"Clive Owen" and "King Arthur" kind of alliterate

Welcome back, readers!

I started this blog because my academic life is so often reflected by my suburban one. Coincidences happen as often as you look for them, as it turns out.

Yesterday I finished prepping for Malory's Le Morte Dartur. Once I wrote it up on my wall of triumph, I took my congratulatory wine glass up to bed and looked for a TiVo'd movie. And what did  I find? The 2004 not-even-near-blockbuster, "King Arthur."

This was clearly an act of fate. And I'm an Anglo-Saxonist, so I know allllll about fate.

Starring Clive Owen and Keira Knightley, the movie boasts some pretty sexy characters.

Behold, the ever-furrowed brow of the tormented but resilient hero:

And the rescued, single-parent, sex maven/ liaison to Merlin:

I was surprised-- tickled, even-- that the director had stuck to the "original" (ahem) 5th century setting, around time of the sack of Rome.

Most people associate Arthur with the later Middle Ages because writers like Malory were 14th or 15th century authors of chivalric romance. Though writing of better days long past, they imported their own cultural necessities into the stories, bringing tales of long ago into contemporary frameworks.

But still, how did this transition happen?

Here's a brief run-down of the Arthurian tradition, derived from Shepherd's critical edition of Malory:

410: Rome withdraws from Britain

5th-6th centuries: "Various historical records" make note of an unnamed British warlord's successes against invading Angles and Saxons

late 6th century: Welsh poems attribute supernatural powers to a warrior named Arthur

c 800: Welsh chronicle Historia Brittonum documents a dozen victories of Arthur, dux bellorum (leader of battles), over the Saxons.

c 1000-1100: "Development of a body of Welsh Arthurian tales with much marvellous content," some of which may indicate "the Celtic origin aspects of the Grail quest"

1140: Geoffrey of Monmouth cobbles together different bits of Arthurian lore and becomes the source for most subsequent treatments of the legend.

1155: Wace's Anglo-Norman Brut incorporates much of Monmouth, adds the Round Table, and, perhaps most importantly, "'moderniz[es] Arthur's court into a chivalric institution."

1190: Layamon translates Wace's work, making the "first Arthurian retelling in England"

The rest of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw the development of "non-courtly" renderings as well as highly Christianized stories of the individual knights, all in addition to the French prose Vulgate Cycle.

The fourteenth century witnessed the construction of the Winchester Round Table, the establishment of The Order of the Garter, and the composition of Middle English's alliterative Morte Arthure and stanzaic Morte Arthur.

Malory began (and probably finished) his Morte Darthur in prison in 1470. He died a year later, in the middle of the Wars of the Roses.

For a more in-depth look at some of these sources (as well as some sources I've left out), check out the inimitably awesome blog of Medieval Bex:http://medievalbex.wordpress.com/

So now, back to the movie, appropriately set at the autumn of the ancient ages (Huizinga wink).

We're off to a good start with the handsome cast and the approximate historical time period. But it all kind of crumbles from there.
I worried that watching this after reading so much of the Arthurian tradition would confuse me, but it turned out to be a great test of my knowledge. Consider, for instance,  Lancelot, depicted with two swords:

I saw this and proudly told Drew, "No! The knight with the two swords is Balyn!" Yay me.

But Arthurian legends--in any of their countless iterations-- are not ever really about accuracy, anyway. The earliest stories were tales of bravery in the face of slaughtering invaders; the later authors replaced episodes martial valor with those of marital fidelity as the concerns of the works became increasingly interested in courtly affairs.

Taking its cue from Braveheart, our 2004 rendition takes freedom as its primary lesson/ theme.

And this anachronistic emphasis on personal (yet also national?) freedom isn't all these two movies share. They share something else: face paint.

We all know that Braveheart is about a 13th century Scotsman who rides around trying to act like Mel Gibson. Nevertheless, there is some measure of authenticity in the iconic face paint the warriors wear. This tradition came from the Picts-- the pre-Scotland Scots, if you will-- who were so named for being "painted."

And guess what? GUINEVERE IS ONE OF THEM. Yep. Guinevere sheds her already ill-fitting clothes for a battle bikini, paints her whole body blue, and goes crazy on some blonde-haired viking invaders.

And that reminded me of someone else:

I know, I know. Your mind is blown.

Well, there's much more to be said about the Arthurian tradition, and hopefully I'll be able to share more thoughts on Malory, Launfal, the Lady of Shallot, Havelok, and Horn.

But for now, I must return to the reading list.

Until next time,
wishing one everyone a surprisingly relevant TiVo experience.

New Page!

