James Harriman-Smith

Category: Musing

  • Learning to Lose

    Like a lot of people (although mainly men) who were born in the late 80s, I grew up playing videogames. I played my first games on a BBC Micro that my mum brought home from work, then on a PC, and then on an N64 and Playstation 2 before going to university, and just playing…

  • Some Thoughts on Oratory

    I’m writing this post in what I think is the fifth week of my research leave. I’d originally intended, like the last time I had a research sabbatical, to blog my way through it. Instead, you find me here catching up on something I meant to write back in the summer of 2022. Maybe the…

  • Strictly and the Sentimental

    During the lockdowns of the Covid-19 pandemic, I got into Strictly Come Dancing. In this show, fifteen or so celebrities pair up with professional dancers. Every pair dances once or (in the latter rounds) twice each week before a panel of four judges. Those judges score each pair; members of the public also vote by…

  • On Time and Teaching

    I’m writing this blog post in the middle of graduation season. Seeing all the students finish their time at university, and talking with them about the tumultuous last few years and their plans for the future has made me muse a little about how they (and I) have experienced time. Students talk about time in…

  • Giving a Talk Online

    Two days ago, I gave a talk about my book for the Oxford Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture seminar. I think it went quite well. In response to some requests from attendees, and my own desire to try and remember things, this post records how I went about preparing to present a 40-minute presentation on theatre…

  • Spokes and Wheels

    There are only a few days of 2020 left, and I wanted to jot something down here while the memory of the last three months of teaching is still fairly fresh. I don’t think it’s a particularly new or powerful observation, but, at the end of this awful year, it seems important to capture whatever…

  • Who’s reading?

    This post is brought to you by a conversation in a pub after a research seminar. A PhD student told me then that she had attended a workshop on academic blogging where my blog (either this whole site, or just the archive of my own doctoral research) was brought up for study. I had no…

  • Postdocs

    I’m writing this in the living room of my new flat. The sky is iron grey, the temperature is low, and all is quiet. An excellent time for some introspection. Today my subject is how I got here.

  • When does a PhD end?

    When does a PhD end? This is a bit of an awkward question. I’ve now handed in my thesis, typed, proofed and bound, and am waiting to have my viva on 2nd October 2015. My PhD isn’t officially over until my examiners, Tiffany Stern and Christopher Tilmouth, decide that my work is good enough and…

  • A Sea Change

    I have big news, so big that I can no longer sit on it. From September 1st, I am going to be a lecturer! More precisely, I will be a lecturer in Restoration and eighteenth-century literature at Newcastle University. I cannot wait. I also cannot devote more time to a longer post, although I promise…