Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Three Links of Interest

by J J Cohen

If you are one of those rare readers capable of multiple learngasms, you may enjoy the following:
  1. A review of Burton Raffel's new, simple and straightforward translation of the Canterbury Tales at Slate [h/t Dan Kline]
  2. An AHA inspired piece on transnational history at Insider HigherEd. Haven't medievalists always been doing this? [h/t Jonathan Hsy]
  3. At the Medieval Material Culture blog, a listing of medieval and early modern Washington DC sightseeing to be done, especially while you are in town for Inauguration. Just remember that as the millions attend the Obamafest, the government will provide only one Port-a-Potty per 6000 celebrants, and that the English Department is charging only $10 per use for its facilities (proceeds for the Chair's Slush Fund). I've even told the work-study students that they will be stationed by the loos with white towels draped over their arms for that added touch of class.
  4. [edit 1/7] plus two bonus links from M. Hensel: Stonehenge as prehistoric rave venue, and a poem about the temporality of the syllabus.

6 comments:

Steve Muhlberger said...

"Haven't medievalists always been doing this?"

Yes.

Anonymous said...

I like how the Slate review ends by imploring readers to actually try Chaucer in Middle English. Nice, and unexpected coming from Slate.

Lucia said...

Thank you for posting the link on medieval and early modern sightseeing in DC. Otherwise, I would never have known that there was going to be a Roman de la Rose exhibit in Baltimore!

(And hello. I'm commenting for the first time. I recently moved to DC, and I found your blog when I was looking for medieval studies lectures and other related events that might be happening in town. I'm a medievalist, and I'm mid-dissertation, but I'm not affiliated with any of the local schools, so I am a bit intellectually isolated, and I have no way of finding out about local events.)

Jeffrey Cohen said...

Welcome! Make sure you also check this blog for DC medieval events:
http://gwmemsi.blogspot.com/

You may also want to get on the mailing list.

Lucia said...

Thank you!

I knew about the other blog, but I did not know about the mailing list. I just sent a request to be added.

Karl Steel said...

Glad to see the Slate review: it's quite good for a non-specialist, although--no surprise--there's nothing in there to account for the peculiar medieval popularity of the most depersonalized "tales," Melibee and the Parson's T.

The IHE piece is quite good too. Inspired by a grad student project, I've been thinking occasionally about what has no doubt obsessed political scholars for ages: that social existence requires us to be citizens of something, or, to put this in medieval terms [if these terms are transportable], to be 'someone's man.' How strange it is that I exist as an "American citizen"! How strange it is that I would lose all protections if I lost this existence? And that certain citizenships grant more or less protection? Bravo for historians for trying to study people apart from this peculiar primary condition, or at least for studying this primary condition as more heterogeneous than they are usually understood. I'd like to hope that the study will itself estrange the notion of citizenship such that something new--and I hope better--might be imagined. Isn't that the purpose of archaeologic critique, after all?