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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!
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Secrets of St. Cuthbert, Durham’s Patron Saint
Dr. Orton lived and studied in the beautiful city of Durham for four and a half years. Here, she explores the secrets of its patron...
Dec 16, 2024
Is Life a Game? How Wittgenstein’s Language Games Challenged Everything
Ludwig Wittgenstein’s theory of language games has been enormously influential in Philosophy and Religious Studies, but its implications...
Dec 9, 2024
The New Animism
The term “animism” was once a common way of describing religions across the world that include a community of humans and nature-spirits,...
Dec 5, 2024
Is the West Peculiar? Personhood and the Self in Philosophy and Anthropology
Ideas about personhood and the self are important, but are often conflated in discussion in both Philosophy and Anthropology. Dr. Orton...
Nov 26, 2024
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
Panhellenic and Personal: Religion Across the Greek World
Get to grips with Greek Religion in five minutes in this blog series! For A Level Classics or Ancient History students, each of these blog posts is a five-minute summary of some of the main topics you need for your exams. For university-level scholars or independent researchers, we’ve included clickable links to useful literature, primary sources and canonical scholarship you’ll need to know. In this post, discover how Greek religion was Panhellenic and personal! Greek reli
Jul 4, 2024
Religion in Athens
Get to grips with Greek Religion in five minutes in this blog series! For A Level Classics or Ancient History students, each post is a five-minute summary of some of the main topics you will need for your exams. 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 started. In this post, discover religion in the great city of Athens! We often think of Athe
Jul 2, 2024
Gods vs Philosophers
G et to grips with Greek Religion in five minutes in this blog series! For A Level Classics or Ancient History students , each of these...
Jun 28, 2024
The Gods According to Homer
Get to grips with Greek Religion in five minutes in this blog series! For A Level Classics or Ancient History students, each of these blog posts is a five-minute summary of some of the main topics you will need for your exams. 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 started. In this post, get to know the gods of the exciting epics of Homer! A
Jun 24, 2024
Gods and Mortals
Get to grips with Greek Religion in five minutes in this blog series! For A Level Classics or Ancient History students, each of these blog posts is a five-minute summary of some of the main topics you will need for your exams. For university-level scholars or independent researchers, we’ve included clickable links to useful literature and canonical scholarship you need to be know. In this post, discover the relationship between gods and mortals in Ancient Greece! The gods
Jun 20, 2024
Introducing Ancient Greek Religion
Get t o grips with Greek Religion in five minutes in this blog series! For A Level Classics or Ancient History students , each of these...
Jun 18, 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
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
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
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