Conference catch-up

I'm so out of practice in blogging that I'd quite forgotten I hadn't posted about my recent conference experiences.


A colleague and I travelled to Venice earlier this month for the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America. This is one of the key events in early modern literary studies, but I'd never actually attended it before. I will admit that the venue was an extra incentive.

I never look forward to travelling before I do it, so didn't have high expectations of this trip. So I was very agreeably surprised at how things went. Most importantly, the panel session in which I took part owas a great success. The room was packed out, and we even had to bring in extra chairs. I am always very self-critical when I give papers, but I felt that this one was one of the best I've presented lately. It may have helped that I was speaking on a topic which was largely new to me: hence there were fewer stray facts to get in the way of my argument.

Lots of people I know from different stages of my academic life were at the conference, so there was lots of catching-up and sharing news and ideas, typically over pizza or ice cream. And there is even talk of three of us joining forces to offer a panel at next year's meeting in Montreal.

All in all, worth doing, though somewhat stressful beforehand. I must remember this for next time.

Weekend in Keswick

There has been a distinct lack of pictures on this blog over the past few days. Here's one I took at the weekend, during a very brief visit to the Lake District. I was acting as driver and moral support to a friend who was speaking at the Words by the Water festival in Keswick, and I thoroughly appreciated the opportunity to put some physical distance between me and work (even, I hesitate to say on this blog, between me and the computer). I did bring a book -- John Burrow's A History of Histories -- with me, but that's connected with a possible future project rather than current work, so felt suitably relaxing. And otherwise, it was just as good as it ought to have been to get away, see different (and very beautiful) place, meet new people, hear new ideas, and eat good food.

Of course, all the work was right there waiting for me when I got back ...

My friend's talk, by the way, was a great success.