My Year with Bluestone: Kickstarting this project

So my plan of blogging daily about bluestone kind of slipped away as the year reached an intense peak around May, June and July. Two trips to the UK; many new papers to write on non-bluestone projects; quite a few conferences and events to either convene or attend. And now I am teaching two subjects this semester. Not a *huge* load, but a few lectures in other subjects in the first few weeks.

But I had a very productive hour or so with the fabulous Anne and Helen, the research assistants on this project, as I started to think about what the next stages of research would be. And even more excitingly, to think about how I am going to shape the book. All a bit provisional so far, but I've just come on here to say the bluestone book is alive and well. I'm going to start drafting my first sample chapter on the weekend!

Jury service

Write, write, have a little holiday, write, pause to process a thousand emails, write, write, have big ambitious thoughts, have a possibly serious and threatening brush with post-Tamoxifen side-effects, then write some more.

And then, today: jury duty. I've never been called, not once, so was curious, though very scared of getting empanelled in a long trial. In the end, you actually have very little say over what happens. I was in the County Court, a rather nice modern building opposite the old Supreme Court, with 200 others, all under the care of an astonishing jury pool supervisor, who kept us informed, described procedures in crystalline clarity, made us laugh, and took all the uncertainty out of the process. So lovely to see someone loving their job and being great at it.

I chatted to her at one point (my occupation was first listed as teacher of English to non native speakers, and she then changed my "professor of medieval literature" to "university professor) and she had done teaching and librarianship at Melbourne, and had travelled a fair bit too. She told me when she took her husband on his first overseas trip, it was Hadrian's Wall and Stonehenge that really blew him away. There you go, with that medieval stone thing again.

Anyway, the people who had to return from yesterday were being empanelled for a TWELVE WEEK trial. The longest one for us was about three weeks. Were any of us wanting to be excused? As we were waiting, I'd phoned my gynaecologist, and confirmed some minor diagnostic surgery* in three weeks' time, so I felt I could legitimately say I couldn't guarantee to keep that time free.

Then I was called for a shorter, civil trial. Thirty of us lined up to be called for a jury of six. This was after a great deal of elaborate, but also efficient calling and registering of numbers and a lovely old wooden box from which they drew the numbers.

We all lined up and were taken into court. Judge, wearing wig and purple robe; two bewigged male barristers, two unwigged male ones, and two elegantly dressed female associates. The judge explained the case (an OHS one) and read the list of witnesses. We were then asked to excuse ourselves, and a few people did. I bit the bullet and said I was "present." But then one of the self-excusers said she had a holiday booked the same day as my surgery, and she was excused, even though the judge said it was unlikely the case would still be going. But then I changed my "present" to "excuse". I don't want to put off the procedure any longer. We then watched as 12 names were drawn, and the two sides had the change to remove three names (they'd all turned to look at us as their names and occupations were read out), then six were chosen and sworn in, and the rest of us went downstairs.

By then it was lunchtime and so I went out and bought a pair of shoes (I don't normally shop in the city, but it was FABULOUS! so many shops! so many sales! Spanish fabric wedge pumps reduced from $315 to $75!!!). We all turned up again at 2.00, hung around for half an hour and were then let go. I could tell Pauline didn't want to let us go. She was like a great tour guide, or a lecturer, actually. She told me she loves it best when she is managing big groups. She would have been looking forward to tomorrow, when she will have about 400...

Well, I'm glad, now, I don't have to do it, because there is a fair amount of writing to be done. There are three facebook friends all waiting for me to get on with it, so I'm back on to it now.


*seriously, just minor. So far, I have dodged the big bullet that seemed to be heading my way.

That horrible moment when...

You know the drill. You've submitted your thesis to the examiners, or your essay or book has gone through final proof stage when ... you discover a book published ten years ago on exactly your topic that for some reason you never came across and have taken no account of.

Resigned to the worst, I trudge over to the library to find the offending, newly discovered volume, and turned with foreboding to the index. Sure enough, lots of ominous entries for "Garter, Order of the." I turn resignedly to the most substantial looking, but wait: Caroline Shenton can't possibly have written TWO articles on Edward III's collection of leopards in the Tower of London? Hooray, it's a book (Heraldry, Pageantry and Social Display in Medieval England, ed. Peter Coss and Maurice Keen), which I read in St Louis in 2005. And yes, it's in my bibliography.

This is not to say I won't yet discover something I should have read. It's inevitable, really. But today, this Friday afternoon, I feel I have definitely dodged a bullet.

Here I am again

Apologies, folks, for the break in transmission. It's been an incredibly busy couple of months. Though as I always maintain, blogging really isn't about having the time, or not. It's something more to do with mental and social energies, which have been pushed and strained somewhat over the last year. I have now finally given my last talk for the year, though, and am starting to think about winding up at work. I'm taking a couple of weeks' leave from Monday week, so that's a week in which to attend a symposium, finish marking some late-submitted work, catch up with my graduate students, and finalise some budget stuff for the Centre.

