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!


Friday, March 25, 2011

History of Emotions website

History of Emotions new website is now live.  Click through to "Opportunities" under "Research" for details of all nine post-doctoral fellowships currently being advertised.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Post-doctoral opportunities...

Updated version of the advertisement for the first round of post-doctoral fellowships: please forward and circulate to anyone and any list you think might be interested.

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR THE HISTORY OF THE EMOTIONS (EUROPE 1100-1800)

The Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions in collaboration with The University of Western Australia, The University of Adelaide, The University of Melbourne, The University of Sydney and The University of Queensland, seeks to appoint nine exceptional postdoctoral researchers to contribute to research projects in the history of emotions in Europe, c. 1100-1800. 

The Centre addresses big questions: to what extent are emotions universal? How, and to what extent, are they culturally conditioned and subject to historical change?  What are the causes and consequences of major episodes of mass emotional experiences?  How are emotions created and conveyed through the arts?  How does Australia’s emotional heritage influence today’s social and cultural patterns? 

The Centre draws on advanced research expertise at five nodes in Australia (the universities of Western Australia, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Queensland), plus research partnerships in the UK, Germany, Switzerland and Sweden. Our approach is strongly interdisciplinary, with researchers spanning the fields of social and cultural history, literature, art history, museology, Latin studies, history of medicine and science, musicology and performance practice.

These prestigious research positions (with additional $16K pa research support) offer an exciting opportunity for innovative and enthusiastic scholars with demonstrated track records in medieval and/or early modern studies and a capacity to engage in interdisciplinary research.

Benefits include 17% superannuation and generous leave provisions.  Some relocation allowance for successful applicants will be considered.  These and other benefits will be specified in the offer of employment.

The University of Western Australia
•    Research Associate (Interpretations and Expressions of Emotion) (Ref: 3449)
For position information go to: https://www.his.admin.uwa.edu.au/jobvacs/external/academic/ads.htm

The University of Adelaide
•    Research Fellowship in Medieval or Early Modern Europe, (Position number 16567),
•    Research Fellowship in the Emotional History of Law, Government and Society in Britain, 1700-1830, (Position number 16568),
For position information go to: http://www.adelaide.edu.au/jobs/current/

The University of Melbourne
•    Research Fellowship in Emotions and Sacred Sites (Position number: 0026069)
•    Research Fellowship in Texts describing Emotions (Position number: 0026068)
For position information and to apply online go to: www.hr.unimelb.edu.au/careers

The University of Queensland
•    Research Fellowships: Reason and the Passions in English Literature, 1500-1800 (2 positions)
For position information go to: http://www.uq.edu.au/staff/

The University of Sydney
•    Postdoctoral Research Associate in Emotions related to Suicidal Impulse (Ref 160/0111)
•    Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Emotional Responses to Public Death (Ref 161/0111)
All applications must be submitted via The University of Sydney careers website.  Visit sydney.edu.au/positions and search by the reference number for full details

Monday, March 21, 2011

Sixteen

Many's the time, since I began this blog, that I have held back from banging on about my son or posting photos of him. Partly for his own privacy; and partly from a sense that there can only ever be limited interest in other people's children. If you find parents' rhapsodies about their children uncomfortable or irritating to read, you should click right on through to your next website immediately.

Joel turns sixteen today, and my fond mother's heart is overflowing with pride and joy in my boy, who is now, really, a young man for whom most of the pieces of a complex and difficult world seem to be more or less in place. He is (a) healthy; (b) clever; (c) handsome; (d) nice; (e) good at making friends; and (f) has found a passion in life, in his piano.

The balance between us has shifted slightly over the last few months. He is as likely to make breakfast for us as we might make it for him. He makes clever suggestions about what we might do, and how we might organise things, on large and small scales. He listens to our suggestions, and makes up his own mind. There are some tough things in his life at the moment and he seems to be rising to those challenges as well as one could wish. I am the one who now has to learn a few things about letting go, about trusting him to have the smarts to be safe when he goes out, for example.

On this day, sixteen years ago, I woke from uneasy sleep, packed a little bag, and we drove over to East Melbourne. The baby (sex unknown) was breech, heading down feet first, and there was no chance (probably given my age) of a vaginal birth, so we knew exactly when he would be born, at 39 weeks. The previous day we had lunch at the Stokehouse and walked along the beach at St Kilda. So it was all very calm. And once I'd had the anaesthetic, I was even more calm. Conscious, but floating, all the same, buoyed up by pregnancy happy-hormones, too. I felt safe and confident the whole time, and was really surprised later on when Paul said it had been a bit confronting (of course, he looked over the other side of the little curtain they strung between me and the scalpel). Apparently, the baby's little knees came out first. I heard them counting up his agpar score (or apgar? I've forgotten), and then all of a sudden, they placed him next to me, with his beautiful peachy head on the pillow. He said calmly, "ah, ah, ah," inaugurating a life of intelligent conversation. Paul stayed with me, and my parents and his mother followed the baby's progress in a grand procession, according to Jean, while he was weighed and cleaned. Jean took the most magical photographs, as she did throughout his childhood, especially on her weekly Tuesdays of looking after him until he started kindergarten. He is one of six grandchildren for them; one of three for my parents. The miracle of the elastic human heart that can grow to be full of love for however many there are.