Hi again, readers--

I've decided to add other pages to this site. The first, "Academic Sources," shares websites, articles, and apps about digital humanities, medieval manuscripts, and more.

I'll be adding to it as the year goes on, so check in on it every now and then.

To come:
1) the "Suburban Sources" page-- probably about low sodium food and dogs
2) a TimeGlider timeline I've been working on for exams
3) a translation website in the works for an Old English class

Also check out the new sites on my new blog roll-- they're all pretty amazing.

Until next time, wishing everyone a productive winter!

A manifesto

I've recently contributed to HASTAC'S Future of Higher Education Forum, "inspired by a recent workshop called Rethinking Humanities Graduate Education, which was organized by the Scholarly Communication Institute (SCI) and the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI)" (hastac.org).

We were asked, 

"If you could change one component about your own academic program, what would it be, and why?"  

You can bet your next holiday Starbucks drink that I was (and have been for some time) quite ready to answer. 

via Debra Rae Cohen

Here's a brief run-down of my experiences, disappointments, and minor miracles over the past few years. At the end you'll find my mini-manifesto on graduate education. 

What do you think? What would you change? I open these questions to those within and outside of academia because I think it's an important question to raise about one's professional development track, no matter what the profession is. 

Answer: coursework/exams

I  had a great two years in my master's program, but found my PhD program difficult from the very start. I've spent the past two and a half years taking courses of no interest to me or relation to what I'd like to study. Perhaps I should have spent that time trying to publish something that didn't matter to my future work, but frankly I was so disheartened that I spent most of my energy just convincing myself to stay in the program. With little faculty support and a massive, hard-to-navigate administration (who three years later still has my last name wrong), I passed these years in social and academic isolation. 

If the emotional toll that this system has on us is extraordinary, the anxiety is made even more accute by the exam process.

I don't mind that PhD exams exist, of course. But I do mind that I'm responsible for the equivalent of 2 years of coursework in material that I've had to read on my own, outside of my classes. If courses don't matter to my exams,  I shouldn't have had to take them-- or not four semesters' worth, anyway. And now that I'm interested in pursuing digital humanities, I feel that I've run out of time to commit to classes on programming or other interdiciplinary integrations to my field.

The members of my exam committee have been extraordinarilly understanding about my situation, and I'm quite grateful for their support. Still, in a conversation about funding by, support in, and general funcitonality of higher education, my case illustrates the too-frequently ignored example of an outdated system that costs the university money and the students time-- time that is especially precious to those who want to have families, and whose biological clock seems occasionally at odds with our professional plans.

I am not as productive (and by that I mean as published) as those who had the luxury of faculty support during their coursework years. Indeed, of the three medievalists in my cohort, I'm the only one who made it through to the exam stage. And now that I'm here, and now that I have a bit of support, I wonder if it will all be worth it in the end, given what so many people in the third year of their PhDs have already accomplished.

This is not a situation unique to my program or even my school. There needs to be a re-evaluation of what's expected from PhDs and a re-assesment of how programs can position us to be successful-- within and outside of our programs.

I call for a radical streamlining that promotes faculty-student interaction and mentorship, interdisciplinary graduate courses, and a plan of study tailored to students' scholarly interests and professional goals. Such a system would be inherently and necessarily transparent; it would reduce administrative red tape and demystify the process of applying for fellowships or assistantships. This new system would require and reward mentorship by making it easier for students to participate in professors' research or teaching. By inspiring and fostering collaboration, this system would make candidates and professors more productive and more valuable. 

Most importantly, a new system would help students spend less but better time in their programs. 

Until next time, stay radical, readers.

Fly to Faustus!

A short and urgent post, kind readers.

I'll begin by recalling the inscription that appears on Faustus's arm after he signs away his soul: "Oh man, fly." 

Faustus wonders "whither" and even if he can fly, but you shouldn't have to suffer from the same directional despair. 

I know exactly where you should go: the movies.

http://www.screenvision.com/cinema-events/doctor-faustus/

I've JUST THIS SECOND returned from seeing the Globe's production of Dr Faustus on screen. That's right, The Globe. 

On Screen.

Dr Faustus is one of my favorite plays to read, but seeing it (especially with a friend who studies Early Modern drama) has sent me over the moon.

Some points of extraordinary awesomeness:

- Mephistopheles: portrayed differently from how I read him, but the actor is so compelling, so moving, so authentic, even, that I found myself nearly overcome by his performance. 

-Robin: I usually skim the comic interludes, but the actor who plays Robin is simply brilliant. 

-costumes: right for the stage of the Globe, the costumes are period-appropriate with the perfect amount of contemporary ingenuity. 

