THE podcast: bringing an outsider’s eye to primary sources

By Eliza.Compton, 6 June, 2024
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What happens when a literary scholar turns her attention to local archives such as inventories and court records? English professor Alexandra Harris talks about writing history, uncovering centuries of silent lives for her new book, and the interdisciplinary power of the humanities
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Podcast
Summary

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For this episode of the Times Higher Education podcast, we talk to award-winning author, cultural historian and literary critic Alexandra Harris about the research and writing practices behind her new book, The Rising Down: Lives in a Sussex Landscape (Faber, 2024). Alexandra is professorial fellow in English at the University of Birmingham in the UK. Her other books include Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists & the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper, which won The Guardian First Book award and a Somerset Maugham Award, and Weatherland, which was adapted into a 10-part radio series for the BBC. This conversation explores what a literary scholar can bring to the study of local history, the power of place and how “trespassing” researchers can find new insights in familiar records of everyday and celebrated lives.

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What happens when a literary scholar turns her attention to local archives such as inventories and court records? English professor Alexandra Harris talks about writing history, uncovering centuries of silent lives for her new book, and the interdisciplinary power of the humanities

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