I've moved in to my new office, which was then painted and re-carpeted around me. I've started looking at furniture catalogues for some comfy chairs, and will look forward to making it a beautiful place. Photos will follow next year when I've got stuff up on the walls, and all. The office is lovely: light, bright and big. It has fans, air-conditioning, and windows that open, as well as lots of cupboards and shelves.  Our first post-doc has arrived and has started work, and our second arrives in January, so the Melbourne hub of our Centre is feeling real, and populated, with two wonderful new appointments to help with (a) the administration and (b) the education and outreach aspects.

The last talk was at the International Medievalism and Popular Culture symposium in Perth, the last event of our four-year grant on Medievalism in Australian Cultural Memory. And what a way to finish! One of those lovely events where no one is a keynote, and everyone is a plenary. About 45 folk listening to fifteen papers, none of which went over time. I'll write more about my own joint paper another time, perhaps. John Ganim, Nick Haydock and Eileen Joy braved the horrors of the half-world trip (and the spectacular Perth thunderstorms that messed up everyone's trip home), and Andrew Lynch held it all together with a light touch that put everyone at ease.

Even so, I am already planning a new year's resolution, which is to stop taking on too many things. Even though I cancelled two talks in September when I was just too sick to write them, let alone give them, I do still feel I took on too many things this year, with the result that I don't feel I did them all justice.

We are now being invited to submit the details of our publications to the dreaded research database. This is a pain in many ways. First, the system is incredibly unwieldy and time-consuming. Second, so many things follow from it: automatic calculations of one's teaching load, study-leave entitlements, etc.  Third, my two articles scheduled for this year haven't appeared yet. It is ridiculous for this to matter (they'll both appear in January, I think). One of them, at least, will have a 2011 publication date. But again, it's ridiculous that this is going to matter. Anyhoo, I have turned down a couple of things this year, and I have to keep doing that till I am back on top of things, and to make sure I leave enough time to do things well, not just meet the deadlines.

When we started all this bean-counting, and evaluation of journals, etc., a few years ago, I always swore I wouldn't let it get to me. But little by little, it has crept up on me, so that I do count the number of publications and "points" accruing to my CV.

Still, today was lovely. I made beetroot and raspberry borsht; and artichoke frittata for a birthday lunch; did a huge pile of ironing, straightening out the world; and had a sleep on the couch. Tomorrow I do the final check of the index of the book (proofs are already on the way to Philadelphia) and get to work on the next chapter of the next book.

So, hello again, blog: it's nice to be back.

Writing Companions

My adorable writing companions, helping me finish up my rather late essay, "Blogging, Time, and Displacement" for Literature Compass. Even the way they sleep is typical of their personalities: precise Orlando and sprawling Wulf.

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

Finishing

There are many stages to finishing a book. But one of the biggest is when you send off ten files that include Acknowledgements, Bibliography and Table of Contents, as well as deathless Introduction (oh! ghost of Gwen Harwood, who used to use that adjective to mock academic prose, do you choose this moment to visit me now? *shudders*) and seven chapters. As I have just done.

The study is a mess of papers; the computer is a mess of files (will back-up as soon as I post this post); there's an enormous pile of ironing in the basket; and a stack of emails to answer, and tasks to complete.

There'll be another round of tightening-up revisions once the copy-editors have been through the manuscript, and Helen and Anne are still working on the thirty photographs and images and permissions, but for now, I've done all I can.

I feel I've run a marathon. I'm dehydrated. I haven't been to the gym for a week. My shoulders ache and my eyes blur. I crash into bed at nights exhausted and lie waking for three more hours. It's partly the sheer masses of detail that have to be mastered: the checking, the refining, the polishing. The redundant commas to be removed: thanks, Romana! But hardest of all is the relinquishing, the letting go of the project and its infinite possibilities. The last few months have been a slow and painful process of letting go of all the other directions this book could have taken.

I feel I'm not writing this very eloquently. But I am also aware of the irony: finish a book, then immediately write something else!

Sometimes people ask me, "have you finished your work?" It's the nature of the academic life that you have never finished. There is always some ongoing project. I'm going to be late with a book review that's due in ten days.

But once a decade or so, I manage it. I have finished. My work here is done.

You're probably dying to know what the last word is. It's "heart".

Spelling word cloud

I'm sorting out spelling for my final manuscript submission. I use "find and replace" and search for our to change to or, but can't do a global change since so many of my source quotes are English, and there are words, of course, that don't change. So this is not a job that can be done after midnight (are you listening, Stephanie?).

