Celebrating our wonderful alumnae and alumni

Recently, at the Stephen C. Hall Building, we welcomed back some of our alumni and alumnae, including two graduates of our first graduating class in IDT (Information Design and Technology) 20 years ago. A great evening with great conversations, all under the topic: Personal Connections in a Digital Age. Pictures copyright R. E. Burnett 2015.

Le bien et le mal...

“Le bien et le mal ne sont pas des grandeurs parfaitement opposées l'une à l'autre; le bien souvent accouche du mal et la capacité de voir le mal en face est ce qui nous ouvre la capacité d'un bien relatif.”

André Glucksmann / Entretien avec Guy Rossi-Landi - Septembre 1997 

For the umpteenth time: Humanities majors do get jobs

Here is an article by Wilson Peden, "The Myth of the Unemployed Humanities Major," published with the Association of American Universities & Colleges. He writes:

For the last time: No, earning a degree in English, philosophy, art history, name-your-humanities-discipline will not condemn you to a lifetime of unemployment and poverty.

Actually, this is probably not the last time I will write some version of those words. It’s certainly not the first time I have written them. (See, for instance, the lede from another blog post I wrote almost exactly a year ago: “Good news for recent graduates who majored in the arts or humanities: you are not doomed to a lifetime of poverty and unemployment.”) But I feel compelled to keep writing these words because, in the face of all evidence, the myth of the unemployed humanities major persists. It may be more prevalent than ever: Florida Senator Marco Rubio has made snarky remarks about the job market for philosophy majors a trademark of his campaign speeches for the Republican presidential nomination.

But persistent or not, the myth of the unemployed humanities major is just that: a myth, and an easily disproven one at that. 

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

Vishnuvajjala reviews Dr. Who, Season 9, Episodes 5 and 6

Usha Vishnuvajjala recently published a fascinating review of Doctor Who, Season 9, episode 5, “The Girl Who Died,” written by Jamie Mathieson and Steven Moffat and directed by Ed Bazalgette and episode 6, “The Woman Who Lived,” written by Catherine Tregenna  and directed by Ed Bazalgette, originally aired October 17 and 24, 2015, for Medievally Speaking:

“The Girl Who Died” and “The Woman Who Lived” form a two-episode story arc which centers on a Viking girl named Ashildr, played by Maisie Williams of Game of Thrones fame. This second foray into the Middle Ages in fourteen months is notable; since its reboot in 2005, Doctor Who has given the Middle Ages a wide berth. During the first seven seasons, showrunners set episodes in Pompeii, in Shakespeare’s London, and in a twenty-second-century acid-pumping factory located in a revamped fourteenth-century castle, but not a single episode in any part of the Middle Ages. That changed last year, with the episode “Robot of Sherwood,” set in in “1190-ish,” and this season, various medievalisms were sprinkled throughout the first four episodes, leading to “The Girl Who Died,” the fifth of the season.  READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE

Episteme in Motion

The Free University Berlin currently features a Collaborative Research Center focusing on the theme of EPISTEME IN MOTION. The multi-year project, which is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation), proposes to examine "…processes of knowledge change in European and in non-European pre-modern cultures. This phenomenon deserves particular attention because there has been and still is a tendency to portray the knowledge of these cultures as particularly resistant to change, a tendency detectable both in the ways such cultures have often seen themselves as well as in the ways they have been described from outside. It is our basic thesis that these cultures are subject to constant processes of knowledge change. But this kind of change occurs over extended periods of time, in a subcutaneous fashion and through the differentiation of already existing knowledge as well as through the tacit integration of novel items, so that the traditional toolkit of the History of Knowledge with its focus on indicators of ‘progress’ within narratives of rupture or revolution is no longer sufficient to describe the phenomena we are interested in." I have just received an invitation to speak at the Center's conference in the summer of 2016, and now the search is on for a topic that would make a meaningful contribution to this fascinating intellectual challenge.

