Discovering the Peculiarity of the English – a talk by Alan Macfarlane and Fabienne Bonnet

The watercolour of the White Cliffs of Dover is by Richard Andrewes (Trinity)

This event is on Zoom

Alan Macfarlane  (Worcester Oxford (MA & PhD), King’s Cambridge (Fellow), London School of Economics (MPhil), SOAS (PhD).) was born in Shillong, Meghalaya, India. Alan is an anthropologist and historian, and a Professor Emeritus of King’s College, Cambridge. He is the author or editor of 20 books and numerous articles on the anthropology and history of England, Nepal, Japan and China. He has focused on comparative study of the origins and nature of the modern world. In recent years he has become increasingly interested in the use of visual material in teaching and research. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Historical Society.

How did I become interested in the English? My colonial background and birth in India; my schooling in English boarding schools and training in history at Oxford; my anthropological investigations in Nepal, Japan and China; my interest in grand social theory and particularly in French commentators – Montaigne, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Tocqueville, Taine and Marc Bloch among others. And what are the peculiarities? Some outlined in”Understanding the English A-Z”, and others, which I will briefly sketch in, in a sequel “The Peculiarity of the English” – Games, Humour, Class, Education, Empire and more.

Society Member Fabienne Bonnet, the translator of “Understanding the English” will also talk about the process of translation of the book into French.

Fabienne’s background is St Thecle, Chamalières (73), American Field Service scholar, Waukesha WI. (74) MPhil Montpellier (79), Lectrice King’s Cambridge (90-94), Bye-Fellow, Homerton (2011-2016), Faculty of English, affiliated supervisor literary translation (1994-2014) (Franciscan. Life vows. 2001)