Tiny Planet

Cross-posted at Chronica Minora

Working on a PhD can be a very isolating experience, even if you’re around loved ones. It’s never easy to explain what you’re doing – not only do you feel self conscious, but for those of us in what you might call more esoteric fields, it can be downright embarrassing.

It’s not that what we exegetical and intellectual historians are doing anything bad, per se. But explaining that you’re examining Bede’s Ecclesiastical History as aneschatological text is going to get you some strange looks. The “ecclesiastical” part will catch the attention for some. The “eschatological” will make others look at you strangely. Explaining what eschatology means is bad enough. I study how Bede built his mental world and how his beliefs about the end of time and geography influenced how he wrote. However, the mention of apocalyptic thinking concerning a Christian writer tends to get you pigeon-holed unnecessarily, and often without follow-up questions. You can tell by the look in the eyes.

So it was with some relief and not a bit of anticipation that myself and 9  fellow Bedans got together at University College Cork last week for a symposium on our research concerning the man himself.

No need to be embarrassed. No need to explain the basics for those who’ve never heard of the guy. Just a chance to talk about the research and bounce a few ideas around the table without an audience. It was also a chance to meet with Peter Darby, who has just published a book on Bede and the end of time (which gave me unfounded panic attacks concerning my own PhD). He’s rather nice.

What was particularly interesting was the breadth of our studies, and we were just a small band of Bedan scholars in one part of the world (from peoples once described byCummian as “pimples on the face of the Earth“, I must add). Even where our work was in a similar broad field – such as mine and Peter’s – we have gone about it in completely different ways and looked at different source material in many areas.

Many of us, in fact all of us except for Peter, have been moulded in some ways byJennifer O’Reilly, who also attended the roundtable. At a conference in Galwayrecently I and a couple of other graduates from Cork’s medieval studies courses were described as “the grandchildren of Jennifer O’Reilly”, which has a certain accuracy. Her analysis of Bede’s ouevre has greatly influenced all of our work, which was apparent during the discussion.

In many ways, we are following in her footsteps, while synthesising an array of different materials into new, original works. Bede might approve.

 

As my site is PHP 4.4 and the latest WordPress needs 5.2.4, the Akismet update has left that “missing argument” line across the top of the page and I can’t, as yet, fix the damn thing.

Update: Deactivating Akismet lets me do actual proper stuff in terms of blogging, which is handy as you might expect, but the lack of spam filtering could prove troublesome.

This may or may not work… I’m hoping it does.

You wanted it, you asked for it (whaddaya mean you didn’t?), and now you have the answer: Jurassic Park 4 is on the way. News from the mouth of Spielberg himself. Rumours that the raptors will be upgraded on a par with the above image were unconfirmed at the time of going to press.

The bomb attack and shootings in Norway today are shocking but a reminder that we are far too quick to assign blame to an external threat. Twitter and some radio broadcasts were abuzz with speculation that there was some sort of Islamic or al-Qaeda involvement, perhaps understandable given recent arrests in the country but speculation that ultimately turned out to be far from the mark. Reuters even compiled a list of likely suspects, although it looks now as if the man responsible was Norwegian with no Islamist ties.

That the country was reportedly unprepared for a terrorist attack is a moot point. This is Norway, a country with one of the highest standards of living in the world and a country that has no real geo-political conflicts despite membership of NATO and some activity in Afghanistan and Libya. It is, many would say, a great place. The point is that someone who wants to cause havoc and death can and will find a way.

World leaders have issued very similar statements, condemning the attacks and expressing disgust (as they should). But statements like that aren’t going to solve anything or prevent similar attacks. The Norwegian prime minister put it best when he said:

Our answer is more democracy, more openness to show that we will not be stopped by this kind of violence. At the same time we shouldn’t be naive, we should understand that violence can attack our society – we’ve seen that today.

We could all learn from that.

For some photos of the aftermath, visit Norway News.

Oh the wonders of technology. This little beauty from VisualJunkie.no offers 1GB or 2GB of memory in handmade wooden USB sticks and would set you back about €50. I’m tempted…

My last post was in February – bloody hell, where has the time gone? It was about that time that I began my own personal reboot, with a return to the Irish Examiner, this time as Chief Sub-Editor (I have my own business cards and everything, so it must be official). All is going well enough so far, although it means this blog will be steering clear of most media stuff to avoid any clashes of interest.

In the spirit of rebooting, here’s the Downfall take on DC Comics’ decision to restart every one of its titles.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpUh_Yl49l4[/youtube]

So while I get this blog back on is feet (not to mention my history blog at Chronica Minora), connect with the Examiner on Facebook and Twitter.

This is amazing. It’s a time lapse HD movie of a ruined chapel in Poland. Watch especially from about 1:25 on, where the HD makes it look like CGI.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/16414140[/vimeo]

Via Post-Apocalypse Now