What the Humanities Should Do, by Paul Sturtevant

Paul Sturtevant, also known as the author of the Public Medievalist site, recently writes about the relationship between STEM, STEAM, and the Humanities. I would probably be a little less dismissive of the "dilettante" (although that's part of the rhetorical turn here), but lots of good thought in this essay:

If we are to save our disciplines from irrelevance -- from the realm of the dilettante or hobbyist -- the answer is not to show our complementary utility to STEM fields (as advocates of “STEAM” have). Instead, we must rethink the common threads that our disciplines have to offer and how we present ourselves and our subjects. We should take a page from the STEM advocates’ playbook and argue the case for our disciplines vigorously, both in the public arena and to policy makers at the local, state and national levels. READ THE FULL ESSAY HERE

Rahman Reviews Knight, Reading Robin Hood

Sabina Rahman recently reviewed: Stephen Knight, Reading Robin Hood, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015, for Medievally Speaking:

Reading Robin Hood stands as Stephen Knight’s third book devoted to the outlaw hero, preceded by Robin Hood: A Complete Study of the English Outlaw (1994) andRobin Hood: a Mythic Biography (2003), and demonstrates some deviation from these earlier works by containing a stronger theoretical focus. While A Complete Study was a wonderfully detailed overview of the myth and A Mythic Biographytraced the manner in which the myth changed and evolved and how it operated politically, this book situates itself much more in the Greenwood gloaming as it attempts to address points of unclarity in the outlaw tradition and associated scholarship. In his usual meticulous style, Knight draws together disparate threads of scholarship within this rhizomatic field of study, his distinct voice containing not only the attention to detail that one has come to expect from him but also a clear and unabashed enthusiasm for the subject matter. Though the book weaves in and out of eras and discussions, because the nature of the texts and discussions cannot be neatly constrained by either of those features, it is split into eight discrete chapters. READ FULL REVIEW HERE

Lobdell Reviews Seki, The Rhetoric of Retelling Old Romances

Please find Nicole Lobdell's review of Yoshiko Seki, The Rhetoric of Retelling Old Romances: Medievalist Poetry by Alfred Tennyson and William Morris.  Japan: EIHŌSHA, 2015, at Medievally Speaking. The review was curated by Leah Haught:

Yoshiko Seki’s The Rhetoric of Retelling Old Romances: Medievalist Poetry by Alfred Tennyson and William Morris offers readers a focused consideration of the rhetoric that canonical Victorian poets Tennyson and Morris developed in their later medievalist poetry. In her introduction, Seki introduces two concepts, medievalism and Victorianism, that underpin her study, and argues that Victorianists cannot “simply [assume] that the mid-nineteenth century was congenial for the medievalists even if it is also true that medievalism and the Arthurian revival were a genuine cultural phenomenon” (10). To complicate her initial premise further, Seki also points to Victorian complaints that the age was “unpoetical,” implicating the Victorian age’s perceived affinity for prose over poetry. READ THE FULL REVIEW

Plenary on Medievalism at Anglistentag 2016

Starting to ruminate on various ideas for my plenary paper for the 2016 meeting of the Association of German-speaking Professors of English (Anglistenverband) at the University of Hamburg. Will speak on:  "The Return to Medievalism and the Future of Medieval Studies." Looking forward to meeting the new generation of colleagues in Anglistik and Mediävistik, and of course some old friends.

Searching for a New Chair of Modern Languages at Georgia Tech

Happy to announce that Georgia Tech's great School of Modern Languages is searching for a new Chair; and glad to chair this search on behalf of our Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts. Here is a link to the position description, list of search committee members, etc. PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY.

Review of Novikoff, The Medieval Culture of Disputation

My review of Alex J. Novikoff's The Medieval Culture of Disputation: Pedagogy, Practice, and Performance (U of Pennsylvania Press) just appeared in the American Historical Review 120/4 (2015): 1541-2:

In this welcome study, Alex Novikoff attempts to extricate the medieval scholastic disputation from its most often negative postmedieval reception. If Renaissance and Enlightenment commentators, anxious to prove that their own reasoning had progressed away from medieval practices, succeeded in branding the scholastic disputation as narrow minded and pedantic, Novikoff offers a revisionist history that would have it evolve from a broadly conceived medieval culture of argument, debate, dialogue, and polemic (what Giles Constable and others have termed a “science of doubt”). Thus, he situates the disputation’s genesis and growth in an expansive narrative that includes private as well as public spaces, educational, literary, and performative contexts, and written, oral, and musical settings. To render such a comprehensive cultural history achievable, Novikoff limits most of his observations on developments in Northern France and between 1050 and 1263.  

