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The Pharmakon of Shame
Read more: The Pharmakon of ShameSéan Kennedy and Joseph Valente, editors of Irish Shame, explore the intricate relationship between empathy and shame in this blog.

C. S. Lewis and His Medieval Mirror
By Erik Eklund C. S. Lewis is best known for his introductory exposition of Christianity, Mere Christianity (1952), as well as his series of children’s books, The Chronicles of Narnia (1950–56), yet, notwithstanding his numerous theological works, his identity as…

Freedom of Speech as Well as Listening: From Thinking with Words to Listening Through Language
By Igor R. Reyner It is evident that we are living in a particularly challenging time, where transformative and empathic ways of listening, as well as of understanding, are much needed. Surrounded by fake news and intransigent behaviour, isolated in…

Impress Me With Your Books: A Peek Into My Chapter in The Edinburgh History of Reading
by Nicole Gonzalez Lovely balance Andrew Neil. The open neck and rolled up sleeves tell us this is a relaxed, informal Andrew but the books remind us he is never really off the clock. It’s like Magnus Carlsen playing Ludo.…

Walter Scott’s Seven Deadly Tales
by Daniel Cook Still revered as one of the world’s great historical novelists, Sir Walter Scott kept coming back to the supernatural, the eerie, and the macabre. Some of the novels even include extractable tales of terror: ‘The Fortunes of…

Theologies of Reading
By Laura McCormick Kilbride, Ruth Jackson Ravenscroft, and Simone Kotva Is reading a theological activity? This is a question which only invites further questions. How a person responds to it will reveal as much about their presuppositions and their training…

Kenneth White on the Breton Coast (The Fundamental Field)
William Sharp evokes ‘those wild Breton coasts of the Tréguier headland’ with the ‘grey, muttering waste’ of the sea. Little did I realise, when I must have read these phrases at the age of 14 on a cliff overlooking the north end of the village of Fairlie, in Ayrshire, Scotland that years later I would be living in that self-same area.

St. Helen’s, the East India Company and Shakespeare
by Geoffrey Marsh Wednesday 31 December 1600 is one of the pivotal dates in English history. It was not only the end of the 16th century but the day Queen Elizabeth I granted a charter to 215 London merchants for…

The Library of Comfort
by Jürgen Pieters The painting on my new book’s cover was made by the Viennese artist Friedrich Frotzel (1898-1971). Its title – ‘The Old Bookcase’ – makes it even more appropriate. The library of comfort, as I make clear in…

Five Interesting Neighbours of Shakespeare in the 1590s
by Geoffrey Marsh Who were the most interesting ‘neighbours’ of that Living with Shakespeare explores? I tried to follow up on all of the hundred or so families that made up the parish of St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate in the 1590s.…