Got quite a bit done this week: more research completed at BL than I'd anticipated in the course of several brief dashes, even if I still have to finish organising the photos of documents.
Attended part of a conference and a seminar, and had a meeting about A Thing I've been asked to undertake in connection with Former Workplace.
Various calls upon ( Read more... )

Went to a seminar this evening - yes, I know, it's been one mad frenzied whirl of academic activity lately - and, as I daresay my dr rdrz are aware, I am always up for the spectacle of somebody knocking nine bells out of the Laqueur thesis as embodied in Making Sex (1990) - as people have been doing ever since, bless them, it's a rotten job but ( Read more... )

Except some of it doesn't seem to be, o hai, I am now making an effort, it is more that various academic things (seminars, conferences, etc) that I had flagged up in my diary ages ago finally came up and were all within the space of a few weeks, I don't know, it's the 'like buses' phenomenon. And some of them I did do some social interaction at and ( Read more... )

(I don't think this can be described as plunging back into them.)
Okay, so I went to 2 seminars this week. One on a topic loosely connected to the Current Large and Inchoate Research Project, in a series that I don't usually go to, but this one was of relevance to my interests. However, had I had a question I would have asked it. I was not ( Read more... )

It is a truth universally acknowledged that if
( Read more... )

Went to another seminar (it's run by the same group as last week, but on a different night of the week because it was jointly with two other seminars).
Very good.
More chat over wine at end with person who researches phallic objects (nature imitates art) - we did touch on other topics.
Decided not to go for dinner afterwards when I saw how many ( Read more... )

And I confide that I kept a straight face.
But after the seminar this evening, I found myself having a conversation about the history of the archaeological/anthropological interest in Phallic Objects.*
With some reference to Payne Knight's The Worship of Priapus and the early collectors who left their objects to the British Museum.
No, really.
*I ( Read more... )

At least by my recent standards, i.e. I went out and met people f2f.
Had tea with my quondam line manager, and boy, am I glad that I got out when I did, because massive changes and upheaval with restructuring. I have been through far too many iterations of this, so it is nice just to fold my hands and observe and make sympathetic noises.
I then ( Read more... )

I.e. everything coming along in a bunch.
There is the annual symposium of Learned Society I Have The Honour To Be Associated With, which is for once on a topic in which I have some interest.
There turn out to be two seminars (on different evenings) in different Ministry of Truth seminar series that I'd really rather like to go to. Plus a talk that ( Read more... )

Okay, these are now past:
1) Giving paper to a seminar series that is perhaps somewhat tangential to What I Do, on new research stuff, this evening.
And I think went quite well, if I say it as shouldn't, people seemed to be enjoying it and getting things out of it even if it wasn't what they expected, and not only asked questions afterwards, came up ( Read more... )