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!


Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Medievalism in California

Ooh er... Look what I'll be doing in November!



University of California, Riverside Events
Medievalism, Colonialism, Nationalism:A Symposium

Friday, November 7, and Saturday, November 8, 2008
9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

In cooperation with the Australian Research Council, this conference will bring together leading international and University of California scholars on how the European pre-modern past has played a role in shaping colonial and national identities and how our view of that past have been changed as a result. Panels will discuss King Arthur as a national symbol, medieval chivalry in World War I, the psychological significance of reviving the past, Beowulf on the page and on the screen, the Middle Ages in ballet, medieval crime fiction, the origins of blasphemy and the politics of reconstruction and rebuilding.
Open to: Public
Admission: Free
Sponsor: Center for Ideas & Society

Contact Information:
Laura Lozon
951-827-1555
laura.lozon@ucr.edu

And look at this list of speakers; Elizabeth Allen, Seeta Chaganti, Louise D'Arcens, Aranye Fradenburg, John Ganim, David Lawton, Andrew Lynch, David Marshall, Anne McKendry, Maura Nolan, Thomas Prendergast, Brenda Deen Schildgen, Carol Symes...

This symposium is the brainchild of the wonderful John Ganim, and is part of our Medievalism in Australian Cultural Memory project. My paper is going to be on Ned Kelly as a Robin Hood figure. Watch this space...

5 comments:

Jeffrey Cohen said...

I would be there -- John was gracious enough to invite me -- but I'm busy on that day staging the East Coast rival to this tremendous California confab.

This old world is a new world said...

Well, we'll miss you. It's one of those occasions, though, where one is glad one is already committed to one of these two gigs: I reckon it'd be pretty hard to choose between them. Mind you, I reckon John's poster is hard to resist... Pity we can't all do both, though.

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

Do you know about Rob Drewe's Our Sunshine and Jean Bedford's Sister Kate? -- there may be things there you can use. The Drewe in particular is a lovely novel, much underrated, and helpfully short. I'm sure whoever it was who cast Mick Jagger had some interesting things to say about the Robin Hoodish aspect, too. And have you read Delia Falconer's lovely Kelly story?

This old world is a new world said...

Oh, I'd forgotten about the Bedford. I'm re-reading Carey, and Drewe is next. And no, I don't know Delia's story, either. Lucky I've got ... oh, easily a month before I get on the plane! Thanks for these brilliant suggestions.

Joel did a straw poll at school and everyone he asked said that yes, they thought of NK as RH. And there is a tiny fragment in the Jerilderie letter that suggests investors should withdraw their money from the bank and give it to the widows and orphans...

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

Delia's story is in *coughmycough* Australian Love Stories from OUP -- 'The Republic of Love', which she wrote specially for the anthology.