[NON BLOG] Meetup and Musings

[rfmcdonald]

Yesterday after work, at 4:15 I met up with serod, back in Canada after three months of exciting and productive graduate studies in London. We talked for the next hour and change about a variety of topics, including those same graduate studies, life in Europe, the changing role of historiography in the specific contexts of late medieval/early modern Italy and in the contemporary world, assorted matters geopolitical and longue durée-cultural, and more.

I'd read serod's Queen's history thesis that morning, to make sure that I had, in fact, learned what I thought that I learned when I read it, namely, that was Savonarola as a conservative modernizer, of sorts, appearing at an unstable time in Florence's history where his kind could do quite well for themselves. That was rather fun to read. That thesis, along with the vast and vastly fascinating treasure of historical data with multiple implications for historians of mid-2nd millennium Italy that serod found for his thesis, bodes well for his future in academe.

After we parted, I felt a bit envious of serod. Certainly I had my problems with academia--I likely should have gone for my MA History instead of MA English--but academe at its finest moments offered me the chance to contribute to the formation of new fields of discourse, to create new connections and reveal underlying trends with implications for my successors. I suppose that part of the reason that I blog so extensively (relative to my various resources, at least) is to try to continue this sort of relationship, to continue to participate in the ongoing dialogics of public discourse and to influence their evolution. Blogging's fun, and a useful step towards this end. It's not enough, though: I need to start getting published. A half-year's sabbatical from the formal framework of academe is enough for me.

In the meantime, I wish serod the best and look forward to meeting up with him and--for the first time--the lovely runyon this coming March.