Today — the birthday of J.S. Bach, and the first day of the astrological year — began early for us. It begins early for Joel every day as he gets up around six and does an hour's piano practice before breakfast. But he had left his Italian homework at school and was planning to leave early. Paul, too, had a meeting at 8, so I got up early too, and made French toast (Dench grain loaf, Ceres eggs, passionfruit yoghurt, maple syrup, strawberries, blackberries and peaches). His birthday present? Sibelius!

Music is now the thing that structures his day, and offers an invitation to the future. Who knows where it will take him, or whether it will structure, or ornament his life? Either way, I can't help feeling how fortunate a child young man he is, to have this passion in his life, and the opportunities to exercise that passion.

But mostly, when I think of my son, I think of someone who is now, simply, his own person, comfortable in his skin, and as comfortable with his place in the world as a sixteen-year-old can be. Here he is, sketching the beach at Punakaiki, in New Zealand, in January...


 

Friday, March 18, 2011

Finishing again. And ... post-doctoral fellowships advertised

A very long blog hiatus.

Why? Who knows, really? It's not so much that I've been busy writing. I stopped blogging around about the time I stopped writing my book.

I'm spending long hours on email at the moment, though, trying to set up the Melbourne hub of the Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions. The first round of post-doctoral fellowships was advertised on Wednesday, but because of reasons, the two Melbourne positions don't yet have job numbers and so don't appear on the University's job website when you click through. Sigh. As soon as they do, I will be bombarding all the e-lists I know to make sure people know about these ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIC opportunities. Actually, I'll paste the ad below.

As an indication of how late I am with a task I have just finished, however, when I went to look for the email address of the person to whom I had to send the review, I found my email system had archived the initial letter. Oh dear. It is finally done, however: a review of Cole and Smith's Legitimacy of the Middle Ages. A very difficult book to read and review.

Now, amidst all my other chores, I'm turning to my paper for the Piers Plowman conference in April. It's called "Langland's Tears: Piers Plowman and the History of Emotions." Now that I'll be writing something difficult again, perhaps I'll start blogging, too.

Here are the post-doc ads: salaries vary a little from university to university, but are pitched at Level A lectureship salaries. Note excellent university superannuation rates, and additional research resources... Not also the absence of the difficult ARC post-doc application procedure. Inquiries welcome, especially for the Melbourne positions.


ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR THE HISTORY OF THE EMOTIONS (EUROPE 1100-1800)

The Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions in collaboration with The University of Western Australia, The University of Adelaide, The University of Melbourne, The University of Sydney and The University of Queensland, seeks to appoint nine exceptional postdoctoral researchers to contribute to research projects in the history of emotions in Europe, c. 1100-1800. 

The Centre addresses big questions: to what extent are emotions universal? How, and to what extent, are they culturally conditioned and subject to historical change?  What are the causes and consequences of major episodes of mass emotional experiences?  How are emotions created and conveyed through the arts?  How does Australia’s emotional heritage influence today’s social and cultural patterns? 

The Centre draws on advanced research expertise at five nodes in Australia (the universities of Western Australia, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Queensland), plus research partnerships in the UK, Germany, Switzerland and Sweden. Our approach is strongly interdisciplinary, with researchers spanning the fields of social and cultural history, literature, art history, museology, Latin studies, history of medicine and science, musicology and performance practice.

These prestigious research positions (with additional $16K pa research support) offer an exciting opportunity for innovative and enthusiastic scholars with demonstrated track records in medieval and/or early modern studies and a capacity to engage in interdisciplinary research.

Benefits include 17% superannuation and generous leave provisions.  Some relocation allowance for successful applicants will be considered.  These and other benefits will be specified in the offer of employment.

The University of Western Australia
•    Research Associate (Interpretations and Expressions of Emotion) (Ref: 3449)
For position information go to: https://www.his.admin.uwa.edu.au/jobvacs/external/academic/ads.htm

The University of Adelaide
•    Research Fellowship in Medieval or Early Modern Europe, (Position number 16567),
•    Research Fellowship in the Emotional History of Law, Government and Society in Britain, 1700-1830, (Position number 16568),
For position information go to: http://www.adelaide.edu.au/jobs/current/

The University of Melbourne
•    Research Fellowship in Emotions and Sacred Sites
•    Research Fellowship in Texts describing Emotions
For position information and to apply online go to: www.hr.unimelb.edu.au/careers

The University of Queensland
•    Research Fellowships: Reason and the Passions in English Literature, 1500-1800 (2 positions)
For position information go to: http://www.uq.edu.au/staff/

The University of Sydney
•    Postdoctoral Research Associate in Emotions related to Suicidal Impulse (Ref 160/0111)
•    Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Emotional Responses to Public Death (Ref 161/0111)
All applications must be submitted via The University of Sydney careers website.  Visit sydney.edu.au/positions and search by the reference number for full details