-props: fantastic-- a couple of elementary magic tricks, a few trap doors, and some damn-near-War-Horse puppets take advantage of the setting without getting carried away. (nb: COOLEST DRAGONS EVER).

-it's the feckin' GLOBE, yet the director for the screen is as gifted as that for the stage. This was no "stick a tripod in the corner" production. The camera gives great balance between zooming in and letting us see the stage as a whole; watching it on screen didn't feel inorganic or forced.

The next **and only other** showings seem to be on November 13. 

You can look for screenings in your area here:

http://www.screenvision.com/cinema-events/doctor-faustus/

Until next time, readers, may you fly closer to the theater than to the sun. 

Feedburner is a piece

Dear readers,
To those of you who subscribe to this blog, thanks and apologies are in order.
First, thanks for following. I can't tell who you are, but I'm glad you're out there.
Second, sorry for the fake-out this weekend. Apparently some of you received that really sad post I wrote a year ago.
Feedburner won't give me any data whatsoever, and I can't figure out how or why it sent that out again.
In any event, hope it won't happen again!
-R.

On our choices

Mother Sawyer and her devil/dog. 

Reading Arthur F Kinney's introduction to sixteenth-century The Witch of Edmonton I came across the following line:
"There was inherent in communities like Edmonton a necessity for witches."
A necessity for witches.

Whoa.

But why did communities need witches, and why did the witches comply?

Evidently, in the early sixteenth century about 80% of England's population was rural. The manorial system was breaking down, so poverty increased, leading to more desperate times and of course, more desperate measures. When cattle died or crops failed, there needed to be a scapegoat. And what better scapegoat than one who doesn't fit in-- what Kinney calls "unassimilable women"?

This reminded me instantly of the symposium I recently attended at Duke: "Thinking through Death: Corpses and Mortality Strategies in Medieval and Early Modern Europe" [check my twitterfeed for Oct 19]. At the symposium, Diana Presciuti gave a presentation on fifteenth-century Italian paintings of a saint who reassembled and revived a victim of maternal infanticide. Each image illustrated that patriarchal anxieties about infanticide and cannibalism were at once "utterly alien but uncomfortably close to home" for men who feared even the most domestic women. To men frightened by women within the home, women living without the patriarchal buttressing of the "standard" domestic setting must have seemed even more horrifying.

But what about these women? Are they only the victims of social construction? Not in their literary forms, I don't think. What makes early modern drama so awesomely exciting is the tension between victimization and choice. What complicates this further are the uncomfortable overlaps between necessity and evil, justification and sin, predestination and despair.

Particularly, it's the very idea of justification-- and the horror of its potential realities-- that so motivates The Witch of Edmonton.

And guess what?
The witch of Edmonton was real.

Murder pamphlets were popular for generations. This is a late 17th-century example.

Yep. The play was inspired by the real trial and real execution of real woman. The details of these events were published by HER CHAPLAIN-- a man in the habit of publishing and profiting from the confessions of the condemned under the auspices of "exempla." This guy makes Chaucer's Pardoner look like Santa Claus. 

Here's a snippet from Sawyer's "real" interrogation:

Question (paraphrased): "What did you and the devil talk about when he appeared to you? What did he ask of you, and you of him?"

Answer (paraphrased): "He asked how I was, and what he should do for me, and demanded that I give him my soul and body or he would shred me to pieces."

In what kind of state must someone be in to utter these words?  How is she understanding her own complicity in her witchiness? Does she think she had a choice?

Most importantly, does she know, or can she sense, that her role as a witch was one that the community required of her? If so, is her demonic demise a device of her her own wicked will, or of inevitable fate?

From here, I'll briefly summarize one of the play's plots (there are two-- the second concerns a pregnant woman, a secret shotgun wedding, her husband's bigamy and eventual murder of the second wife, and the involvement of a lecherous noble named Arthur) and compare it to Dr Faustus. You'll have to read to the end to get to the non-academic part :)

"Mother Sawyer" has been stealing firewood from her neighbor, who hits her for the theft. We quickly learn that the whole village thinks she's a witch. Inevitably, she stops fighting it and embraces the label. Ironically, she learns how to be a witch by what she hears from the rumors.

The stick-stealing-turned-neighbor-beating is the last straw for her; she  curses her neighbor and declares that she wants revenge. And as soon as this declaration is made, Dog appears (as a dog in name and form, though he is admittedly a devil).
You see, in the early modern theology explored here and by Marlowe in Dr Faustus, a demon appears any time someone disavows God. Indeed, Dog's first words are, "Ho! Have I found thee cursing? Now thou art mine own" (II.i, 120).
Compare that to the similar explanation Mephistopheles gives to Faustus:

For when we hear one rack the name of God,

Abjure the Scriptures and his Savior Christ, 

We fly in hope to get his glorious soul,

Nor will we come unless he use such means

Whereby he is in danger to be damned.   

