Tag Archives: Big questions

Waxing Poetic: Bees and Death (and Bee Death)

Posted on April 2, 2014 by Peter Kruschwitz

The issue, and in fact the very idea, of bee death and colony collapses – a constant feature of the news for a number of years now – is deeply worrying and unsettling: how will we all survive, if the … Continue reading →

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Gay Weather

Posted on January 23, 2014 by Peter Kruschwitz

Weather prediction appears to be a difficult and complex task that, in order to arrive at reliable results, should not be left to a single amateur. Or so I thought… (After all, there had to be a good reason as … Continue reading →

Posted in Prose | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Out of the woods?

Posted on December 6, 2013 by Peter Kruschwitz

This is a slightly shortened version of a paper given as introductory talk on occasion of a celebration of Giovanni Boccaccio’s 700th birthday, organised by Dr Paola Nasti (Department of Modern Languages and European Studies). Boccaccio’s Bucolicum carmen 5: ‘Silva … Continue reading →

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Cicero, On Sustainable Government

Posted on October 23, 2013 by Peter Kruschwitz

Cicero’s work De Re Publica (‘On Commonwealth’) does for Classicists what Shakespeare will do for the Anglophone: it is so full of famous quotes that one begins to wonder if it is an authentic work, or just a string of … Continue reading →

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Rest and Peace: Terence on a Reading Cemetery

Posted on September 23, 2013 by Peter Kruschwitz

Towards the South-Eastern corner of Reading’s Old Cemetery at Cemetery Junction, there is an obelisk. It is the funerary monument of John Cecil Grainger, once vicar of the parish of Saint Giles. The obelisk rests on a pedestal, which is … Continue reading →

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Sea Shells, Or: How the Deluge Reached Reading

Posted on September 19, 2013 by Peter Kruschwitz

Charles Coates’s monumental 1802 work ‘The History and Antiquities of Reading’ is a treasure house for discoveries surrounding the history of the county town of Royal Berkshire. In its discussion of the specifics of the area of Katesgrove,  the book … Continue reading →

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Can we mend broken hearts?

Posted on September 10, 2013 by Peter Kruschwitz

Originally published on the University of Reading’s The Forum blog: The fence around the University of Reading’s Humanities and Social Science (HumSS) Building is currently decorated with images and captions illustrating Reading’s desire to be ‘asking big questions.’ One of … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment