Five years on

It would appear that On boundaries is five years old. Given my readiness to hide away for periods of time and Reivers’ general unwillingness to communicate through the medium of words, it is a small miracle that we have managed to keep this blog going for a reasonable length of time and contribute to a number of debates, albeit in a small and rather quiet fashion (at times very quiet). Some posts are good, some are not and some are downright rubbish. There are, I think, several pieces which are as relevant now as they were then so to speak, and I want to highlight my selection below.  Reivers is also compiling a list. His will be more amusing, I promise.

Wailing, gnashing of teeth and general anger, but what are we going to do about it?

I have been undeniably absent from this blog for a while now, despite half-hearted promises to write up the Clerical Cosmos symposium in Oxford, the Battle Conference outing to Castle Acre and many other exciting episodes in the life of a medievalist. I may yet do some, all or none of these things in due course, but in recent weeks I have been overwhelmed by a combination of work and personal circumstances while I watch aghast and horror-struck as the coalition government systematically dismantles the welfare state and UK university system.

Women, girls and the female of the species

What do you call your female acquaintances? Are they women, girls, ladies even? Have you ever called someone ‘girly’?  Does it depend on age, closeness of acquaintance, opinion of the person concerned? Why am I asking all these questions? Jonathan Jarrett recently posted a piece on Carolingian nuns that I and another reader took issue with and for which he feels a continuous need to defend. It wasn’t the content, so much as the terminology that bothered me here and, rather than extend the comments on the original post, I thought I would write a more detailed response here.

Impact

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

Bayeux Tapestry on Radio 4: Gesta rants again

The Bayeux Tapestry made a star appearance on the Today programme this morning as the editor of BBC History Magazine has mooted that the artefact should be brought back to England for an exhibition. The disputants in this debate were David Musgrove (BBC History), Carola Hicks and Ed Sturton, one of the normal presenters. This item irritated me beyond belief, as the odd bit on history on the Today programme (and they usually are odd) tends to for a variety of reasons.

A bit of a rant: from hourly paid to pro rata

Readers of the more teaching-related posts will have noticed that both Reivers and myself can rant a little. I’m not sure if I have ranted at length anywhere about the position of those on the very bottom rung of the ladder, but reading a post on the Just Higher-Ed blog, linked from jobs.ac.uk reminds me that if hourly-paid people don’t stick up for ourselves, we can’t expect others to.