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Lately I'm acquiring a new stack of student gems -- the best of this week's batch so far seems to be the student who wrote, on the cover of his blue book next to the slot marked "Grade," "Shooting for a D-." This is an extremely bad idea, as it inspires me to reply, "Oops, sorry, you missed."
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daegaer has an entertaining interview meme -- she asks her flist questions, we answer on our own journals, and then our own friends volunteer to be interviewed. Any takers?
daegaer's questions for me:
1. Assuming you have adequate supplies to get you started in your new life, would you rather be stranded on a desert island, in the rain forest, or on a mountain?
Definitely a mountain. I don't like rain, and beaches get boring after a while. Mountains are great, though. One can climb up and down them again and again, taking occasional breaks to watch sunsets over nearby valleys.
2. Why do you find the Middle Ages interesting?
I'm fascinated by the rich texture of detail. I can pick up a text, say, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and read it first for its plotline, then for its language, its rhythm, its conceptual organization, its gender politics, its otherworld motifs (and yes, I know how problematic a concept the so-called "otherworld" is)... For a less-studied text, perhaps the collection of saints' lives known as the South English Legendary, there are even more narratives to explore. Where does the text come from? How does it move? Why do people read it? Who reads it? Who retells it? What does it say about medieval modes of piety? Every time I read a medieval text, I learn a new way to ask questions about it. I suppose this could be true if I worked with a different period, but because of the immense distance in time between now and then, there's a vast quantity of knowledge we have about recent writers, their milieux and their methods, that we simply don't have for writings from the Middle Ages. This means both that we are in a large sense ignorant, and that we can easily convince ourselves that the Middle Ages are more unlike our own time than they might actually have been. I enjoy pointing out that supposedly modern trends existed in some form by the twelfth century, or announcing that not everyone in thirteenth-century England loathed the Jews. There's a constant negotiation between conceptions of the Middle Ages as a period of "alterity" (sorry for the jargon) and as a period that was just like ours, only hundreds of years ago. I love to negotiate it.
3. What newspapers do you read and why?
The New York Times -- I'm an East Coast (of the US) liberal at heart. I scoff at the San Francisco Chronicle; it's a bit light on geopolitics, except as they relate to the oil going in those other people's SUVs. Do not misunderstand me. I am not a friend of the SUV either. I do, however, like to read news that occasionally might be slightly more complicated than "Bush bad. Vote here."
I suppose I should start reading the Washington Post, but somehow it would feel like a betrayal of New York City.
4. If you could bring together the perfect music group of all time, who would be its members?
I think they're called Simon and Garfunkel. Guest musicians including, but not limited to, Leonard Cohen, Beth Orton, Peter Gabriel, Dar Williams, the Nields sisters and Emmylou Harris would, perhaps, be permitted onstage.
5. What was your first pet like?
I was never very much of a pet person. We had fish when I was about ten, but they died, because we all forgot to feed them.
**
Any interviewees?
Meanwhile,
daegaer has an entertaining interview meme -- she asks her flist questions, we answer on our own journals, and then our own friends volunteer to be interviewed. Any takers?daegaer's questions for me:1. Assuming you have adequate supplies to get you started in your new life, would you rather be stranded on a desert island, in the rain forest, or on a mountain?
Definitely a mountain. I don't like rain, and beaches get boring after a while. Mountains are great, though. One can climb up and down them again and again, taking occasional breaks to watch sunsets over nearby valleys.
2. Why do you find the Middle Ages interesting?
I'm fascinated by the rich texture of detail. I can pick up a text, say, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and read it first for its plotline, then for its language, its rhythm, its conceptual organization, its gender politics, its otherworld motifs (and yes, I know how problematic a concept the so-called "otherworld" is)... For a less-studied text, perhaps the collection of saints' lives known as the South English Legendary, there are even more narratives to explore. Where does the text come from? How does it move? Why do people read it? Who reads it? Who retells it? What does it say about medieval modes of piety? Every time I read a medieval text, I learn a new way to ask questions about it. I suppose this could be true if I worked with a different period, but because of the immense distance in time between now and then, there's a vast quantity of knowledge we have about recent writers, their milieux and their methods, that we simply don't have for writings from the Middle Ages. This means both that we are in a large sense ignorant, and that we can easily convince ourselves that the Middle Ages are more unlike our own time than they might actually have been. I enjoy pointing out that supposedly modern trends existed in some form by the twelfth century, or announcing that not everyone in thirteenth-century England loathed the Jews. There's a constant negotiation between conceptions of the Middle Ages as a period of "alterity" (sorry for the jargon) and as a period that was just like ours, only hundreds of years ago. I love to negotiate it.
3. What newspapers do you read and why?
The New York Times -- I'm an East Coast (of the US) liberal at heart. I scoff at the San Francisco Chronicle; it's a bit light on geopolitics, except as they relate to the oil going in those other people's SUVs. Do not misunderstand me. I am not a friend of the SUV either. I do, however, like to read news that occasionally might be slightly more complicated than "Bush bad. Vote here."
I suppose I should start reading the Washington Post, but somehow it would feel like a betrayal of New York City.
4. If you could bring together the perfect music group of all time, who would be its members?
I think they're called Simon and Garfunkel. Guest musicians including, but not limited to, Leonard Cohen, Beth Orton, Peter Gabriel, Dar Williams, the Nields sisters and Emmylou Harris would, perhaps, be permitted onstage.
5. What was your first pet like?
I was never very much of a pet person. We had fish when I was about ten, but they died, because we all forgot to feed them.
**
Any interviewees?