            (I.iii, 48-52)

In both plays, then, the devil comes when he's called.

In Marlowe's play, there are some pretty intense suggestions that Faustus is already damned. If he isn't one of God's elect, there's nothing he can do about it-- his is a hopeless case.

But the tensions of "God's elect" and "reprobate" are not as pronounced in The Witch. 

The playwrights show her  to be an impoverished victim of her cruel community more than a power-hungry academic driven by boredom and hubris (Faustus). And in a play that opens with a pregnant woman threatening the good name and fortune of two men (the second plot), we know that ladies have more than marginal or superficial roles. 

There are whole scenes dedicated to onlookers and rumor-mongers-- to those looking upon, judging, and condemning the "unassimilable woman." In this sense, The Witch is nearly opposite Faustus. Sawyer is condemned outside her home by her neighbors who point and jeer. Conversely, Faustus calls the devil into his study, to the ignorance of most of his friends. Hers is a public offense; his a tellingly private and personal transgression.  

Still, Sawyer's character is no mere scapegoat. Like Faustus, she knowingly makes a contract with a devil in her own blood. And as my students have pointed out, a blood oath usually betokens something bad. Surely she knows that she's involved in an evil act. In the play, the first thing she asks of her demon familiar is that he kill her neighbor. He can't (or won't), but we now know that she has violent intentions. 

NB: If you're about to sign in pen and the second party suggests you sign with blood instead,  RED FLAG.

Sawyer is arrested, tried, and hanged. Her last words are those of regret; she sees that she has not been in power at all: "There is no damned conjuror like the Devil" (V. iii, 51). 

This seems like an admission of guilt. But could it be an indication of her victimhood, too?

If the real Edmonton needed witches, does Sawyer's conversion suggest that she was more "assimilable" than we thought?

I invite you to reflect on this post about communities, choices, and the legacies of both. 

So close to an election, our choices make all the difference. 

Don't they?

Map recap/update

It occurs to me that some of you might not know about the mapping project. Those of you who do might want more information on my sources and my progress. Here is an update on what the project is, how it's going, and why I think it's important.

Last spring I was inspired by Martin Foys's project to assemble a digital map of all versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Most editions of the Chronicle are collations: that is, they take some annals from each and present them as one text. I find this misleading, at the very best.

Nine manuscripts or fragments exist:
 A-Prime The Parker Chronicle (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS. 173)
A Cottonian Fragment (British Museum, Cotton MS. Otho B xi, 2)
B The Abingdon Chronicle I (British Museum, Cotton MS. Tiberius A vi.)
C The Abingdon Chronicle II (British Museum, Cotton MS. Tiberius B i.)
D The Worcester Chronicle (British Museum, Cotton MS.Tiberius B iv.)
E The Laud (or "Peterborough") Chronicle (Bodleian, MS.Laud 636)
F The Bilingual Canterbury Epitome (British Museum, Cotton MS. Domitian A viii.)
H Cottonian Fragment (British Museum, Cotton MS. Domitian A ix.)
I An Easter Table Chronicle (British Museum, Cotton MS.Caligula A xv.)

I  began my project by mapping the invasion sites--inherently geographical entries-- of manuscript E:

Ninth century invasion sites, Peterborough

Clicking on a location exhibits the place name, date, facsimile, transcription, and translation of the annal:

Annals mentioning Thanet

This project is part of a larger effort to create a searchable map of the Peterborough Chronicle and, eventually, to incorporate optional layers for the other Anglo-Saxon Chronicles as well. I began working with a programmer to create a database that will sort the sites by place, event, and date range. A complete database will make the map  an interactive site unto itself, reinvigorating the scholarly discussions of empire, borderlands, nation-building, warfare, changes in the English language and paleography, pre-printing book creation and dissemination, and sociological issues embedded in the texts’ chronological structures.

This summer I began my second pre-database stage: comparative mapping. This map  charts sites from 10th c annals exclusive to any version of the Chronicle, displaying the regional and temporal privileging of each. Again, this is part of a larger endeavor to incorporate all mentioned places in each variant into a searchable, layered map/website.

HOLLER. 10th century locations exclusive to each version.

One can easily spot emerging patterns, which is encouraging because the versions' relationships with one another are notoriously difficult to trace.