Honor, favor, armor, but court, discourse, tournament. Also, who would have thought I would use the numbers four and fourteen so much? Well, I guess "fourteenth century" is part of the problem here.

The -ize words are even harder, as they look so weird: realize???  Some look ok, though, which makes me realis/ze how hybridis/zed my own spelling has become.

But the wonderful Jerry, my editor, emailed me this morning and said "regularize as you are able (notice the z, which is "zee" and neither a "zed" nor an s), but don't drive yourself nuts."  Which is good advice, as I'm still more likely to be fussing about spelling than doing the final revisions to Chapter Seven. Crazy!

Finishing

Sometimes I think the book I am finishing is brilliant. Sometimes I think it's under-researched, under-theorised and badly written.

Sometimes I think I'll have it ready to send off by the 21st of this month, as promised. Sometimes I think I'm just deluding myself.

Nevertheless, it finally now feels I am on a train that won't stop till I get there. There's a closing finality about each long sentence I break into two, each extraneous comma I remove, each query ("follow up", it says) I either resolve or abandon, each time I check whether I have already referred to a book or article so I can use its abbreviated title in the notes (Chicago style, I love you).

On Sunday I decided not to work on it late at night because it then became too hard to sleep. Yesterday I worked on it till midnight and slept all night, dreaming vividly, but sleeping all the same.

Nearly there.

Life, death, book

How weird is this? Two lovely bloggers on my not-very-long blog feed (Northern Lights and Sorrow at Sills Bend) are having or have been having pregnancy dreams about kittens. Not wanting to bring them down, at all, but these dreams remind me I am so much in a different stage of the life cycle. My boy is growing up; has been offered two days full work next week at the funky grocery store in Brunswick where he did work experience in July; has just finished year 10; and patiently sat through the first half of the third Twilight movie with me last night in a mother-son ironic indulgence. (We'll watch the other half today: it's not too bad, but what I really loved were the long atmospheric scene-setting scenes and the soundtrack of the first.)

And I am still thinking about my poor beloved Mima. Especially when I come home, I still catch myself looking forward to seeing her, and am still liable to a little sob now and then. We talk about building an inside/outside enclosure for the next cat, to protect the birds, frogs and lizards in the garden, but in a rather abstract way. Truly, I'm far from ready. And my own body? Just feeling and looking a little older, at various points, and the various medical staff I've seen over the last few weeks have only confirmed this, with various philosophical and comforting remarks. So that's ok, really.

But the maternal impulse is still there somewhere. My hatchlings are growing up so fast (will take photos today and update later). And now that's it warm, it's possible to sit outside and watch the fish in the sunlight. The other day I saw a couple of inchlings, one dark, one a splotchy shubunkin. And then I saw some more that were half that size. And then I saw some more that were even smaller, no bigger than mosquito wrigglers, but very clearly fish. I've never seen any that small. Does that mean they have just come out into the open earlier than normal? If they all survive, we'll have an overcrowding problem. I love to think, in an earth-motherish way, about the chickens and the fish and the frogs and the birds in the garden, to say nothing of the bats we seeing fly overhead now it's summer.

But I have almost run out of social energy, and to preserve some for next week, which is very busy, I skipped the Vice-Chancellor's lunch and the Academic Board lunch and final meeting, and the Arts Faculty end-of-year party last week. But that's also partly because I am now working like a demon on my book, pulling it together tighter and tighter. It feels like the difference between an elastic going three times loosely around a ponytail, so it drops down; and going four times around, so that it stays firmly in place. This revision process doesn't feel at all like maternal labour; it's more like the physical work of toning muscles, or the core stability of a Pilates class. Finally, it's feeling good.

Word salads; salad words; salad days

I am now really truly and seriously working on chapter seven. In it are Camilla's tampon; Annie Liebowitz; Virginia Woolf; the little model of St George and the Dragon that replaces the jaguar on the Queen's car when she rides out; a drinks coaster and a packet of chocolates. If only I could get the order right.

But in the meantime, I am driving to Glenroy to pick up a new thermometer for the incubator — and then driving back later that day with my wallet. I'm making a warm salad of zambucca prawns, polenta chips, fresh coriander, and yoghurt cheese. I'm meeting with students and going to meetings, and agreeing to attend lots more. I'm answering emails and paying bills. I'm watching the Australian women's hockey team win gold in Delhi. I'm watching Chilean miners ascend from the earth. I'm starting to think about a lecture I'm giving soon on John Forbes. I'm planning a trip to Perth in a couple of weeks; and wondering how to finish my essay on the Australian parliamentary obsession with Magna Carta before then. Thanks to a facebook friend, Gio Abate, I'm journeying back to the past, listening to Melanie Safka, "Leftover Wine". I'm checking the temperature in the incubator before finally setting the eggs tonight, while improvising a metal tray out of a cake cooling rack because the proper one has gone missing (I'll have to get something bigger in three weeks when the chickens hatch, otherwise they'll fall off the edge of the cake tray: hardly an auspicious beginning to life). I'm tidying up the garden because the designer has entered it into a competition, four years later. I'm experimenting with some new medication. I'm thinking about how to fulfill the annual leave requirements while serving out my term as head.