The distinctive stations of Novikoff’s cultural history of the disputation begin … READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE

From Che[e]r-ishing to Join-ing: Amend the Georgia Tech School Song

At least one candidate for the presidency keeps talking about "che[e]rishing" women. And the current GT School Song, which dates back to the early twentieth century, reveals a similar attitude. I fully support changing the song as proposed below:

Georgia Tech aspires to the equal respect and inclusion of all members of its community. In particular, great strides have been made towards creating a welcoming environment for women, beginning with their admission as students in 1952. As part of this on-going effort, it is important to modernize the language that describes women’s roles in the Georgia Tech community. Nowhere is this more important than in our Institute’s traditions, which not only reflect our history, but are a daily reminder of our core values.

The Ramblin’ Wreck lyrics first appeared in print in 1908, at a time when women were not allowed to vote and could not attend Georgia Tech as students. The lyrics include the phrase:

“Oh! If I had a daughter, sir, I'd dress her in White and Gold,
And put her on the campus to cheer the brave and bold.

”These lyrics do not reflect the significant achievements of women at Georgia Tech, who make up a growing fraction of students and faculty alike. 

We propose to sing one word differently in the Ramblin’ Wreck Lyrics: changing “cheer” to “join:”

“Oh! If I had a daughter, sir, I'd dress her in White and Gold,
And put her on the campus to join the brave and bold.” 

We ask the members of the Georgia Tech community to embrace this change, which reflects the Georgia Tech of the 21st Century. Members of the Georgia Tech Community, please register your support for this change below: This initiative has the support of the Deans of the College of Sciences, College of Engineering, College of Architecture, College of Computing, Scheller College of Business, and Ivan Allen College. For questions and comments, email jointhebraveandbold@gatech.edu.

Rupp Reviews: Medieval Afterlives in Contemporary Culture

Teresa Rupp recently reviewed: Gail Ashton, ed.  Medieval Afterlives in Contemporary Culture.  London: Bloomsbury, 2015:

 

The formulation of the Middle Ages as the medium aevum, “the time in the middle,” presupposes that its time is past and the era is dead.  The discipline of Medievalism Studies challenges this notion by taking modern uses of the Middle Ages as its (seemingly paradoxical) subject.  The title of this collection, Medieval Afterlives, takes this re-conceptualization one step further by stressing, as editor Gail Ashton puts it, “living medievalisms” (4; emphasis in original).   The idea is thought-provoking and the title is apt.  So apt, in fact, that Ashton already used it for an earlier essay collection, Medieval Afterlives in Popular Culture, co-edited with Daniel T. Kline and published by Palgrave MacMillan in its New Middle Ages series in 2012 (and reviewed by Medievally Speaking in 2013: http://medievallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2013/07/ashton-and-kline-eds-medieval.html).  

The new Medieval Afterlives is a collection of 29 essays written by 33 contributors (a few were co-authored) divided into 5 sections.  Ashton informs us in her introduction that she took the section headings from the song titles on the album Avalon, by the British band Roxy Music. READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE.

Can it really be 30 Years? The Past and Future of Medievalism Conferences

Wonderful collegiality and great papers at the 30th International Conference on Medievalism in Pittsburgh. Here is a picture of my panel on the past and future of our conference. From left to right: Bill Calin (FL), Lauryn Mayer (Washington & Jefferson C), E.L. Risden (St. Norbert), Usha Vishnuvajjala (Indiana), Elizabeth Emery (Montclair State), Valerie Johnson (Georgia Tech), Karl Fugelso (Towson), and Jesse Swan (Northern Iowa). Kathleen Verduin's (Hope) paper was read in absentia.