Converting Monks into Friars in Iowa

So, the trip to Iowa included an unscheduled night in Chicago. A bit irritating to spend all those hours in O'Hare, but the truth is the seasoned traveler needs to be prepared for this kind of inconvenience. I had books to read, things to write and social media at my fingertips where I could complain to my friends. I'd have rather been in Iowa having dinner with folks as planned, but there are worse things than the quiet solitude of an anonymous hotel room. I love hotels. I think it would be terrific to live in a hotel in London with room service and the whole city before me.

More later, but here's the Powerpoint slides from my talk.Consider them an attempt to intrigue you. Forthcoming: the paper with these images embedded and a video of the images with the narration recorded there (assuming it sounds okay). Time's tight: I'm off to PCA in San Antonio on Wednesday. Much to do, so I'm writing this while my students are watching a film. Multi-tasking is the word du jour.

Converting Monks into Friars

Time

I woke up with this song in my head. Tick, tick, tick; is it already the middle of June? Must find a way to stay here...

Weekend fun with the Brookses: Sophie and I played footie in the back garden because the air is full of World Cup fever here. Yes, we even watched the England-US match (very poor!); well, Liz and I drank some wine and giggled a lot while Brad watched it. Fun!

To Spring

O thou with dewy locks, who lookest down
Thro' the clear windows of the morning, turn
Thine angel eyes upon our western isle,
Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring!

The hills tell each other, and the listening
Valleys hear; all our longing eyes are turned
Up to thy bright pavilions: issue forth,
And let thy holy feet visit our clime.

Come o'er the eastern hills, and let our winds
Kiss thy perfumed garments; let us taste
Thy morn and evening breath; scatter thy pearls
Upon our love-sick land that mourns for thee.

O deck her forth with thy fair fingers; pour
Thy soft kisses on her bosom; and put
Thy golden crown upon her languished head,
Whose modest tresses were bound up for thee.

~ William Blake

I should have known better...

Yes, I was a glutton -- three medieval classes in one term. I should add, I'm teaching three medieval classes with at least two different textbooks, so I am teaching some of the same texts in different translations (as if conveying the complexities of different parts of the Middle Ages were not hard enough!).

I can't tell if it's more perplexing to teach the same text at the same time with very different translations and aims (medieval lit for non-majors v. gender in medieval lit for sophomore majors) or the same text at different times -- so I always catch myself saying, "Did we already talk about this? No? Oh, well -- let me explain..."

My third class of the day -- the upper division one -- bears the brunt of this exhaustion and inevitable confusion. I'm always making them laugh as I get stuck stammering on a word, because suddenly I've lost the one following it as my mind races to check:

1) is this the right text?

2) have we already covered this?

3) am I confused because I said something similar in the previous class?

4) or was it in this class last week?

5) and now they're all staring at my sputtering and thinking I'm crazy!

I generally recover quickly (I can always vamp on just about any medieval topic for a fair space of time until I recall where we're supposed to be) but I'm beginning to think the Medieval Texts on Film class thinks they've signed on with a lunatic. Fair enough.

Nonetheless, it's better to have this embarrassment of riches (teaching the field I love and have been trained for) than to be stuck with the dread thousand year survey. In my last position, I had to cover the class that lumped together everything from early Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry to transitional Anglo-Norman texts to Chaucer and the late Middle Ages to Elizabethan drama to the English Civil War to Restoration drama and the roots of early journalism. In a semester!

It's like having a huge banquet and a half hour in which to eat it. You can cram your mouth with stuff, but you won't digest a lot of it and you won't even get to taste some of the signature dishes (I am so not going to teach Spenser! Just not qualified). You get the academic equivalent of heartburn.

Why do it? Often it springs from a desire to teach 'foundations', the explicit recognition that all writers stand on the shoulders of the giants who have come before. But it also devalues those foundations with the suggestion that a mere semester of running through that thousand years will sufficiently acquaint students with the complexities of these wildly varying texts and cultures. The often unspoken assumption is that the students can then be ready to move on to the 'important' (i.e. post-1800) texts -- argh! Medieval literature is not just 'background' for modern literature.

Welcome, Autumn!

Autumn is here and so are the in-laws! It's great to see Jane and Gene Sr. and they are spoiling us with eating out every night. We're full and the fridge is full of leftovers. We have a new favorite restaurant, too: Karavalli in Latham. Great food -- and such a variety! Superb service, too, which is always welcome, but best when it accompanies great food. We started with the veggie sampler and had a few things we'd never run across before. For my entree I got the Lamb Torkari which had the most exquisite sauce. We all tried it and loved it. Everybody was pleased with their choices, although Pops requested even more heat for his Vegetable Tandoori and got a little chili sauce that made it just right ("hot enough for ya?"). Such large portions! We have the leftovers in our freezer. Saturday we met Robert down at Bard to look at the campus and the Fisher Center, then lunched at Cappuccino by Coppola's restaurant. How was it? Quite good -- and again with the big portions. I'm still eating the leftovers from my "personal" pizza. Then we stopped by Larry & Bernie's house to admire the garden. Once again we missed the lotus blooming, but as it was a hot day, the frogs were out of the pond -- one on the table, one sitting on a bench, a couple others more picturesquely on lily pads. We went home laden with peppers, tomatoes and more. Thanks! Last night it was Emperor's Chinese -- and you guessed it, more leftovers. All good dishes, but I think I liked Gene's curry a little more than my pork and green beans (although that was good, too). Where tonight? Well, I guess I better figure that out!

N.B. This post features no videos or large picture or sound files, in honor of those with dial-up modems ;-)

Not My Job

As I sit here regretting that I ever volunteered myself to take a group of students to London next month and dealing with all the endless details that go with it, I realise it's part of an overall sense of exhaustion that's making me pull back from things I really don't need to be doing. Among them:

Correcting someone online who names the wrong group as performer of a 60s pop song;

Pointing out to someone (again, online) that when Hamlet says something is "a consummation devoutly to be wished" he is talking about death and oblivion;

Arguing with someone (on yet another online list) that pro-2nd amendment sites may not be the most "fair and balanced" sources re: gun control.

I do have work to be doing, yet it is also a gorgeous Earth Day and the temptation is to be outside ignoring all this work. Maybe it's just time to remind myself again that I don't have to do everything, I don't have to be responsible for everybody and ignorance is my job only in the classroom. I don't like to see it elsewhere, but sometimes I just have to let it go. It's the law of diminishing returns, and besides, no one else cares about these things. Think of it as trying to avoid becoming too much like Bottom.

I don't have to play all the parts just because I have ideas for them. I do not need to say, "Take pains; be perfect: adieu." Instead, let us say, "take pains, but be reasonable, be seeing you."