And I'm waiting for Paul to come home from Sri Lanka (no ordinary research trip, this one), as he's going with some indigenous AFL players to visit indigenous communities in Sri Lanka, a kind of reconciliation program through sport. Oh, and look what I've just found on YouTube: some raw footage of the doco they're making, with a nice soundtrack: keep watching till you see someone — is that Adam Goodes? — pick up the flag at the end of the soccer pitch and make like the didgeridoo with it:



You can't really see Paul here; except sometimes with his camera.

So that was what some of today was like. But it began (and here I'm responding to KG's curiosity after my FB update), with a boxing class at the gym.

Since Sophie, my dear trainer, left the gym a few months ago, I've been working on my own, though have also just started pilates classes. But for two weeks the gym made all its classes free for members, and I signed up for a trial this morning.

I'd done a tiny bit with Sophie, so had a rough idea what to expect. Alex the trainer is pretty tough, though. There were six of us in the group, so after a bit of a warm up, we divided into pairs. I held the pads for another woman for the first 15 minutes, as Alex took us (in his rather heavy French accent) through a sequence of various things. I can't describe them very well, really, but there's lots to remember. Left foot forward; keep both hands up in guard position; and then various crosses and jabs; punching directly into the pad held up before you; or swinging across, almost horizontally into the pad held at right angles; then ducking; then kicking up into the pad held low; then punching down, either quickly or strongly, into the pads the other person holds at thigh height. Then some elaborate sequences of left right, up and down, etc. It took me a long time to work out which bit I was counting, and my partner was very patient. So we'd do a sequence of five movements, with ten, then eight, then six repetitions, etc. Then we swapped; and she held the pads for me. Then we did a mini circuit of 60 second repetitions: skipping rope; jumping backwards and forwards on the rope ladder laid out on the floor; a little push-up assisting machine; steps up and down on a little step; a little wheel you'd roll out and back from a kneeling position; then resting your forearms on a big punching back lying on the ground, and bringing your knees up to kick it. Then another short punching session; then a stretch. I have to say it was a lot of fun. To my surprise (apart from the difficulty of co-ordinating and counting the sequences), I wasn't too slow, or unable to do most of it. There were two men and four women. Some skipped faster; did lower squats; and more full-length push-ups than I did (I'm concentrating on my form, here, to make sure I'm doing them right), but I held my own. And certainly wouldn't have been able to do that 12 months ago.

In keeping with the salad-theme of this post, I have now lost any thread it once had, and so, unusually, I'm not going to edit much. I'm going to bed, instead.

Two good stories

Home on Tuesday morning after fabulous conference in Berlin. The whole trip was rushed, but went smoothly enough, even down to the last minute escape from Heathrow on Sunday night before the airport was closed for six hours due to the volcanic ash cloud — they practically frogmarched us on to the plane to ensure an early push-back.

I'll blog the conference (and the surprise arrival of three Australians), and perhaps my paper, another time. I'm just waking up, late Friday afternoon, from two days asleep in bed with a horror cold (the price of international travel, perhaps). Am I well enough for Italian class tomorrow? Fingers crossed.

But it was a trip marred by my own forgetfulness. I left my ipod in the plane on the way to London (knowing that P had bought me a fancy i-pod dock with fabulous speakers that was waiting for me at home); I left my glasses at my sister's place when I went to stay in Bloomsbury for a night; I left my contact lens solution there when I went to Berlin (and had to beg some solution from another delegate as we were out in the suburbs on a public holiday...); and worst of all, when I got home, I couldn't find the little zip-up purse with a selection of favourite jewellery I'd taken with me. I know it's not a very practical vanity, to travel with precious items like this, but they are mostly gifts from P, as well as lovely in themselves, and I do enjoy very much having a small selection of coloured stones and shiny metals when I'm travelling and homesick. There's something so personal about jewellery: a connection to home, somehow. Anyway, an hour after I'd declared the loss at home, I went and checked again through every compartment of my travel bag, and there it was, with everything safe and sound. What a great relief.

Another great relief has come in the form of an email from my editor. We had had a bit of toing and froing about the two reports on the six chapters I'd sent. Both reports were generally favourable but both made lots of suggestions about doing things differently; but the Board has now agreed unanimously to contract the book; and they have said specifically that I should be given free rein to write the book as I choose. One of the board members said the only problem was the readers' reports; and that my ms. was elegant, independent, readable and insightful. Now that's more like it! I will take some of the recommendations and suggestions seriously, of course, but it's a wonderful feeling to know that the board as a whole likes the way I put the book together.