Theoretically this is a project of both abstraction and production: in limiting the contexts and locations within these annals, each user will be creating a new object to be interpreted—one that sheds light on relationships within and among the textual variants. The evolution of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is notoriously difficult to discern, but perhaps visualizing its texts on a map will help us see new connections among them in what Franco Moretti might call a “diagram of forces.”

Yet even at this stage, the map is more than a diagram. Google Earth visually contextualizes the Chronicle’s events; zooming the viewers to particular locations and offering related hyperlinks, the map creates living memories for sites that usually don't have any registers for modern readers. The zoom and linking features also call attention to the multiple temporalities with which we're working.

The Chronicle Map’s practical uses range from referential index of place-names to digital compilation of the Chronicle’s texts; from battle-field map to paleography app. And can you imagine the teaching applications?! Importantly, creating a space for non-specialists to visually explore the chronicles and their content, especially in relationship to one another, will improve their accessibility and bring the texts into medievalists’ mainstream discourse.

Chronicle map and identity crisis

Hello, readers! Wishing everyone as lovely a fall as ours here in Durham.

I thought I'd follow up with some more detail about my extracurricular meetings and their consequences. 

I've been lucky to attend working groups, discussions, lectures, and meetings about integrating the digital into my research (and department), but I’m not much more experienced in digital development than I was when I started the project almost a year ago. 

The advice I've received has been thoughtful and motivating. So now I find myself in a strange place-- knowing what I need to learn, but not knowing how or when to learn it. Drupal might work (and indeed, a friend of mine is working on it). TEI could help. Omeka seems promising.

I can't even tell if this is my fantasy or reality.

Yet here are those pesky exams, and foreign language flashcards, and my students, and our dogs. And after that will be the prospectus, and foreign language reading, and my students, and our dogs.  And then the dissertation...you see where I'm going with this. I don't want to abandon textual study for a digital degree, so how can I justify spending all this time and on learning something that--it sounds strange to say--I shouldn't be learning right now? 

That's precisely what I was wondering when I attended Dyan Elliott's "Counterfactual Twelfth Century" presentation in lieu of the "Meaning of Digital Humanities" talk today. I began tweeting (with permission) but soon found myself distracted. I was missing those great phrases, interesting linkages, and difficult names. I was trying to share but losing the presentation’s most intricate and poetic points.

To whom did I owe this reporting, anyway? Was I doing this for notes, as a listening exercise, or because it was digital and "that's what I do"? No matter the reason for trying, I was bad at it. My tweets weren't helpful or detailed. I was losing on both sides. I had to choose medieval or digital in yet another moment of multidisciplinary multitasking. But here’s the catch: I didn’t want to choose.

Why?

Because whether it’s Anglo-Saxon Chronicles or Semi-Saxon dream visions, this stuff is just too damn cool for people to miss.

I remembered that I want this Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Map because the texts are difficult, marginalized, and under-studied. I want to make them accessible, relatable, and fluid. I want the map to prompt new scholars with new interpretations and new interests. That's why I was at a medieval event-- that's why I was tweeting there, too.

So I'm back to feeling good about my digital inklings. I feel justified in my interest. I won't let difficulty (and at times, seeming impossibility) distract me from what I know-- what I see-- is important. 

But now I need some help. Conversation and advice, of course, but more drastically perhaps, practice and experience.

Until next time, wishing everyone strength in their convictions and help where they need.

HASTAC post

Thanks for returning, kind readers!

I've been delightfully busy: conference abstracts, baby showers, cross-country birthdays, digital humanities meetings, TEI presentations, Chaucer lectures, Chronicle mapping, and perhaps most importantly, becoming a HASTAC scholar! 

I'm thrilled to be joining "a network of individuals and institutions inspired by the possibilities that new technologies offer us for shaping how we learn, teach, communicate, create, and organize our local and global communities."

As a scholar, I will "blog, host online forums, develop new projects and organize events...around rethinking pedagogy, learning, research & academia for the digital age."

Hooray!
I've just posted a couple of entries on their website, so I thought I 'd try cross-posting myself, in the spirit of experimentation and sharing (it's pasted below). 

Until soon, promising a much-sooner next time!

"Pinterest. Instagram. Steampunk. Cosplay. Food trucks. Mumblecore. Anti-perfumes. World of Warcraft. Plus, typography goes shopping; Apple and value; True Blood and queer brand communities; and place-making and food ways at a Filipino restaurant near you (or not)."

What an opener, no?! Julia Lupton continues the blog post about her design and marketing courses here: http://www.digitalrhetoriccollaborative.org/2012/09/29/design-writing-and-marketing-fictions/

She really got me thinking about the connection between how and why I've been hoping to integrate new technologies into my own classroom.

