My Year with Bluestone: Interdisciplinary Anxiety

I was very happy to start writing my book last Thursday. I have drafted the first thousand words of a chapter which will mostly be about prisons. I have lots of ideas and lots of materials. So far so good.

And then I had a momentary anxiety as I was thinking about structuring the next section/paragraph. It was an anxiety that took me back to my work on the Order of the Garter, when I would sometimes ask myself, "where's the text?" Trained as a literary critic, I am always most comfortable when I have a text to organise myself around. But as with the previous book, I am happy to think about the emotive language used about these bluestone buildings and natural formations; and indeed, that is the main concern of this book. I'm also getting better at reading images, and applying my discursive analytic skills to texts (journalism, reports, histories) that aren't obviously "literary." So I'm pretty confident of my general approach in this book.

But I recall one particularly aggressive review of the Garter book that chastised me for calling that book "a vulgar history". The gist of this review was that non-historians like me should stop using that word "history" so loosely (and also stop writing studies that weren't proper historical ones).

Undaunted, I am thinking of a comparable subtitle for this bluestone book. Bluestone: An Affective History is my working title. So I will be treading into same disciplinary hot water. Similarly, although I have some training in historical method, I won't be writing a "straight" history in the sense of a sequential, comprehensive narrative.

I've also just been reading readers' reports on an essay going into a book collection where most of the other authors are historians. Apparently my essay sticks out a bit because it is based on a single text. Nor does my essay deal with broader social movements like the others do. (That's because it's based on a single text.)

So here are my questions.

• How does interdisciplinarity really work in practice between Literature and History? There are some brilliant examples in medieval literary, cultural and historical studies, but what about in other, later fields?
• Do we police our respective territories with equal vigilance?
• Should we be trying harder to respect each other's starting-points and assumptions? 
• Should I use "history" in my subtitle?

My Year with Bluestone: High St Bridge, Clifton Hill

One of my walks/runs along the Merri Creek I call the "nine bridge walk": I usually only think of this number when I am running home and counting my way back. Some of the bridges are low crossings made of wood, where I sometimes pause and on either side and watch the waters meander — or rush, if it has been raining — towards me; and then away from me on the other side as they head down to join the Yarra river at Dights Falls; other bridges are bricked and embanked railway crossings I pass beneath. Two are magnificent bluestone bridges. This one carries High St from Clifton Hill up into Northcote: it was build of bluestone and local brick in 1875.




And here is a photograph from 1892.

And here is a close up of where bluestone and brick meet.

Underneath the bridge, along the creek path, the bluestone is covered in graffiti and tags.

There's a wide ledge that sometimes shelters the homeless: I've sometimes walked by and seen a swag on the ledge.


As a sign of the times, though, I did one day walk past here without the camera and saw a middle-aged man practising his climbing techniques, clinging on for dear life, all of half a metre above the ledge, to the uneven protusions of bluestone.

Merri Creek Labyrinth

It's the second day of the New Year. High temperatures are predicted, so I decided to go for my walk early in the day. But I don't leave the house until after 11. I'm recovering from a broken arm and my shoulder and neck are hurting. Nevertheless, I manage to run about 2 km and then walk as far as the Bluestone labyrinth along the Merri Creek, constructed by a community group around 2001, according to a Cretan design.  It's not a puzzle, but you are invited to walk around its winding track. Perhaps there will be healing benefits, according to one of the notices. I head off, trying to focus on my breathing, counting 10 breaths then starting again,  and  feeling the rhythm of my footsteps,  and observing the bluestone cobs that have been used to indicate the paths.  There are all kinds of  plants and weeds growing up between the bluestones,  and tan bark  has been laid along the path.  the sun beats down and  I try to  feel the heat come through into my aching bones and muscles. After a while I get a bit dizzy, in the confusing counterpoint of breathing, counting, walking, turning, and trying to observe the stones. I reach the centre,  face the sun, and take a deep breath before turning out again. On the way out it is easier to observe the difference between the stones. Some are almost perfectly square, and I realise they will have been taken from laneways and kerbstones around the city.  Others  are more chunky and irregular in shape. Then I notice a rectangular stone that is  marked all over  with little holes where the  boiling, bubbling rock has been cooled suddenly in water.  One more turn  and I am out.  I turn and stand at the entrance again. On my right, where you turn to enter the labyrinth, is one of the most irregular shaped rocks, jagged and pointy, and covered with the white traces of lichen. On my left is one of the smoothest square blocks. The symbolism is obvious: you enter feeling ragged and jagged and uneven and you emerge smooth, even and serene. As you enter, the bubbled rock is your first obstacle: turn right here...

I start my walk home, feeling overheated and as if I have walked too far. Then I have an idea. My plan this year is to write a book on the affective history of bluestone in Melbourne and Victoria. I had always planned to blog my progress on the book as I go, so this is the first installment for 2015. But then I recalled the brilliant work of Philip Thiel, who for several years kept a series of wonderful blogs: mini entries each year: "A Year with Lemons", "A Year of Kissing People", "A Year of Stopping." What if I could do the same thing with bluestone, charting my encounters with this very characteristic Melbourne stone I walk on and past and through every day?

Well, let's not promise to do it every day. But let's see what happens. So set up your feeds, kids, and we'll see how we go.