Semester ends in a week's time; I'll see how much I can do before I leave for Siena in July. I'm currently making some very sensible resolutions about trying to travel more lightly — and more efficiently.

Screening the Past is Live

Regular readers may remember a series of posts in May and June this year, in which I solicited assistance with an essay on the representation of stained glass in medievalist cinema. I'm grateful to all those who wrote in with ideas and suggestions, and who commented on the fragments of the essay I posted on the blog.

I'm pleased to say the essay has been uploaded today, on the excellent Melbourne journal, from La Trobe University: Screening the Past. This is a fully refereed (and for Australians, an A* ranked) online journal. It is part of a special issue, on Early Europe, edited by the indefatigable Louise D'Arcens, whose introduction, "Screening Early Europe: Premodern Projections," would be worth the price of admission alone, except — wait for it — there's no charge. But honestly, this woman has an enviable knack of bringing people together and making excellent things happen. I'm so lucky to get to collaborate with her on this, and at least two other projects.

Anyway, the beauty of online publication is that little changes and corrections can still be made. So if you should get as far as my essay, and then get as far as the second footnote, and feel you would prefer to be mentioned, or not mentioned, or mentioned by some other name, do please let me know as soon as possible.

Because it's the night before the last day of my leave and the last day before our three day Christmas feast begins, I haven't yet had the chance to do more than skim the other essays, but for the record, I got terrifically helpful readers' reports for this essay, and I'm confident this will turn out to be a very important collection. I heard a version of the fabulous Adrian Martin's talk at the postgraduate masterclass that was the starting-point for this collection: it was great to see a cinema specialist coming to visit the medievalists, just as we have repaid the visit in this screen studies journal. Well, something to look forward to, anyway, when I get a chance to sit down and read them properly.

Here's a list of contents: sorry, no links...

Louise D’Arcens: Screening Early Europe: Premodern Projections.

Adrian Martin: The Long Path Back: Medievalism and Film.

Stephanie Trigg: Transparent Walls: Stained Glass and Cinematic Medievalism.

Anke Bernau: Suspended Animation: Myth, Memory and History in Beowulf.

Sylvia Kershaw and Laurie Ormond: “We are the Monsters Now”: The Genre Medievalism of Robert Zemeckis’ Beowulf.

Robert Sinnerbrink: From Mythic History to Cinematic Poetry: Terrence Malick’s The New World Viewed.

Helen Dell: Music for Myth and Fantasy in Two Arthurian Films.

Narelle Campbell: Medieval Reimaginings: Female Knights in Children’s Television.

Louise D’Arcens: Iraq, the Prequel(s): Historicising Military Occupation and Withdrawal in Kingdom of Heaven and 300.

Christina Loong: Reel Medici Mobsters? The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance Reassessed.

Laura Ginters: “A Continuous Return”: Tristan and Isolde, Wagner, Hollywood and Bill Viola.

Appendix: Raúl Ruiz: Three Thrusts at Excalibur.

I'd love to know what you made of any of these essays.

Pressing "send"

Had you been close to my house ten minutes ago, you would have heard a loud "squeak". That was the sound of me pressing "Send" as I sent off the first six chapters of my book on the Order of the Garter to the very patient editor at the big US press I hope will publish this book. We've never signed a contract to publish, which was a good idea as I would never have met a deadline, and it would have just been a source of stress (as I'm writing this post, I can see in the email "progress" window that a quarter of the ms. has now been sent).

The deal is that these chapters can now go out to be read, while I finish the last, a third of which is drafted.

There are many stages to go, of course. If the reports are positive, I hope we'll then sign a contract; and while I secretly hope and believe the readers will think it's perfect as it is, there will certainly be changes to make. Then there's final approval, copy-editing (half of the message has now gone), tracking down of permissions for images, checking, and cross-checking of references, compilation of bibliography and all the rest of it.

Still, this is a big day: the first, very big milestone on the last stretch towards completion.

What am I going to do now?

I'm going to go outside and feed the goldfish, then come back in and work on a grant application for an hour or so. And then tonight, I am going to see this. How's that for timing?

And how's this? Entourage has just played its little chimes: message SENT.

Australian undergraduate essay prize: Medieval and Early Modern Studies

A note about a neat essay prize open to Australian undergraduate students...

National Undergraduate Essay Competition 2009: Medieval and Early Modern Studies

The UWA Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (CMEMS) is sponsoring a National Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS) Undergraduate Essay Competition in 2009.

