Sunday, January 25, 2009

A talk that is NOT about medieval obesity

by J J Cohen

If you are in New York, NY the week after next, you have the chance to see the final performance of The Weight of the Past, my favorite presentation in my scholarly performance repertoire. The talk on February 5 is co-sponsored by the Anglo-Saxon Studies Colloquium and the NYU English Medieval Forum.

And if you can't make it to K'zoo, despair not: you can make your way to Leeds in July to see my brand spanking new project '"Between Christian and Jew: Orthodoxy, Violence, and Living Together in Medieval England." This plenary lecture is part of the kick-off of the Heresy and Orthodoxy strand that dominates the conference.

8 comments:

Dr. Richard Scott Nokes said...

Now suddenly I *want* to hear some research on medieval obesity.

i said...

I'll be there! With bells on.

Liza Blake said...

My friend assured me that his inquiry as to whether obesity was the topic was a joke ... if you believe it.

Maybe you could throw in a fat joke to make the people happy? If not, I know what my question will be about ...

We can't wait to have you!

Liza Blake said...

It should also be reiterated: non-NYC visitors most welcome!

dan remein said...

I wan going to go to this talk, but now I will not go unless you mention medieval obesity.

Perhaps...

Jeffrey Cohen said...

Dan, if and only if you attend the talk in a fat suit, THEN I will pontificate about medieval obesity. Come as your spindly self, however, and you get a meditation on the knowability of the past that has nothing to do with adiposity.

Karl Steel said...

Perhaps you could work in an allusion to Thomas Aquinas's table? Supposedly, he had a hemisphere cut into it to make room for his stomach; otherwise, I like to imagine, he wouldn't have been able to reach his books.

Anyone know offhand the origin of this legend?

dan remein said...

fat suit...let's see...i think i have one somewhere...