Tag Archives: Dr John Holmes

Celebrating teaching and learning

On the 17th March last term, RUSU held their Partnership in Teaching and Learning Showcase at which winners of the Teaching Excellence Awards were invited to speak. These teaching awards aim to recognise members of University of Reading staff who … Continue reading

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Linnean Society talk by John Holmes

John Holmes writes: This lunchtime I will be giving a talk at the Linnean Society on how poets have responded to changing conceptions of the natural world, from when the eighteenth-century naturalist Carolus Linnaeus first devised an ordered system for … Continue reading

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A Pre-Raphaelite Museum

As part of this year’s Oxford Open Doors programme, John Holmes will be giving a talk explaining how the Pre-Raphaelites became involved in the design of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History in the 1850s, and how the Museum itself encapsulates … Continue reading

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New Commission on Science and Literature

John Holmes writes: Earlier this month I went to the conference of the new Commission on Science and Literature at the National Hellenic Research Foundation in Athens. The Commission – or CoSciLit – is part of the Division of the … Continue reading

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The challenge of evolution in Victorian poetry

John Holmes’s essay ‘The challenge of evolution in Victorian poetry’ has just been published in Evolution and Victorian Culture, edited by Bernard Lightman and Bennett Zon. This is the first book to take a look at the  significance of evolutionary thinking … Continue reading

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Professor George Levine talks on ‘Science and Religion: From Herschel to Gould’

We are delighted to announce that George Levine, Emeritus Professor of English at Rutgers University, will be coming to speak at Reading this Wednesday (30th April) at 2 p.m. in the Harborne Lecture Theatre.  Professor Levine is one of the … Continue reading

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Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin!

John Holmes writes: Today is International Darwin Day, held every year to celebrate the birthday of Charles Darwin (he would be 205 today!). It is hard to exaggerate Darwin’s impact on science. In his seminal book On the Origin of … Continue reading

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Two articles on the Pre-Raphaelites and Science

John Holmes writes: In an essay for a special issue of the Review of the Pre-Raphaelite Society on Dante Gabriel Rossetti, I discuss how Rossetti engaged with science in his early poetry. The Pre-Raphaelites as a group often identified science … Continue reading

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Alfred Waterhouse – our local celebrity

John Holmes is giving a talk and a pop-up exhibition on the Victorian architect Alfred Waterhouse on Friday lunchtime at the Museum of English Rural Life. Waterhouse built Foxhills, the Town Hall, Reading School and the main building of MERL … Continue reading

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John Holmes’s book is now available in paperback

John Holmes’s book Darwin’s Bards: British and American Poetry in the Age of Evolution (2009) has just come out in paperback with Edinburgh University Press. John’s book examines how poets have responded to Darwinism and other evolutionary theories from the … Continue reading

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