THE CHRONICLE

Step into the library…

For this blog, we’ve captured the feeling of stepping into a beautiful, tranquil library, looking out onto the rolling English countryside as you browse through our posts.

We’ve created a labyrinthine collection for everyone, whether you are an interested adult learner, dreaming of donning a velvet smoking jacket and immersing yourself in a fireside expedition through canonical scholarship or a budding researcher, eager to equip yourself for exciting fieldwork. For university and A level students, your studies should not be just a matter of cramming knowledge into your head: here, you can relax, immerse yourself in your specialism and enjoy it!

Browse blog categories below, or scroll down to see our latest posts.

Classics

Religious Studies

Anthropology

History and Art History

People and Wildlife in South Asia

All Posts

Cogito, Ergo Sum: René Descartes’ Grand Idea

René Descartes’ cogito, ergo sum is one of the most famous pronouncements in the history of philosophy. It has also been blamed for...

Nov 15, 2024

People and Nature: Humans, Animals and Environment in Anthropological Research

Anthropologists have always been interested in the way that humans interact with their environment, and particula rly in the distinction...

Aug 27, 2024

Anthropology’s Ontological Turn

The Ontological Turn is an important but confusing idea in anthropology and folkloristics. Drawing on her own fieldwork in the high-altitude Himalayas and the Sundarbans mangrove forest of Bangladesh, Dr. Orton explores the history of the concept and explains how the Ontological Turn can help researchers. For university-level scholars or independent researchers, we’ve included clickable links to useful literature and canonical scholarship you need to be acquainted with to get

Jun 14, 2024

Defining Religion

From rituals that protect against tiger attacks in the Sundarbans mangrove forest to pujas to pray for snow in the Himalayas, Dr. Orton’s research is heavily involved with religious themes. Here, she surveys the historical debate about how to define religion and explains how her own fieldwork has shaped her views… For many young researchers or independent scholars getting started on Anthropology or Religious Studies projects, the academic debate about how to define ‘religio

May 24, 2024

Conservation and Communities: Getting Started with Your Own Independent Research Project

Many people dream of doing their own independent research, often for very personal reasons. Perhaps there is a book you want to write, or...

Aug 23, 2023

Humans, Animals, Scholars: Why We Need Independent, Interdisciplinary Researchers

Dr. Orton was on track for an academic career in philosophy and assumed that a wildlife-related career was not an option. She is now an independent scholar, doing wildlife-related fieldwork all over the world. Here, Dr. Orton describes how interdisciplinary friendships helped her to develop her own approach to conservation. Dr. Orton with local people in the Sundarbans The late wildlife biologist Tessa McGregor - my friend and hero - once spoke of a conversion experience she

Aug 7, 2023

The Fading Art of Fishing With Otters

Dr. Orton explores the dying art of fishing with trained otters on Bangladesh’s beautiful Chitra river… Click the link to read this article in Bengali! এই ব্লগ পোস্টটি বাংলায় পড়তে এই লিংকটিতে ক্লিক করুন। Shyam Biswas has been fishing since he was a boy. He works at night, in a group of four men - and two more very special members of the team. These are Indian smooth-coated otters, trained to help the men catch fish on Southwest Bangladesh’s beautiful Chitra river. Shyam adm

Jun 20, 2023

The (Real) Seven Secrets of Bologna

Dr. Orton lived in the ancient Italian city of Bologna as a visiting research student for half of her doctoral degree. Here, she explores the famous ‘Seven Secrets of Bologna’ and uncovers a few secrets of her own. Although I initially moved to Bologna to work on epistemological problems in Ancient Greek philosophy, my time in Italy’s ‘red’ city was one of experimentation and self-discovery. I pushed myself to engage with the life of the city, but, as a natural introvert, it

Dec 11, 2022

Slippery and Strange: How Stories Transfigure and Why We Should take Them Seriously

In the high-altitude Himalayan desert of Spiti, strange entities are said to lurk beneath the everyday world and you must appease local spirits with animal horns left on chortens. Stories of these often transfigure from one village to the next. Dr. Orton explains her approach to these stories, and why we should take them seriously. Word Gets Round Waking up in Kibber village in the Spiti region of the Indian Himalayas, 4000 metres above sea level, it is common to hear village

Oct 10, 2022

The Desert that Would Not Be Tamed

Dr. Orton investigates the Himalayan communities whose distinctive local beliefs outlived the Tibetan Empire. The Forgotten Empire The Tibetan Empire is not something we hear a lot about. Nowadays, we are more likely to hear of the Tibetan diaspora – the flight of the Dalai Lama and Tibetan refugees after the incursion of the Chinese Communist Party into Tibet. Yet the Tibetan Empire spread over East, South and Central Asia, an area considerably larger than the Tibetan platea

Jul 18, 2022

The Leopard and the Spotters: Snow Leopard Tales from the Himalayas

Dr. Orton tracks the legend of the snow leopard in Himalayan folklore and its transformation from an inebriated antagonist into a welcome neighbour. Snow leopards enjoy drinking blood to get drunk. At least, so I was told for years on my fieldwork trips to the high-altitude desert of Spiti in the Indian Himalayas. Elusive, endangered and almost impossible to see in the wild, the snow leopard is the subject of many Himalayan legends, but these stories of snow leopards drinki

Nov 29, 2021

How to get into Berghain

Orton Academy Head of Research Dr. Jane Orton conducted fieldwork in the Himalayas investigating narratives about the region’s “ hidden...

Sep 9, 2021

Of Mountains, Wishes and Hidden Places: Himalayan Tales from the Middle Land

Orton Academy’s Head of Research Dr. Jane Orton gives her account of travelling through India’s high-altitude Himalayas in search of wish-granting entities and hidden lands. We also find out why she decided to give up her quest for fortune and fame, and chose to stay hidden. Spiti Valley Where in the World is Spiti? “Buddhism was born in the plains,” locals told me during my first few days in the Indian Himalayas. “But all spirits speak Tibetan and most come from there.” This

Jul 16, 2020