Bob Eaglestone

#EnglishCreates: Futures

Today, Prof Nicky Marsh (University of Southampton) introduces this month's theme, 'Communities':

'It is not just that literary culture is sustained by communities... but that communities themselves are sustained by literature'

universityenglish.ac.uk/1-literature...

A bridgertoo far

Sebring love.

(‘Preference cascade’ is a great phrase which I am going to steal).

And, ps, went hand in hand with the weakening of university education departments.

Yes: while opening up that discussion (good thing) it also reduced the standards of evidence (bad thing) and increased the importance of rhetoric over argument (bad thing). And some might add: opened up to bad faith/conflict of interest actors.

Also - about that article - sorry and this obvious point has only just struck me - was Twitter the place to argue about the fundamental methods of teaching our children? Surely that’s what eg journals are for? Twitter is/was a place of popular persuasion not serious discussion, maybe?

#EnglishCreates: Futures

How can reading transform our lives?

Today, Dr Rebecca Fisher (CEO, The English Association) reflects on the two books did just that for her:

'What happened felt like a miracle... The lights had come back on.'

universityenglish.ac.uk/two-books-ch...

#EnglishStudies

I also think that there’s nothing ‘ropey’ in dialogic teaching (and of course research shows this).

As Einstein (is supposed to have) said: not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.

Also: an interesting subtext of that piece (thanks for posting btw) is: ‘we were led by what we could measure, but we discovered that lots of things that we couldn’t directly measure (but kinda knew about) turned out to be really important’

Surely he’s thinking of that bit in Aristotle (in the Nicomachean ethics I think) where Aristotle attacks Plato, prefacing his remarks by saying, friends, sure, but he loves truth more?

Plato‘s cave 2: this time it’s personal

#EnglishCreates: Futures

We kick off our series on Critical Reading with Prof Robert Eaglestone (Royal Holloway): 'in the increasingly scientised discourse which has so effectively helped to teach decoding, the fundamental holism of reading can get lost.'
universityenglish.ac.uk/reading-is-a...

Isn’t this what universities have legal insurance for?

This is exactly my experience. In the ‘olden days’ every 2-3 months I’d do a trip around the journals room in senate house, some general reconnaissance, speed read a few things and got some things to read slowly, and felt I knew what was going on. Now: not so much.

Thanks-i saw this +I quite like some of her work!

Me too! But not done yet.

I’d love to see this. Please could you send?

Strong agree. I’m under contract for a book called ‘what do we teach when we teach literature?’

Plus if they like a writer you don’t know, you get to say: what grabbed you about it, and so learn yourself!

— and for me this brings out the best of what we do, because it’s not about a silly listickle of ‘who’s top?’ but a real dialogue about books, ideas and people.

I get asked this a lot, and I say, with a friendly laugh ‘you can’t ask an English academic that! There are so very many wonderful writers, and my list keeps changing! Who have you read recently that you r liked?’+ then we have a very interesting conversation about whoever/the genre they like —

I’ve just Wikipedia-ed him. He’s been doing lots!

This is an incredibly important blog by my colleague Lucy Hinchliffe on behalf of @engmediacentre.bsky.social All English teachers should take a look & DfE should definitely be talking to us about this. If they get this wrong, nothing else will go right in the Nat Curric for English.

See here for all #EnglishCreates blog post and resources: universityenglish.ac.uk/englishcreat...

Another great instalment of #EnglishCreates from @univeng.bsky.social in the National Year of Reading. @ies-sas.bsky.social @englishassociation.bsky.social @anthonycockrell.bsky.social @barbarableiman.bsky.social @royalhistsoc.org @engmediacentre.bsky.social