Some thoughts on receiving book reviews November 7, 2009
Posted by gesta in Academia, Boundaries, Debate.Tags: Random thoughts, reviews
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In 2007, my first book was published, just in time for the RAE circus. At the time, I was just glad to get rid of it. I felt, at best, ambivalent to the work contained therein, and at worst, that it was all useless. At one level, I really didn’t care what people thought of it because it was my book and, in moments of clearer thinking, I thought I had achieved what I set out do do, at least in part. At a deeper level was the anxiety – what if someone really important totally pans it? What do I do?
Impact October 15, 2009
Posted by gesta in Academia, Boundaries, Debate.Tags: higher education policy, intelligent people being idiots, rants
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If you keep up with the Higher Education pages in the UK newspapers, you will know that there has been a great deal of comment on a mysterious entity called ‘impact’ lately. Impact is the latest government and research council buzz word for why our research must have some definable economic or social goal: where is the next technological gadget or government initiative coming from in otherwords. Impact will also replace esteem in the REF, which in itself, replaces the RAE, except with a bigger percentage (more…)
IMC 2009 report July 19, 2009
Posted by gesta in Academia, Boundaries, Debate, Medieval.Tags: Angevin, Anglo-Saxon, bishops, Elma Brenner, Fanny Madeline, frustrations of case studies, IMC, Jonathan Jarrett, Magistra et Mater, Matthew Johnson, Nick Karn, Paul Hyams, Pauline Stafford, space
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I’ve survived another Leeds (my 8th I believe) and thankfully, it was better than last year’s, both in terms of quality and weather. I still have some concerns about the over-use of case studies, but more of those later. I failed miserably to make it to either bloggers’ meeting due to double-booking myself and a successful round table: I’m sure Magistra et Mater and Jonathan Jarrett will update everyone on that score (the bloggers, not the roundtable). (more…)
From universities to business: comment and roundup June 13, 2009
Posted by gesta in Academia, Boundaries, Debate.Tags: CBI, general relativity, higher education policy, Simon Jenkins
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It is all change in higher education again, with a big emphasis on doom and gloom. A couple of years ago, I posted a cautious, but not entirely negative piece on the new department for innovation, universities and skills. Following the expenses rows, local and European elections, the department for innovation, universities and skills has been demolished and universities shifted to business. I cannot pretend to be anything other than deeply alarmed by this turn of events.
Thinking about space (and time) in chronicles May 10, 2009
Posted by gesta in Boundaries, Debate, Medieval, Uncategorized.Tags: chronicles, Jonathan Jarrett, space, cartography, Norman, general relativity, black holes, mappae mundi, Orderic Vitalis, Dick Harrison
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In my last post I commented on how the problems faced by relativists trying to show time and space in representations of black holes seemed similar to the difficulties faced by historians trying to talk about representations of space in our sources. A recent post by Jonathan Jarrett has also raised some of these questions – is this picture of Toledo in council season a depiction of the council or the relationship between Toledo and its territories? And who is in the tents? (more…)
Remembering the Miners’ Strike March 25, 2009
Posted by gesta in Boundaries, Debate, Politics.Tags: Geoffrey Elton, labour history, memory, Miners' Strike, practice of history, Thatcher, Tory, West Yorkshire
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This month saw the 25th anniversary of the beginning of the 1984-85 Miners’ Strike. When the strike began, I was only eight, but more than anything else that happened in that decade, the strike had a profound effect on me, instilling a sense of social justice, community and a lasting and deep loathing of the Tory party in general and Thatcher in particular. It also left an interest in labour history and had things turned out differently, I may have been blogging about very different things. This is an intensely personal post, but I want to try to show why the strike was so important in the way I think and do history, as well as the process of remembering.
Does sanctuary still exist? December 7, 2008
Posted by gesta in Boundaries, Debate.Tags: Advent, Anglican, Guildford, monasticism, police being idiots
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Last week I posted comments on a positive reflection of monasticism at the start of Advent. For a Surrey cathedral in contrast, Advent 1 saw a shocking event when armed police shot dead a mentally ill man in the cathedral grounds, a very clear profanation of demarcated sacred space. When considered along side recent events in parliament involving the arrest of a Tory MP and the consequent searching of his office, this occurrence does raise questions in my mind. Are the police above the law and does sanctuary exist any more? (more…)
New experiences: faith informs work and vice versa November 7, 2008
Posted by gesta in Boundaries, Medieval, faith.Tags: Anglican, faith, monasticism
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Having been giving conference and seminar papers for the past eight years, I am very used to speaking in front of an academic audience or at least an audience already very interested in medieval history. For the first time ever though, I gave a non-academic talk a couple of weekends ago on women and the religious life in the middle ages. What made this more interesting was that the talk was in place of a sermon at choral evensong at my local church. I was, as one might expect, very nervous, especially as there were two history professors in the congregation: how would they react to a paper on an academic subject treated in an essentially non-academic way?
The experience was strangely liberating. Part of my interest in the religious life, especially concerning how religious and laity interacts, stems from my upbringing as a daughter of the parsonage. Equally, my historical interest in the Church allows me to take a longer view and broader perspective of some of issues confronting the good old CofE currently from sexuality to the more mundane concerns of the place of pews in church. For the first time I could blur the boundaries a little and bring these two aspects of life together, making points I couldn’t get away with in an academic paper and coming to a greater understanding of how faith influences my work and vice versa. (more…)
Chris Wickham and the dialogue of the deaf October 31, 2008
Posted by gesta in Academia, Boundaries, Medieval.Tags: archaeology, castles, Chris Wickham, Jonathan Jarrett, Magistra et Mater, teaching
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Last Wednesday, I escaped to London to hear Chris Wickham give the first Sir David Wilson lecture in medieval archaeology on ‘The problem of the dialogues between medieval history and medieval archaeology’. Given I have been wrestling with this very question in my own research and teaching of late, I was looking forward to hear Prof. Wickham’s thoughts on the matter; also it gave me the chance to catch up with some fellow bloggers, Jonathan Jarrett and Magistra et Mater. If what follows is slightly disjointed, then I apologise as I’ve written this post over several days.
