2016

I've kept this blog, on and off, since 2006. In 2015 I used it to chart daily encounters, images, thoughts and feelings about volcanic basalt/bluestone in Melbourne and Victoria, especially in the first part of the year. I plan to write a book provisionally titled Bluestone: An Emotional History, about human uses of and feelings for bluestone. But I am also working on quite a few other projects and a big grant application, especially now I am on research leave. I'm working mostly from home, then, for six months, and will need online sociability for company!


Saturday, March 08, 2008

Dreaming about the Queen

Apparently some enormous percentage of Britons have dreamed about the Queen. I suspect the number is similarly high in Commonwealth countries; and proportionately lower in the US and Europe.

Last night it was my turn. I dreamt of a kind of tournament/sports carnival. OK, that's easy: I'm teaching A Knight's Tale next week; and was also reading about the Eglintoun Tournament of 1843 in Michael Alexander's Medievalism last week. But then I was taken into a seminar room at the back of the grounds, and there were the Queen and Prince Philip. I stumbled over the appropriate forms of address and Her Majesty smiled patiently and said she was looking forward to reading the chapter of my book where I wrote about her opinions of the Order of the Garter. I started to mumble something about the way I thought that insiders were able to make fun of or mock the Order, and she said that sounded interesting. And then I woke up.

Fantastic! A few weeks ago, my mother also showed me the David Campbell poem, "Australian Dream" which has the Queen, Duke and Queen Mother turning up to stay the night.

In fact I have been thinking about the Queen as an example of Bourdieu's "institution-made" subject. She's the pre-eminent case of someone who is completely formed by the institution she serves.

But then, if we are dreaming our books, what does that say about our unconscious?

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