Weekend

The conference on Saturday was great.  A conference put on by grad students for grad students of this department, it meant I got to spend a Saturday learning what my friends and classmates have been doing since I last saw them.  Great time for catching up and for getting inspired to tackle my own work.  I’m always amazed to learn how differently we all think from each other.  Not only were the topics of the papers completely different from each other, but the very way the presenters approached the material was as well.  On the other hand, I also learned just how much the way critics approach a text is based, to a large extent, on their area of specialty.  Those who work on American literature were staring blankly at the way the Victorianists were tackling the very same material.  I, as one of the few 20th-century people there (and one who works on both American and British lit.), tried to cement in my mind the idea that each area of specialty gathers its own style, and thus reaching out to other areas and other scholars can really keep you from falling into a . . . rut?  trap?  black hole?

Not so fantastic was the major migraine I started to feel on Saturday night, and that continued until, well, Monday morning.  Way past “unpleasant” and deep into “Don’t scare Sydney.”  This being my third migraine of the week, I will be calling the doctor later this morning . . .

April means beautiful spring at our doorstep.  A bunch of my crocuses have appeared, bright-yellow and clustered together in a small section of our lawn.  Sydney also now insists on opening the window at night, which means that I awaken to birdsong each morning.  I love it!

April also, however, means a very, very busy time of year for academics.  Sydney and I are both gearing up for our pre-dissertation exams, so this blog may be either quiet or utterly boring for the next month or so.  Your only hopes lie in the possibility of us doing some creative procrastination, or in Sydney’s gardening itch.

The New York Times seems to think philosophy is on the rise in colleges.  Improved job options for Sydney?  Maybe, but the kind of philosophy described by the undergraduates who were interviewed doesn’t resemble anything I’ve lived with or read or any talk I’ve attended in the past three years.  I certainly haven’t noticed Sydney emanating any “existential torment”!  With that vision, I’ll leave you to a beautiful spring week.

Erin