“A Weasel is Wild. Who knows what he thinks?” A reading of Annie Dillard’s “Living like Weasels” (1982)

In this post, LUCAS lecturer Jessie Morgan-Owens revisits an essay that is a joy to teach: “Living like Weasels” by Annie Dillard (1982). This essay invites us to imagine life outside the binary of culture/nature, and asks, what would it be like to live only for necessity, like a weasel?

Would Murder Be More Sustainable if All That Meat Didn’t Go to Waste? A Look at Garbage in Sweeney Todd’s Story

When we carefully separate paper from plastic, we hope that our waste will find a second life. But in which bin does crime evidence go? Angel Perazzetta discusses a Victorian tale of murder, greed and cannibalism, where an unscrupulous barber grapples with a trash-related dilemma.

Can artifacts play? Yes, they can!

You may have heard phrases like "This game is a waste of time" or "It’s all about fantasy". Amanda Viveiros uncovers archaeological games as sites of knowledge so that when you hear those phrases again, you will be able to reply "games are learning tools, and right now, I'm playing and learning".

How would Jane Austen celebrate Christmas?

With Christmas just around the corner, LUCAS PhD candidate Fernanda Korovsky Moura looks back to holiday festivities in the Georgian era, and explores how Jane Austen (1775-1817) experienced and celebrated Christmas.

Mocking the Monarch: What Do Memes About Queen Elizabeth II Have In Common With Unruly Spectators of Renaissance Spectacle?

“My hobby is Netflix, so what?” – Stranger Things and platformized fandom

You might have seen it around on someone’s Tinder profile or overheard it in a nearby train conversation: “My hobby is Netflix.” Does being active on a streaming platform count as an actual hobby now? Mitchell van Vuren argues that it is – most of us might have already become a ‘Netflix fan.’

Georges Perec and his Sites of Memory

Lieux, by the 20th-century French author Georges Perec, is an experimental collection of texts and photographs describing the author’s sites of memory. In this blog, Annelies Schulte Nordholt introduces you to Perec’s and to her own book Georges Perec et ses lieux de mémoire (Brill, Leiden, 2022).

The Evolving Videogame Input – Motion as Means of Interaction

Videogames dominate the entertainment industry because they necessitate interaction, transforming spectators into players. This interaction has assumed multiple forms. Miguel Mira explores how motion as a means of interaction seems to have found a home as an integral part of virtual reality.

Off-Beat: Did Galen Really Pioneer Diagnostic Use of the Pulse?

The internet presents a maelstrom of misinformation when it comes to ancient medicine. In this blog, Glyn debunks a claim about an important ancient medical author: Galen. He examines several older biological texts to refute that Galen was the first to use examination of the pulse in diagnosis.