tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post116117631479218454..comments2024-03-10T20:46:19.274-04:00Comments on In the Middle: Writing, Race and NationCord J. Whitakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06224143153295429986noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-1161446268247060442006-10-21T11:57:00.000-04:002006-10-21T11:57:00.000-04:00You put a blog entry on a syllabus? The world is, ...You put a blog entry on a syllabus? The world is, indeed, changing. Thanks, too, by the way for putting together a really cool course the rest of us can rip off, as I plan to do next fall. I wonder if, for the purposes of this course, you would want to look at the anthropologist Marshall Sahlins's book "Islands of History"? The chapter, "Other Times, Other Customs: The Anthropology of History" would be particularly apt, I think [we almost included this in "The Postmodern Beowulf," but JJC's suggestion to incorporate an essay by Alfred Siewers, "Landscapes of Conversion: Guthlac's Mound and Grenderl's Mere as Expressions of Anglo-Saxon Nation-Building" pushed it out].Eileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-1161225054096029012006-10-18T22:30:00.000-04:002006-10-18T22:30:00.000-04:00Rob, a bit of blegging: I've read Edwin Norris's A...Rob, a bit of blegging: I've read Edwin Norris's <I>Ancient Cornish Drama,</I> which, as you surely know, is about 150 years old. Any more recent editions of this stuff? Perhaps in your current project?<BR/><BR/>--<BR/><BR/>JJC: I posted my most new post before I read this one, as my browser was so jammed up, I guess, that I couldn't read the recent posts here. Oddly, they seem to speak to each other.Karl Steelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03353370018006849747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-1161200544415429512006-10-18T15:42:00.000-04:002006-10-18T15:42:00.000-04:00Rob:Great that you mention Chesire--I was just fli...Rob:<BR/><BR/>Great that you mention Chesire--I was just flipping through a collection about "Celticism" (another loaded term), and the epilogue made the excellent point that outside the so-called Celtic homelands and the couple of overseas Celtic areas (Cape Breton and the Welsh bit of Argentina), we're left with Cheshire, Lancashire, and parts of northern Spain, regions of "Celtic heritage" that have vexed relationships to the larger nations of which they're part. The north-west of England looms large in my mind as a space caught somewhere between the Celtic and the English, and I wonder what work will be done in years to come about English regional variance and how the parts of England beyond the Home Counties are considered "English."<BR/><BR/>I look forward to reading your book when it comes out!JKWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14965566773252227387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-1161198379781292082006-10-18T15:06:00.000-04:002006-10-18T15:06:00.000-04:00I don't think you're being a nitpicking pedant, JK...I don't think you're being a nitpicking pedant, JKW--the monograph I'm finishing (within the next month) looks at writing and performance in medieval and early modern Cheshire and argues something similar. I.e., that "England" is itself a fiction (albeit a powerful one) that papers over a variety of preexisting regional differences.<BR/><BR/>The dissertation version of this project made it into one of the footnotes in JJC's Speculum article on Norwich. If I'm lucky and the book gets published, maybe a chapter can make its way into JJC's syllabus the next time he teaches the class.<BR/><BR/>(Which I would have loved to have taken as a grad student.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-1161194987348592412006-10-18T14:09:00.000-04:002006-10-18T14:09:00.000-04:00thanks!thanks!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-1161189298486154512006-10-18T12:34:00.000-04:002006-10-18T12:34:00.000-04:00I would begin with an essay JKW once sent me: "The...I would begin with an essay JKW once sent me: "The Dissidence of Despair: Rebellion and Identity in Early Modern Cornwall" by Mark Stoyle (Journal of British Studies 38. 4 1999, pp.423-44).<BR/><BR/>It's an excellent piece.Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-1161188917320873262006-10-18T12:28:00.000-04:002006-10-18T12:28:00.000-04:00Wow... how timely. I'm teaching book three of Spe...Wow... how timely. I'm teaching book three of Spenser's FQ, and a student of mine just asked if it matters that Arthegall, Britomart's love, is a Cornish prince! <BR/><BR/>where to begin...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-1161185001124164912006-10-18T11:23:00.000-04:002006-10-18T11:23:00.000-04:00True, true, true! The course tries to debunk some ...True, true, true! The course tries to debunk some of England's own mythology about itself (and especially about its homogeneity) -- so "united, anglophone kingdom" really does depend upon (1) a slanted point of view and (2) blinders.Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-1161182734912780082006-10-18T10:45:00.000-04:002006-10-18T10:45:00.000-04:00A united, anglophone kingdom, eh? Not so in Cornw...A united, anglophone kingdom, eh? Not so in Cornwall, where the Cornish language persisted straight through into the early modern period. Mark Stoyle, in a great piece about Cornish identity in the Tudor and Stuart periods ("The Dissidence of Despair: Rebellion and Identity in Early Modern Cornwall") writes that Roger Williams took to referring to the Cornish and Irish as "Indians" (!) and that the Cornish, for their part, referred to the English as Saxons ("Sawson," like the Welsh "Saesneg").<BR/><BR/>Granted, I'm being a nitpicking pedantic, but England proper in the Middle Ages was home not just to the various dialects of English plus Norman French, but also to Cornish, a Celtic language that boasted quite the corpus of literature and drama. And if <A HREF="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/3866927.stm" REL="nofollow">Lisa Simpson</A> and I have our way, no one will forget it!JKWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14965566773252227387noreply@blogger.com