Philip Schwyzer
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Philip Schwyzer
@philipschwyzer.bsky.social
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The website for the Shakespearean Graves project is now live -- check it out!
shaxepitaphs.exeter.ac.uk
#ShaxEpitaphs
Shakespearean Graves
shaxepitaphs.exeter.ac.uk
Reposted by Philip Schwyzer
My co-authored chapter with Vicky Sparey on 'The Perils and Promises of Puberty' is soon to be published in Sarah Toulalan's book Early Modern Bodies. There are chapters by @amiebolissian.bsky.social , @davehitchcock.bsky.social & others. You can preorder here
www.routledge.com/Early-Modern...
Early Modern Bodies
Early Modern Bodies is a wide-ranging and detailed introduction to a variety of different approaches to and perspectives on bodies in the early modern period, circa 1500–1750. The collection guides re...
www.routledge.com
November 14, 2025 at 12:24 PM
Hundreds, perhaps thousands of the fallen of WWI were buried with epitaphs drawn from Shakespearean. A selection can be found here: www.epitaphsofthegreatwar.com/tag/shakespe...
None more haunting than the inscription for Alfred Dunne (aged 17)

O MONSTROUS WORLD
TO BE DIRECT AND HONEST
IS NOT SAFE
Shakespeare
www.epitaphsofthegreatwar.com
November 11, 2025 at 10:47 AM
Reposted by Philip Schwyzer
No more noble British tradition than resigning over some nonsense everyone is only pretending to be angry about rather than all of the actually bad things you've done.
November 9, 2025 at 6:10 PM
Reposted by Philip Schwyzer
President Trump threatens a military attack on Nigeria because of jihadi attacks on Christians — which are indeed a real problem. But Trump’s aid cuts are killing far, far more Nigerian Christians than jihadis are. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/08/o...
Opinion | Trump Aid Cuts Kill More Christians Than Jihadists Do
www.nytimes.com
November 8, 2025 at 12:55 PM
The website for the Shakespearean Graves project is now live -- check it out!
shaxepitaphs.exeter.ac.uk
#ShaxEpitaphs
Shakespearean Graves
shaxepitaphs.exeter.ac.uk
November 7, 2025 at 1:27 PM
Reposted by Philip Schwyzer
I think our country sinks beneath the yoke.
It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash
Is added to her wounds.

#Macbeth 4.3.49-51
#ShakespeareSunday
October 26, 2025 at 8:54 AM
Reposted by Philip Schwyzer
The frogs have made it to Exeter.
October 25, 2025 at 10:34 AM
Reposted by Philip Schwyzer
Very proud of Exeter today. Huge turn out to face off the far right. #ExeterIsForEveryone #RefugeesWelcome 🍉🌿🌈💚
October 25, 2025 at 10:53 AM
Reposted by Philip Schwyzer
📢This Sunday in #Exeter!

Historical reenactment based on historical research, in a former priory, converted to a domestic dwelling during the reformation.

'my perfect Sunday ... '

#EarlyModern 🗃️
Come and see the house at St Nicholas Priory, Exeter brought to life in 1602, exploring a 'New history of women's work'.

Sunday 26th October
11am - 3pm

Historical research by Jane Whittle, Mark Hailwood, Hannah Robb and Taylor Aucoin.
October 23, 2025 at 10:06 AM
Reposted by Philip Schwyzer
I've been watching what's going on in the UK with growing alarm; the immigration proposals are getting increasingly ridiculous. We're nearly at the point where the latest proposal will be that anyone who wants to move there must be apprenticed as a Morris Dancer for 5 years first.
Haven’t read the report yet but this looks to me like another example of adding yet more makework to the immigration process for unclear reasons other than possibly getting mentioned in Politico Playbook.
October 20, 2025 at 1:59 PM
Ah, it's Shakespeare's own infamous epitaph, 'Curst be he that moves my bones!'
But no, this is Mary Caldwell (d. 1873), buried in Ipswich Massachusetts.
The curse is surprisingly popular. And adding 'Shakespeare' at the bottom helps prove you're a literature lover, not some freak. #ShaxEpitaphs
October 20, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Reposted by Philip Schwyzer
This is really hard to read. And the thing that is sitting with me the most about it is that it has always legal and possible to do this for decades. The only thing preventing this from having been the norm was a sense of humanity.