I came to medieval literature through medieval architecture (thank you, Annabel Wharton), and I've maintained an interest in teaching my students about how we interact with texts as well as in space. In fact, I recently learned about a fascinating social sciences unit taught by some of my colleagues in first-year composition. During a few class visits to the Chapel Hill cemetery, students take notes on the gravestones, focusing on desciptive writing. They later read social science journals and ultimately write a conference paper on their own "reading" of the cemetery as cultural record. 

Professor Lupton's courses focus on the newest technologies with which we interact;  the cemetery unit uses old stones and epitaphs as the objects of study. But is there a way to do both? If so, it seems that would involve more than just following an archaeologist on Twitter. But what would it look like for freshmen in college to conduct field research, engage in secondary readings, and join interdisciplinary (or at least multimedia) communities-- all for an English class?

Like Lubpton, I "believe that courses in the writing and the humanities that engage with the designed world can matter immediately to how all of us make our livings, in the broadest possible sense."

And at this stage, I'm wondering what I can do about it. 

On Beowulf, Unferth, and the Lance scandal

I was lucky to begin teaching my first literature sections with Beowulf and some smaller Anglo-Saxon poems this morning. Teaching at 8 and 9am can be rough, but the students can be quite promising—they are, after all, those who signed up for class at 8 or 9am. And yet, not all of them are the go-getters that we’d all love to teach; some are the slack-asses who forgot to look at their sections, or who registered so late that they ended up here on accident. There’s really no telling what will happen.

I was THRILLED by my 8am class. It started slowly, as it should, but an attentive and interesting group emerged as the time passed. I got some thank-yous and follow-up questions at the end, which bodes well for a group of curious students.

Beowulf manuscript

My 9am class was brutal. Very few were responsive; very few were engaged; many looked annoyed. None of my warm-up strategies worked—it was difficult to get them to talk about what they didn’t like in the poems and impossible to get most of them to loosen up, chuckle, or seem engaged. Of course, there were the “happy few” who jumped in, but the vibe was all wrong.

And I didn’t help myself, either. After asking them to find an example of synechdoche (which I mispelled on the board), I waited through a few minutes of predictably awkward silence. When I broke it, I pointed out that no one could find anything because no one had marked in the book; I explained that reading without reading actively was a waste of time. I showed them my oh-so marked up text, and we all agreed that it’d be easier for me to find an example because of my annotations.

A hand went up.

I called on its student, who asked:

“Can you find an example for us?”

SURE I CAN.

…

…

…

Shit.

So much for establishing my credibility in a class full of skeptics!  I actually ended the class with, “Well, I hope your weekend will be better than your morning.”

UGH.

Thankfully, a thoughtful student came up after class with a question she’d brought up in an email. She asked why, in a warrior society like Beowulf’s, Unferth’s envy of him was so big a deal. Competition drove much of their culture, so why was the man who challenges Beowulf portrayed as such a bad guy?

Some brief background: when Beowulf arrives in hopes of killing Grendel, he introduces himself with a series of boasts to 1) establish his lineage and identity, and 2) show justification for the Danes to trust him. An introduction like, “Hey, I’m Beowulf. I’m soooooo good at what I do—I’m such a badass. I’ve killed tons and tons of creatures because I’m awesome. By the way, my family tree is ridiculous. Do you know who my dad was?!” is a bit off-putting to contemporary readers, but one can see the usefulness of the verbal CV to a community plagued by invasion.

Sea monster on Viking longship

In any event, when Beowulf arrives, Unferth is a bit moody. In Seamus Heaney’s words, Unferh “spoke contrary words” because he was “sick with envy” when he suggests that Beowulf’s swimming match with Brecca was motivated by vanity rather than glory. Moreover, Unferth protests, Beowulf didn’t win the race as he claims; Brecca “made good on his boast upon you and was proved right.”

Beowulf responds by bringing something new to the story—sea monsters. He claims to have killed nine of them in the race and, marked by fate, was shown to be the stronger swimmer. Rendering his opponent’s rhetoric as silly, childish brattiness, Beowulf notes: “The fact is, Unferth, if you were truly as keen or courageous as you claim to be Grendel would never have got away with such unchecked attrocity, attaks on your king.”

Can you feel the sting?

It seems, then, that competition is important to Anglo-Saxon society and their continental kin, but equally important is what we might call sportsmanship. If someone beats you, fine—give him the gold (or horses, or kingdom, or whatever) you promised and get on with it. There’s very little room for bitterness in a world so marked by interdependence and so desperate for safety. Yes, the hero gets the goods, the fame, the earthly (and perhaps heavenly) glory, but that’s something to celebrate and, even more importantly, something that is likely to benefit the entire community.

