Aliya A Ali explores how kinship and marriage alliances shaped political power and governance in the early Islamic city of Kūfa.
Pop music and youth culture are known to be among the great British exports of the late twentieth century. Be it teddy boys/girls or The Beatles, mods or the Sex Pistols, football hooligans or the Spice Girls, the seemingly rapid…
2018 marks the 25th anniversary of the Ben Jonson Journal. Read on and learn more about the history and impact of the journal from the editor, Richard Harp. History of the Ben Jonson Journal Richard Harp and Stanley Stewart met…
Glasgow Archaeological Society has been committed to publishing papers and disseminating information on archaeological findings and discoveries since it was founded in December 1856. The first part of what was to become the first volume of the Transactions of Glasgow…
Welcome to November where, very sadly, we’ve reached the last in our blog series for OLR’s 40th anniversary. To go out with a bang, we have made two articles free to enjoy for a month. Enjoy! First up, we have…
English naturalist John Ray was born in November 1627. Generally regarded as one of the earliest English parson-naturalists, he is credited as “the originator of the criterion of common parentage for conspecificity”. Ray wrote widely on botany, natural theology, taxonomy…
In 1963, Jean-Luc Nancy tackled the subject of generational silence in his article ‘A Certain Silence’ (republished in OLR in 2005). Nancy, a well-known French philosophy and writer, wrote ‘A Certain Silence’ only a year after he graduated in Philosophy…
Looking Back at the Russian Revolution 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, which occurred in March and November (Gregorian calendar) in 1917. The pair of revolutions saw the disassembly of the Tsarist autocracy in favour of the…
Marcel Proust once said, “Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” Friendship, and the role it plays in life, is an interesting and varied topic explored…
Welcome to the not-so-sunny days of August where, in the perpetual spirit of celebrating OLR’s 40th anniversary, we are sharing the work of Ann Smock, currently Professor Emerita of French at the University of California. Perhaps best known for her…
Welcome to July! This month we are doubly celebrating as, not only does OLR keep embracing the ripe age of 40 with grace, but Jacques Derrida was also born on this day in 1930. I, like many others I’m sure,…