Sebastian Cody explores the challenges of ballet historiography, emphasising the need for rigorous scholarship amidst widespread inaccuracies
By Dr Paul Malgrati Over the past 220 years, the Burns Supper has become the quintessential festival of Scottish culture, identity, and gastronomy. Who would have thought, back in 1801 as nine admirers of Robert Burns held a private memorial…
by Shivan Mahendrarajah The Taliban are back in power, ushering in renewed fears of destruction of cultural heritages. Their first time in office (1996–2001), the Taliban destroyed edifices on the basis that they were ‘un-Islamic’ and/or ‘beacons’ for polytheists (mushrikin).…
In this exclusive extract from chapter 6 of The Eurasian Steppe, author and archaeologist Warwick Ball explores the material culture of the nomadic Scythians, a cultural group that flourished in the Eurasian Steppe in the first millennium BC. What has…
By Marta Kargól Some years ago, I discovered an extraordinary collection of embroidery samples preserved in The Museum Rotterdam. The collection consists of more than 250 embroidery samples, patterns and fashion drawings. These objects bear witness to the great yet…
By Christopher Stokes Skylarks, clouds, roses, rivers. What one of my undergraduate students once memorably termed the ‘flowers and s**t’ sense of Romanticism. It’s true that Romantic poetry has a narrow circuit of classic reference points, but one way to…
By Professor Tayseer Abu Odeh Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies is an international refereed journal presenting a global platform and space for both critical…
By Li-Chuan TAI In 1869, when French Lazarist Father Armand David (1826–1900) “discovered” the giant panda in Moupin, Sichuan province of Southwest China, no other Westerners had ever encountered one, and even Chinese people outside of the area had very…
By Brett Andrew Jones It wasn’t every day that accusations of cannibalism flew around the early Jacobean court. That’s (one reason) why I found the revised version of Mucedorus so interesting. It hardly compares well to what we consider the…
By Bryony Coombs In March 2020 I was working in the Mitchell Library in Glasgow, conducting research on a fifteenth century manuscript, a Latin chronicle of Scottish history. This was fortuitous timing, as one week later the UK entered a…