But is this the same today? When I saw that Lance Armstrong had given up his fight against doping claims, I wondered if he’d been just run down by thousands of Unferths bitter about his successes and their own weaknesses. But perhaps they are right; there’s certainly some evidence of Armstrong’s drug use. As an ex-runner, I’m still upset by Marion Jones’s abuse; I had looked to her as a great female role model. As an Austinite who saw Lance bring together a community, open up the sport of cycling, and help my friend dying of cancer, this news is even more upsetting. 

If, like the Anglo-Saxons, we benefit from our heroes’ successes, in what way to we reap the reward? If they don’t compete for fame, for glory, why do they compete? More importantly, for whom do they compete? Don’t they know the risks their taking with our trust, our pride, and our support? Does unity forged in a lie keep its bonds, or will it unravel with the truth?

In this literature, the hero is welcomed and rewarded by the community he helps to save or he is buried by those he fails. In either case, there’s no cheating—especially not fate. 

Gold from Staffordshire Hoard

            

Stages of grief

...or, how one room nearly ruined my life.

Stage 1: Denial 

Moving in, May 2011

Stage 2: Anger

Wood floors, June 2012

Stage 3: Bargaining

Selling the giant couch (for nothing, it turns out)

Stage 4: Depression

Removing chair rail, respackling x 3, and painting. Are we making it worse?

Stage 5: Acceptance

BOOM.

Oxford, pt 2: tale of the tacky umbrella and the ancient tower

I took a break during the symposium, remembering that during my three weeks' stay several years ago, I had failed to visit St Michael at North Gate-- the city church of Oxford.  It just so happened to be down Ship Street from the dorm I stayed in, so I ducked out before a keynote on Byzantine chronicles and headed...

...into the pouring rain. Not your usual drizzle. No, this was torrential.

Dashing back inside, I was totally annoyed with myself-- who goes to England without an umbrella?! The desk worker lent me hers in order to buy one for myself (an offer that confused me, but whatever). With my over-priced, super tacky purchase, I headed back out.

This is not a joke.

Third time's the charm, right? Who cares if I'm one of those tourists? *shudder*

I made it to the church and was greeted quite kindly by the man in the gift shop (where one enters, somewhat strangely). He was patient and made me feel welcome, dispelling my fears of being rushed like the annoying tourist my umbrella claimed me to be. The adjoining tower is the oldest building in Oxford and dates back to around 1050. According to the church's website,

smng.org

"All other traces of the original church have vanished, but a church there certainly was. The Domesday Book (1086) records that ‘the priests of St Michael hold two houses worth 52d’. After the tower, the earliest surviving parts of the church are the chancel, the eastern part of the south aisle (nearest the altar), and the south door, all dating from the 13th century."

smng.org

 I found the church to be small, beautiful, and mostly under restoration. I wondered what the congregation is like-- are they all academics? Is any of them an academic? I saw some evidence of a children's Bible study and tried to imagine what it would be like to grow up in this particular church. Would its history make me feel isolated or connected? Would I feel overwhelmed by its heritage? Or would it not really matter at all?

When I came back out of the church, the same man directed me to the tower, whose student entrance price is less than two pounds. He showed me a 20 pence piece he gave me in change, explaining that it would activate an "ancient clock mechanism" in the tower, which I recorded:
I regrettably did not film what's going on below these gears: a series of weights moves up and down in a process which my engineer husband would explain quite logically, but which I must only describe as something kind of like magic. Moving farther up the "Saxon Tower" I passed the bells which, according to the website, are so heavy that ringing them would damage the structural integrity of the building.

And massive they were!

Chimed, not rung.

Anyone who follows me on Twitter (and all of you should--@RebeccaShores) will recognize this, but it seemed worth including.

To my total surprise, the top of the tower is open to the public. I opened the door to the roof, careful to read the sign reminding visitors to close the door in order to keep out pigeons, and found myself in the pouring rain  again.  And then, the conundrum: do I bring that blasted umbrella?  No. I'm on top of a tower in the rain; that's a terrible idea. And yet, the lightening rod is so much higher-- it would take a true fluke to attract electricity to myself from an actual lightning rod, right? Ultimately I chose not to push my luck, and had a lovely, if rather wet, panoramic view of the town.
Descending the stairs, I looked again at the bells, at the clock mechanism, at the door that imprisoned Archbishop Cranmer. (NB: Wesley's pulpit is also here, for any of you Methodists!) How lucky I was to have seen this on a glorified lunch break, how fortunate to have been in Oxford at all. I wondered how often I might come here if I'd attended Oxford for graduate school-- would I have taken full advantage of what the town had to offer? I hadn't the last time I was here.

