[NON BLOG] Note from Toronto
May. 27th, 2004 07:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldMy presentation-last of my academic career to date, possibly the last in my academic career in toto-went well. I'll produce a script later, since I'd worked mainly off of what I'd written and my knowledge. I think I riffed well in my presentation, though; certainly, the question period was full. I was tense as I delivered, afraid that I had a halting delivery or an inadequate model, but it seemed to work. Contextualizing Miltonian and Cromwellian attitudes towards the Jews in a pan-European context-in relationship to a potentially hegemonic Spain, to the rival Calvinist-republican Dutch, to the Jews who obstinately failed to recognize the truth of the Christian revelation-strikes me as an essential task. You can recognize the Commonwealth's Lord Protector and his Latin secretary as quintessentially English if you want, but assuming that they and English culture emerged from the void is just silly. The parallels between the situations in the late 16th century Dutch Republic and the mid-17th century English Commonwealth are fascinatingly illustrative.
Sometimes, I wonder how I blundered my way into a MA English career. I don't mind my academic path to date; in fact, I'm quite happy with it. Still, given the subject matters of my presentations, you'd think I'd have gone for History. No regrets now, of course, but some wonder.
I'm in Toronto. I drove in, actually, with my co-presenter (incidentally, he did an excellent job examining typologies in Paradise Lost in relation to the Jews) who had already planned to drive to Toronto today. We managed the trip in just over two hours, speeding at 130 and 140 km/h down the 401, switching over to the Don Valley Parkway upon entering the GTA. The conversation and company was fantastic. I'm at my host's place now, typing these words on my laptop, listening to Red Hot & Blue--the Neville Brothers' "In the Still of the Night", actually. Very nice CD, on the whole, though I don't know what the Thompson Twins are doing on it.
Right now, I feel quietly ecstatic. Despite everything ahead of my, Things Are Good. Do hope to meet with as many people, LJers and otherwise, while I'm here.
2:57 PM, 27 May 2004
Sometimes, I wonder how I blundered my way into a MA English career. I don't mind my academic path to date; in fact, I'm quite happy with it. Still, given the subject matters of my presentations, you'd think I'd have gone for History. No regrets now, of course, but some wonder.
I'm in Toronto. I drove in, actually, with my co-presenter (incidentally, he did an excellent job examining typologies in Paradise Lost in relation to the Jews) who had already planned to drive to Toronto today. We managed the trip in just over two hours, speeding at 130 and 140 km/h down the 401, switching over to the Don Valley Parkway upon entering the GTA. The conversation and company was fantastic. I'm at my host's place now, typing these words on my laptop, listening to Red Hot & Blue--the Neville Brothers' "In the Still of the Night", actually. Very nice CD, on the whole, though I don't know what the Thompson Twins are doing on it.
Right now, I feel quietly ecstatic. Despite everything ahead of my, Things Are Good. Do hope to meet with as many people, LJers and otherwise, while I'm here.
2:57 PM, 27 May 2004