This is why we need structural reform. Not just a change in admin.
This passage nearly broke me.
September 30, 2025 at 12:10 PM
Reposted by Philip Schwyzer
This means that it is now Labour’s official position that Israel is committing genocide.

While at the same time, the Labour government continues to arm that genocide

Absolutely extraordinary!
September 30, 2025 at 5:58 AM
What an incredible poet, what a loss
Tony Harrison, poet
1937-2025
September 27, 2025 at 8:30 AM
Reposted by Philip Schwyzer
📢NEW MAILING LIST FOR CEMS!📢

Exeter's Centre for #EarlyModern Studies recently switched to a JiscMail list to allow people to join/unsubscribe more easily.

FYI: we often host hybrid 🗃️ events.

Interested? Instructions on how to join the mailing list are here:

www.exeter.ac.uk/research/cen...
Centre for Early Modern Studies | Centre for Early Modern Studies | University of Exeter
www.exeter.ac.uk
September 26, 2025 at 9:08 AM
Exeter folk will be familiar with the equestrian statue of Sir Redvers Buller. There's no Shakespearean epitaph on the monument, but at its unveiling in 1905, a celebratory bamboo arch bore the inscription: "A soldier firm and sound of heart and
of buxom valor" (Henry V, 3.6.25).
(1/4)
September 26, 2025 at 10:13 AM
September 20, 2025 at 9:59 PM
I'm itching to share the 29(!) variations on 'after life's fitful fever he sleeps well' we've discovered so far as #ShaxEpitaphs, but don't want to try your patience. Just three:

AFTER LIFE'S TROUBLED JOURNEY SHE SLEEPS WELL
AFTER LIFE'S SCARLET FEVER I SLEEP WELL
LIFE'S FITFUL PLAY IS O'ER
September 20, 2025 at 6:13 PM
Reposted by Philip Schwyzer
Hamlet: Alexander the Great is DIRT now
www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo...
Three Hamlets, musing on the skull: Christopher Eccleston at the West Yorkshire Playhouse (2002); Alan Cumming at the Donmar (1993); Ben Kingsley, RSC (1975)
September 14, 2025 at 9:25 AM
Reposted by Philip Schwyzer
London authorities removed Banksy’s latest mural of a judge attacking a protester. What remains is a shadowy stain, eerily reminiscent of a hooded Grim Reaper wielding a scythe, capturing attention in its own right.
Haunting Shadow of Scrubbed Banksy Mural Goes Viral
The erasure of the mural outside London’s Court of Justice has become a metaphor for widespread government crackdowns on protesters around the world.
hyperallergic.com
September 12, 2025 at 6:19 PM
Shakespearean epitaphs don't always reek of Bardolatry. 'Friendly Ben' Dekle was ready to start (or continue) an argument with Shakespeare from beyond the grave.
'LIFE IS NOT A "TALE TOLD BY AN IDIOT," BUT RATHER AN ADVENTURE WRITTEN BY THE FINGERS OF GOD.'
#ShaxEpitaphs
September 8, 2025 at 3:04 PM
I see what you did there, Wichita Searchlight for January 13, 1906.
#ShaxEpitaphs
September 4, 2025 at 12:43 PM
The Shakespearean Graves project is up and running! Our social media game is a work in progress, but here's a short thread of #ShaxEpitaphs to whet your interest.
September 3, 2025 at 10:45 AM
Reposted by Philip Schwyzer
This is the Washington Post (yes, that one): names in Arabic and English, and ages, of all 18,500 children killed in Gaza, plus portraits and stories where available: www.washingtonpost.com/world/intera...
60,000 Gazans have been killed. 18,500 were children. These are their names.
Palestinian children have been killed at a rate of more than one per hour since the war began.
www.washingtonpost.com
July 30, 2025 at 9:43 AM