The Competition will recognise and encourage excellence in the MEMS area of study at the undergraduate level. The writer of the winning essay will be presented with a $1000 cash prize at an award ceremony at UWA; be offered a two-week research-intensive internship with CMEMS; and be invited to present their essay as part of a CMEMS seminar. Financial assistance with travel and accommodation will be provided where required.

The judging panel will be made up of three CMEMS senior academic staff members, representing different MEMS-related disciplines. Essays will be submitted to the judging panel anonymously. The judges¹ decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into concerning the correctness of their decision.

Eligibility:
The Competition is open to students enrolled full time or part time in an undergraduate degree in an Australian university, who:
* are undertaking the second or third year level of their degree in 2009,
* enrolled in a unit during 2009 relevant to medieval and early modern studies,
* are available to spend two weeks at UWA at a time to be negotiated.

The Essay:
Students who meet the eligibility requirements are invited to submit an essay:
* of between 3000 and 5000 words on a medieval or early modern topic (defined for this purpose as being between the 5th and 18th centuries).
* The essay may be, or be based on, an essay submitted as part of the student's current course of study, or it may be written specifically for the competition.
* All primary and secondary sources used in preparing the entry must be acknowledged using an appropriate citation system. A bibliography must be included.


The Rules:

Submitting An Entry:
Before submitting their essay, students should ensure they adhere to the
following requirements-:
· The essay should be typewritten in 12 point Times New Roman font.
- Double-spacing should be used.
· Do NOT put your name anywhere on the essay itself. Your name should only appear on the cover sheet.
· Ensure the cover sheet is completed, signed and attached.
· Ensure you have a copy of the essay.
· Emailed documents should preferably be sent as a pdf file

When submitting their essay students should:
* Sign the declaration on the cover sheet provided certifying that the entry is his or her own and unaided original work.
* Ensure their essays have been submitted (either by registered mail or electronically) by Monday 30th November 2009, 5pm WST. No late entries will be accepted.

Each candidate can only submit one essay.

Entry is free.

Submit your essay to CMEMS by 5pm WST on Monday 30th November, by either of
the following two methods:

Email as a pdf file to: cmems-arts@uwa.edu.au

- or -

Send by Registered mail to:
CMEMS Essay Competition
UWA Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies M208
University of Western Australia
35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA, 6009

For further information please contact Pam Bond (pam.bond@uwa.edu.au)

Pam Bond
Administrative Assistant
Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Faculty of Arts, Humanities &
Social Science
Administrative Assistant
ARC Network for Early European Research, School of Humanities

University of Western Australia
M208 / 35 Stirling Highway
Crawley WA 6009
Australia

email: pam.bond@uwa.edu.au
tel: + 61-8-6488 3858
fax: + 61-8-6488 1069
http://www.neer.arts.uwa.edu.au/
http://www.mems.arts.uwa.edu.au/
CRICOS Provider No.00126G

Blogging between the covers

As my year of leave from teaching draws to a close, it'll soon be time to contemplate the things I haven't done. At one point I thought (and with no small encouragement from a publisher) that I might write a book about blogging, and about this blog in particular. That didn't happen, for lots of reasons. Not having yet finished the two other books I'm supposed to be writing, let alone another project or two, is just one of them.

Another is the somewhat thorny question of translating blogs to print. So I am intrigued to read, over at In the Medieval Middle, that there is a plan afoot to bring the Chaucer blog into print.* Jeffrey Cohen is writing an essay on medieval blogging (and other online and electronic fora and media) as part of this Palgrave project, and in the collaborative spirit of a collaborative blog with a large readership, he's blogging about the process and inviting commentaries and discussions on-line. So this is my first writerly appearance at In the Medieval Middle in the "post", not the "comments" box. Matthew Gabriele's post is also up, and there'll be others to follow.

I'm hoping these discussions will constitute another layer of background and context for my panel on blogging at NCS next July, too.

In the meantime, for the record, over the last nine and a half months, I have actually been quite productive, work-wise, and am really truly about to send off my first six chapters of the Garter book; and have done other things as well. But I'm especially pleased with the things I've done on my long service leave, when you are supposed to have a real break from teaching and research and everything. Thus, I did have a short holiday in Europe; I did start learning Italian (still going); and I did join a gym (also still going). I haven't painted the back of the house, yet, as I'd planned. And I didn't write that book about the blog either. That's ok: at the moment, the thing I think the world really needs is a fabulously exciting book about the Order of the Garter.


*If you haven't checked out this blog for a while, there's a cracking new entry in part about a medieval teenage sparkly vampire book series: Chaucer Sparkleth in Sonne.

Why I Love my Readers

A while back I asked if anyone would be interested in reading a chapter of my book on the Order of the Garter. I was overwhelmed by people's willingness to do this, and am now slowly working through these comments as I try to get my six chapters ready to send to the publisher (hopefully, within a week or two). I'm working backwards, so as to leave the hardest chapters (1 and 2) to last, and so that I have the fullest sense of the book as I revise those crucial opening chapters.

