We take every opportunity to knit our teaching into the resources available on campus and within the city of Exeter. A case in point is the Level 2 module Renaissance and Revolution: Seventeenth-Century Literature!

Below are some photographs from the mid-term field trip led by my colleagues Dr Jo Esra and Dr Ayesha Mukherjee. Speaking to the major theme of Renaissance and Revolution, this outing centred on the relationship between literature and local history during the Civil War. Exeter reflected the political turmoil and schisms of the period: the city was divided between royalists and parliamentarians and Exeter was twice besieged by royalist forces (it was eventually recaptured by Thomas Fairfax and parliament’s New Model Army in 1646). Exeter’s Civil War left behind a wealth of written evidence that students read before the field trip, such as pamphlets, news reports, sermons, declarations, and legal documents, including the writings of Robert Herrick and Thomas Fuller, two churchmen active in the area.

Outside Exeter Cathedral the students (and Jo) get ready for the learning to begin…

The field trip took in a variety of historic sites around the city…

…before heading into Exeter Cathedral…

…where the students examined evidence of iconoclasm:

I wish I had gone myself, especially to see the cathedral’s medieval cat flap:

And courtesy of the Exeter Cathedral Twitter feed, here it is in action!