The Centre’s Blog is one of the main showcases for the exciting research and teaching that takes place within the Centre for Medieval Studies here at Exeter. We welcome posts from all members of the Centre, both ‘free’ posts (on any topic relating to the medieval period, broadly defined), and entries into one of our two series, Research Postcards and Spotlight.
New posts are scheduled for every Monday during term-times, and on an ad hoc basis during University vacations. Blog posts can be anything from 200 words for a short announcement to up to 1000 words for a longer discussion piece. Posts can review events, help promote new books or articles, comment on recent news or media relating to the Middle Ages / medievalism, or discuss new research findings.
As Dr. Laura Varnam notes, there are all kinds of reasons why you might want to consider writing for a blog: blogging can be immensely liberating, ‘freeing up’ ideas that have been stuck in your head for a while, as well as helping you to share your work in a widely-read (and inherently open-access) environment. While we don’t have an in-house ‘style guide’ for the blog, we can offer a few points of advice for anyone considering writing something for us:
In the first instance, we’d recommend that you get in touch with the site administrator, Edward Mills (e.mills4@exeter.ac.uk) with either a brief outline of your post, or (for short pieces) the full piece. We will then handle the uploading and posting for you. If you feel like you’d like to contribute again to the blog in the future, please do let us know, and we’ll work to set you up formally on the University’s central platform for blogs, sites.exeter.ac.uk.
If you’re interested in being part of our Spotlight series, the process is even easier: use this Microsoft Form (accessible with your Exeter login) to respond to a few short questions.
By providing blog content, you’re helping to showcase the interests and activities of the medieval academic community at Exeter, as well as gaining experience of writing concise online copy for a broader audience. You should also take the opportunity to increase the audience of your post and those of others by sharing it on social media using the share icons displayed below your published post.