I walked back out into the rain, having done what I should have years ago, hoping to have another opportunity to return.

Until next time, readers, wishing everyone dry clothes and a second chance.

A weekend in England

What a trip! I arrived at Heathrow on the morning of the 5th, making the bus just in time to drop my things at Jesus College

Room with a View

and sit down for the first panel of Oxford and Cambridge International Chronicles Symposium (OCICS).  I was only there for two nights, but the trip was well worth the travel.

About eighty scholars had gathered to share interdisciplinary, and just as importantly, global perspectives on Medieval and Renaissance chronicles. I attended first "Shaping the Past in Twelfth-Century Chronicles" and heard papers on a Danish ruler of England being depicted as a humble pilgrim instead of powerful (and foreign) king, images in John of Worcester's Chronicle creating "a new scientific history while upholding older monastic conventions," and William of Malmesbury's interventions in his sources as attempts to "restore the English and their conquerors."

Henry I's dream, John of Worcester (wikipedia commons)

All three presenters ended up speaking about the transmission and transmutations of their texts and the texts' sources. They all seemed to create matrices of comparison: one author changed this to that for reason a; another changed that to this for reason b, etc. They were all quite interesting but almost laden with evidentiary data, and I began to wonder how much time the authors might have saved if they had a program to help them count and track the changes they discussed. It seems like my map project really will have other applications! 

And yet, I was shocked to see no digital projects. I saw pie graphs and flow charts from historians and literary scholars alike, but none questioned the methodology of counting the words, themes, or images they were tracking. When I shared my surprise to this during breaks, the general consensus was that this was a symposium on chronicles, not digital humanities; there are separate conferences for that. 

Oy.

At this point in my post I should explain what chronicles are; this is, after all, a blog for all readers. But if I learned anything from this conference, it's that chronicles are much harder to define than I expected. Basically, they are early histories. They can be arranged thematically, around the church for example, or chronologically, like most annals. 

But history, to medievals at least, was a much broader field than it is now. 

Presentations on Matthew of Paris, a manuscript belonging to the Norwich prior Simon Bozoun, and instructors to the illustrator of Lambeth Palace Library MS 6 showed just how rich the medieval understanding of history is. Matthew Paris collected, collated, and created genealogical trees, astrological tables, computational calendars, natural science treatises, and even drew an elephant from life:

"Drawn from life" is a very, very rare notation in the Middle Ages (Parker Library)

According to Judith Collard, the images and texts of Matthew of Paris have been studied too often as distinct from one another and without the context he provided them. She convincingly argued that more scholars, like Matthew himself, especially look to the science in his manuscripts as incorporations to, not exceptions in, his works.

Sam Rostad, now a history PhD student at Notre Dame, had a great opportunity when his supervisor at Cambridge recommended he look into a manuscript belonging to the prior of 14th century Norwich. This particular book begins with Higden's Polychronicon-- a history of everything. 

From one version of Higden's Polychronicon (British Library)

The eight works that follow range from historical prefaces to Marco Polo's travels, from History of the East to a commentary on St Augustine.  Yet at closer inspection, this textual gathering is not a miscellany. Bringing together global and regional histories with travel narratives and commentary dedicated more to ancient cultures than to navigation or theology, Bozoun really created a historiography. 

Just as the first panel had mined specific, textual differences among chronicles and their sources, this one examined larger, thematic similarities among different genres of history. Fascinating, no?

This is perhaps a longer, or at least denser, post than usual, so I'll cut it here. Stay tuned for my adventures in an 11th-c church and an update on Peterborough Chronicle scholarship!

Until soon, wishing everyone a week free from jet-lag.

New things

Hi, readers! Thanks for coming back after all this time.
This is really more a teaser post than a real one; in the next weeks I'll be writing about my trip to Oxford, our new hardwoods, and the doggie pool (among other fascinating topics). In the meantime, here are some fun photos.
Until soon, friends!

A powerful map

Guess what? I just found a map of animal shelters in NC who use gas chambers. It also provides petfinder.com links, so you can search for your new bff. Aren't maps amazing? Here's the link to: ncgasshelters
and here's a screenshot of the map:

For more information on gas chamber use, legislation, and statistics, see http://www.americanhumane.org/animals/stop-animal-abuse/advocacy/campaigns/stop-gassing-campaign.html
No horrifying pictures, no ridiculous comments, no guilt trips, no hyperbolic "THIS ANIMAL WILL DIE UNLESS YOU DO SOMETHING NOW!!!!!!!!" nonsense. Just the facts, folks.

-R.