🍎your Scholarly Digest 29th May, 2025

Academia essentials hand-picked fortnightly for the mindful scholar

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Hi Scholar,

Have you given much thought to what will happen to your body after you die? The philosopher Jeremy Bentham (who died almost exactly 192 years ago on June 6th) left explicit instructions for his skeleton to be preserved, dressed in one of his suits and seated in the chair he usually sat in while writing. Even in death he did not want to be taken away from his work: if that’s not a true scholar, we don’t who is. If you’re in London and morbidly curious the auto-icon has been on display at University College London since 1850.

On a separate note, we have a favour to ask. If you really, genuinely enjoy reading the Letters we send, and know of other scholars who would enjoy reading it too, will you send it their way? It would mean the world to us if our work was able to find a broader community of readers like yourself.

So, if you know someone else (we assume you do since you’re likely at an academic institution) who enjoys nerdy things like knowledge, research, and science, then please do share our work with them. You can share it by either forwarding this email or sending them a link to our website) We thank you in advance!

BRAIN FOOD

Curiouser and Curiouser

Curiosity is one of those ingredients so essential to a scholarly life that we hardly ever notice it.

In this regard, curiosity as a component of a scholar’s work is much like rigor. We know it must be present but we do not pay much attention, or look closely, at the nature of our personal curiosity. For this week's Brain Food, which is in a slightly different format than usual, we invite you to consider it.

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