasure. Even when you give to charity, the claim goes, it is purely because it gives you a personal thrill. No act is genuinely altruistic; all are ultimately selfish. It’s a simple, reductionist thesis of psychological egoism …
What Science Cannot Teach Us
January 17, 2014
If I had a hammer, there’s lots I could do with it. I could crush a walnut, for one thing. But I might hang a picture on the wall, knock a bulge out of my car’s wheel arch, break some toffee, start a carpentry project. I could also use it to bash someone’s brains in. …
Cultural Exchange
November 2, 2013
In the last week I have travelled far. Doing so, I have eaten food I couldn’t identify, got lost on the outskirts of a city I didn’t know, listened with growing fondness to the local pop music, stood out as the only white European in a crowd, unable to speak the same language as everyone …
Lost and Found in Translation
July 7, 2013
A couple of months ago I had dinner with a professional translator who produces subtitles for film and TV. The conversation led to the complexities of the process. There are difficult judgments to be made all the time, as with any form of translation. Does the word in language A really mean the same as …
Nordic Knitwear – We’re all Scandinavian Now
February 17, 2013
Twenty years ago you have the feeling that if a Danish TV series had been aired in the UK it would’ve involved Scandinavian characters inexplicably speaking English to each other. But the appetite for Nordic noir seems insatiable nowadays, all in its original language and subtitled: Forbrydelsen, Broen, Wallander, Borgen, and so on. And why …
Literature, Philosophy and Existentialism
June 17, 2012
I have a difficult relationship with novels. I sometimes wonder what’s the point of a fictional story. And should I really spend frivolous time on novels when I haven’t yet even read the complete works of Aristotle, where surely more truth is to be found? Dickens is my favourite author but I always feel a …
Love Lieder
March 29, 2012
If there be but one single thing that each and every human requires, without any fear of contradiction we say that it is love. It is not wealth, nor status; except insofar as some believe that these can bring them love – a conjecture falling far short of verification. Some say they want happiness, and …
Travel
December 17, 2011
The old cliché is that travel broadens the mind. Is there any truth in it? There are many ways of learning about cultures and languages but surely the most pleasing is to go and experience it firsthand. Naturally our universities will offer a year abroad as standard for anyone on its language degrees. In time …
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