ECLA Annual Conference Lecture: Tony Allan on ‘Global systems enable local security: virtual water – the water, food and trade nexus brings water security and sustainability’

ECLA was particularly honoured to receive Tony Allan to deliver a Annual Conference lecture. Just over a month before his arrival, Professor Allan was awarded the 2008 Water Laureate prize by the Stockholm Water Committee for his ‘pioneering and long lasting work in education and raising the awareness internationally of interdisciplinary relationships between agricultural production,

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ECLA Annual Conference Lecture: David Blackbourn on ‘Conquest and Conservation: German Waterlands since 1750’

On Tuesday 6th May ECLA hosted Professor David Blackbourn as part of the Annual Conference on Water. Blackbourn’s lecture, entitled ‘Conquest and Conservation: German Waterlands since 1750’ drew largely on his recent book, The Conquest of Nature: Water, Landscape, and the Making of Modern Germany (2006), a broad-ranging and fascinating history of Germany’s ‘battle’ with

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Stefano Evangelista on Walter Pater

On 13 February Dr. Stefano Evangelista of Trinity College, Oxford, presented an inspiring guest lecture on Walter Pater’s vision of the Renaissance as a state of mind. Walter Pater (1839 – 1894) was an English art and literary critic at Oxford. Although he was a shy and peaceful man, his book The Renaissance, Studies in

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Dr. Jobst Welge on the Decameron

On 28 January Dr. Jobst Welge of Freie Universität zu Berlin presented a guest lecture on Boccaccio’s Decameron. Written in 1348, the Decameron tells of the brigata, a band of three young men and seven young women who flee from plague-ridden Florence to a pastoral idyll, where they feast and tell stories – ten stories

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