People's responses have been tremendously useful, and I'm amazed at the tact with which people have pointed out where the argument is hard to follow or doesn't make sense. I'm also thrilled at the deftness with which people have suggested clever readings of the primary material I look at. I feel the book is really starting to come together properly now, and it's absolutely due to these responses.

I'm just going through Chapter Three now and have Philip and David to thank, today, for helping me make sense of this chapter, which has to work through the many variants of the Garter myth. I hope Philip won't mind my sharing this comment, which makes me laugh out loud each time I read it.

Page 16: "Other versions and variants also circulated."

- Did you write this chapter in a linear way, from start to finish? At this precise point you're sounding a bit lethargic, as if the sheer quantity and variety of material was too much to bear. Which of course it is, but you may want to seem effortlessly clever...

No, my dear, I assembled it like the whole book, in bits and pieces and scraps, and occasional bursts of 5000 words at a time. And yes, of course, I want to seem effortlessly clever, though I suspect this blog may have blown my cover there. Anyway, I've deleted the offending sentence in an effort to appear effortless.

Hey ho: back to work!

Why It Takes So Long

As I reach the final stages of my book on the Order of the Garter (6 chapters about to be sent to the publisher; last chapter half-written), I'm tidying up references, and scanning my photos. And as I look at the titles I have just collected from the library, from up and down the Dewey cataloguing scale, it reminds me of why it's taking me so long. I have

Oscar Wilde, The picture of Dorian Gray

William Empson, The Structure of Complex Words

Harriet Guest, Empire, Barbarism and Civilisation

Crowfoot, et al. Textiles and Clothing, c. 1150-c. 1450.

On my desk at home I have Rachel Holmes' biography of the intersexual doctor, James Barry.

And on my list of things to order and place on hold I have Foxe's Book of Martyrs, Pepys' Diary, and The Last of the Barons, by Edward Bulwer Lytton.

(Also on my desk is a History of the New South Wales Parliament, but that's for another project: quite separate...)

No wonder it's taking me so long to tie all my threads together. It sometimes feels dizzying to be moving across so many centuries and fields. Still, some sections in some chapters now make a satisfying "clunk" sound (like the sound when you check out a library book at Baillieu) when they come to an end. Getting there. Ever closer, every day.

It is of course ridiculous that this great enterprise will score me only a measely 5 points on our research productivity indicator things. But you know what? I don't care. Today, this week, I really like my book.

When Tom Comes to Town

As he starts winging his way to Melbourne, here's a notice about a talk my writing collaborator, Tom Prendergast, will give next Wednesday. All are welcome!!

School of Culture and Communication Seminar
Tom Prendergast

"Violating the Sanctuary: Westminster Abbey and
the Inhabitation of the Middle Ages"

In this talk I will examine how the medieval idea of “chartered sanctuary” was connected to the sacral idea of the inviolable body of the Abbey. I argue that, in fact, it was a violation of this space that led to its delineation and sanctification. In 1378 an English squire, Robert Hauley, was murdered before the high altar. This violation of the sanctuary (a national drama that included John of Gaunt, John Wyclif and Richard II) not only led to the closure of the Abbey for four months and the suspension of Parliament (which then met in the Chapter House), but mapped out a national space for England’s cultural productions. For Hauley’s corpse, reverently buried in what would be Poets’ Corner (the South Transept), became a sign of the inviolability and extralegal status of the Abbey. Connected with, and yet separate from more traditional notions of the saintly body, Hauley’s dead body becomes productive of a kind of secular reverence that anticipates the corporeal aesthetics of Poets’ Corner. My talk, then, will uncover the ways in which Poets’ Corner itself becomes not just a burial site, but a kind of sacred space that enables the process of literary “canonization.” Further, I argue that this largely post-medieval poetic graveyard in the “national Valhalla” of England (Westminster Abbey) continues to be haunted by its own violent history, and that it is this violent history that enables us to “inhabit” the prehistory of Poets' Corner.

Thomas Prendergast is Associate Professor of English and Chair of Comparative Literature at the College of Wooster. He is the author of Chaucer's Dead Body: From Corpse to Corpus and the co-editor of Rewriting Chaucer: Culture, Authority, and the Idea of the Authentic Text, 1400-1602. He is currently working on book entitled England's National Plot: the Secret History of Poets' Corner.

Wednesday October 7, 4.30-6.00 pm. Dennis Driscoll Theatre, Doug McDonnell Building. (NB it is third floor of the building between the ERC Library and the Alice Hoy Building)
http://www.culture-communication.unimelb.edu.au/seminars.html

Drinks at University House afterwards

This seminar is free of charge and open to all staff, postgraduate and undergraduate students and members of the public.

