Posts by Stephen Mumford
Paper or Digital?
December 7, 2013
I don’t know if it’s because both my father and mother worked in the printing trade but I have to confess I have developed an increasingly passionate love affair with paper. I like new paper a lot when it is glossy, pristine and colourfully printed. But old paper is what really does it. I love …
Tårnbygningen
November 30, 2013
On the campus of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences stands a collection of striking old buildings. One of them – Tårnbygningen – houses the business school and the philosophers. The name means Tower Building. I am very lucky to be a visiting professor there and find it a joy every day I walk towards …
Comedy is no Laughing Matter
November 17, 2013
‘The art of comedy’ is an expression that sometimes gets used but I’ve never known how seriously it’s meant to be taken. It’s far from obvious that comedy is respected as a credible art form and, just as the theatre of war is not a real theatre, talk of the art of comedy does not …
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 …
Ambition
October 27, 2013
The careers service at my university has this week been encouraging us to think about the theme of ambition. I take it the hope is for our students to think about their careers after graduation but it prompted me instead to consider ambition more in the abstract and concerning artistic endeavours. In a series of …
The PhD
October 13, 2013
A few years ago I was ‘first opponent’ at a PhD defence in Norway. The procedure of the viva voce exam was very different from the UK. The candidate was to give a public lecture and then I and another opponent had to engage him in a protracted debate, all in front of a sizeable …
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