Traherne Online Research Network
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The Oxford Traherne edition, under its general editor Dr Julia Smith, runs the Traherne Online Research Network. Scholars working on Traherne are widely scattered, and do not often have the opportunity either to hear about current research, or to talk about their own work with other Traherne experts. The online research network facilitates this by building up a community of Traherne scholars, which also helps to raise his profile with other scholars and with students.
We meet regularly during the academic year via Zoom to listen to and discuss short research papers and hold reading group sessions to study Traherne’s Commentaries of Heaven. There is always ample time for discussion, and the meetings last for 1 hour. You do not need to be an academic researcher to attend the seminars, and students and others interested in Traherne are very welcome.
Programme of Events 2025–26
Thursday 6 November 2025, 5.00 p.m. London time (GMT)
Traherne Reading Group: a discussion of the article on ‘Babel’ from Commentaries of Heaven, led by Dr Cynthia Saenz-Weinand, Northern Virginia Community College.
A PDF file of the text will be distributed in advance to participants.
Thursday 4 December 2025, 5.00 p.m. London time (GMT)
Traherne Reading Group: a discussion of the article on ‘Angels’ from Commentaries of Heaven, led by Dr Valery Rees, School of Philosophy and Economic Science, and The Oxford Traherne.
A PDF file of the text will be distributed in advance to participants.
Thursday 5 February 2026, 5.00 p.m. London time (GMT)
Professor Helen Wilcox, Professor Emerita, Bangor University, Wales, UK: ‘“How Soft, how Sweet, how fair!”: Traherne and the poetry of praise’
Thursday 5 March 2026, 5.00 p.m. London time (GMT)
Dr Austen Saunders, The Oxford Traherne, and Professor Robert Whalen, Northern Michigan University and The Oxford George Herbert: ‘Editing early modern printed texts: practical experiences from two editions’
Thursday 30 April 2026, 5.00 p.m. London time (BST)
Professor Carol Ann Johnston, Dickinson College, Pennsylvania: 'Traherne and Infinity, Reconsidered'
Your suggestions are welcomed as to how the network can encourage the exchange of ideas on Traherne.
To join the mailing list for the network, to receive the Zoom link for an event, or to offer a paper, please contact Dr Julia Smith.
Previous seminar papers
26 October 2023 Professor Sarah Hutton, University of York, '”I need not treat of Vertues in the ordinary way”: Ordinary and un-ordinary discussion of virtue in Traherne’s Christian Ethicks’
18 January 2024 Dr Thomas Clifton, Coventry University, ‘Recontextualizing Verse and Thought in Thomas Traherne’s Centuries of Meditations and his Works’
18 April 2024 Professor Gary Kuchar, University of Victoria, 'The Baptismal Spirituality of Thomas Traherne's Commentaries of Heaven'
13 June 2024 Traherne Reading Group: discussion of ‘Apprehension’ from Commentaries of Heaven and ‘The Apprehension’ from the Dobell Folio, led by Professor Timothy Harrison, University of Chicago
31 October 2024 Thomas Traherne 350 Online Symposium. Full details of the programme can be found here.
30 January 2025 Professor Jacob Blevins, Sam Houston State University, 'Traherne and the Anxiety of Joy'
3 April 2025 Traherne Reading Group: discussion of ‘Accesse’ from Commentaries of Heaven, led by Professor Ana Elena González-Treviño, National Autonomous University of Mexico, and visiting professor at King's College London
15 May 2025 Dr Tessie Prakas, Scripps College, 'Traherne's Background Noise: The Poetic Forms of Silence'
12 June 2025 Traherne Reading Group: discussion of 'Adulterie' and 'Bastard' from Commentaries of Heaven, led by Dr Colin Redemer, Saint Mary’s College of California.
- Left image: Detail of Brasenose College, from David Loggan, Oxonia Illustrata (Oxford, 1675): courtesy of Yale Center for British Art
- Right image: Osborn MS b308, p. 159 (‘Select Meditations’, III.83): The James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University