I'm currently washing the sheets and about to clean up the spare bedroom, while making various plans for eating-out and playing tennis. I have also printed out what we have already put together of our book. We have about 50,000 words in five chapters of a draft manuscript now, and a suggested submission date of February. Not quite sure how I came to be at a similar stage of completion of two books at the same time, but there it is. Actually, Tom's book on Poets' Corner is only a little more advanced: we may end up publishing three books between the two of us rather close together. Talk about flooding the market.

Your Big Chance to get in my book

It's suddenly come to that interesting period in a young book's life when it needs readers. Currently I have five chapters, and by the end of the week I'll have six of my seven chapters ready for reading. My lovely editor at the press says that if I get these six chapters to him in September, he'll send them out to readers while I finish the seventh. The book's still not contracted, which suits me fine, because a contract implies a deadline. Like my Chaucer book, this one has a range of over 600 years, and has also been interrupted by bodily trauma (I had my son during the writing of Congenial Souls [hey, and maybe that's why he's turned out to be one, though it's scary to think what this book might presage for him]).

But it's time to send it out. So here's your chance to score a mention in my Acknowledgements. If you would be interested in reading a chapter, I'll send you the Preface, which introduces the book; plus the table of contents, so you can see the lie of the land; and the chapter of your choice. This book is not meant to be fearsomely specialised: I'd welcome offers to read from medievalists, people working in other fields, students, former students, anyone interested in medievalism, royal tourism, heritage culture, etc. etc. Feedback of any kind would be most gratefully received.

The working title is Rituals of Shame and Honour: The Order of the Garter. Or perhaps it'll be Shame, Honour and Medievalism... Or summat like that.


The Preface concludes with the following paragraphs (I'll add a few glosses in italics so you can see what you'd be reading about)

The book is organised in three parts. The first, “Ritual Histories,” proceeds roughly chronologically. Chapter One introduces the concepts of ritual criticism, mythic capital, and medievalism. Reading the Order as a form of medievalist ritual practice allows me to focus attention on discussion of the medieval origins of the Order in Chapters Two and Three, not simply as a historical question of sources and their witness, but also as an example of the curious, diverse and ongoing life of the medieval, from late medieval, through to early modern, modern and post-modern cultural forms. Chapter Two explores what we know of the Order’s first founding and the ritual meanings of its central mythology [discusses Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Tirant lo Blanc, Polydor Vergil, earliest sources for garter motto and emblem; the most "medieval" chapter]. Chapter Three considers the first few hundred years of Garter histories, and the way those histories treat of the medieval past. [full of wonderful variations on the garter myth, gossip about the garter and counter-narratives, from C15 to C18]

The second part, “Ritual Practices,” is organised more thematically. Three chapters range widely, back and forth between the fourteenth and twentieth centuries. Chapter Four explores the concept of shame that shadows much of the Order’s ritual practice, a concept that makes it almost impossible to say where the medieval ends and the modern begins in Garter history, or where a renaissance or modern understanding of shame replaces a medieval one [discusses Malory, and Sir Gawain, garter rituals of degradation {very thrilling}, the constant threat of disorder and shame in the performance of garter rituals, and some very decadent C19 interpretations of the garter myth]. Chapter Five examines the nature of ritual reform and change, the discourses the Order of the Garter uses when it engages most self-consciously in ritual criticism ("proud histories" contrasted with histories of decay and desuetude - Charles 1; discussion of Edward VI's protestant reforms and other attempts to "update" the order; history of women in Garter, from C14 to C20). Chapter Six focuses on the embodied performance of the Order, in the fashions and regalia worn by its men and women, the ritual life of gendered bodies, and the importance of the pictorial and visual tradition in the construction of the medieval (includes discussions of the queer garter, the difference female and male bodies make to the wearing of the garter; what happens when the royal body touches the non-royal body at the moment of installation; and concludes with a discussion of Max Beerbohm's Zuleika Dobson: the garter knight as dandy).

The third part, “Ritual Modernities,” in Chapter Seven, brings these strands together, to consider the history of the Garter in the reign of Elizabeth II, examining the implications for medievalism in the transition from modernity to postmodernity, and reflecting on this most medieval Order’s perpetual quest for modernity. (well, I'll update this when it's written: at the moment it's got poetry by David Campbell and U. A. Fanthorpe, Annie Liebowitz photographing the queen, the Barmy Army, Camilla's tampon, a beercoaster, some chocolates I bought at Windsor, and the Sydney University student newspaper.)

So, all offers to read will be very welcome. I should say I don't do this without extreme trepidation. But you know, I'm just going to do it anyway. Write an offer in the comments box, or send me an email: sjtriggatunimelbdotedudotau