Nawlins
Just got back from the Shakespeare Association of America. Impressions and thoughts follow.
New Orleans is one of those proverbial nice places to visit where one wouldn't want to live. Old cemetaries, gaslit avenues, so much jazz and alcohol that bits of the French quarter are in danger of becoming parodies. But I loved it. I ate many fishes, mollusks, and crustaceans. I heard a lot of jazz. I eavesdropped shamelessly on tour groups gawking at Anne Rice's house in the Garden District. I, of course, did no personal gawking. That's for proles.
Professor Jonathan Bate gave a paper that answered the exact question I was writing on that day. And I was writing, especially during the papers that were more tedious than JB's. He is a really good guy, as well as a brilliant scholar, it turns out, with a charmingly geeky dance style and a self-mocking enthusiasm about anything he happens to be doing, from scholarship to drunken bowling.
I made a few new friends, caught up with some very good old ones, took copious and extremely useful notes, got some free books, drank a lot. One amusing phenomenon I noticed is the academic wannabe. Curtis Perry, a hot young rock star of Jacobean cultural studies, has spawned so many imitators of his look--shaved head, black-rimmed glasses, goatee, all black--that the conference was like a lookalike competition.
Also, there was much job market fallout: "Oh, she got the Greensboro job! Well, who did Louisville end up hiring?" Et cetera. I'm just happy to have a job at all, considering how strenuous everything was this year.
I came away from the conference with a renewed confidence in my ability and identity as a scholar, and I enjoyed the general sense of satisfaction and excitement among my generation of Shakespeareans that we're the next version of the coterie of people we've admired and been intimidated by for years. Good stuff.
New Orleans is one of those proverbial nice places to visit where one wouldn't want to live. Old cemetaries, gaslit avenues, so much jazz and alcohol that bits of the French quarter are in danger of becoming parodies. But I loved it. I ate many fishes, mollusks, and crustaceans. I heard a lot of jazz. I eavesdropped shamelessly on tour groups gawking at Anne Rice's house in the Garden District. I, of course, did no personal gawking. That's for proles.
Professor Jonathan Bate gave a paper that answered the exact question I was writing on that day. And I was writing, especially during the papers that were more tedious than JB's. He is a really good guy, as well as a brilliant scholar, it turns out, with a charmingly geeky dance style and a self-mocking enthusiasm about anything he happens to be doing, from scholarship to drunken bowling.
I made a few new friends, caught up with some very good old ones, took copious and extremely useful notes, got some free books, drank a lot. One amusing phenomenon I noticed is the academic wannabe. Curtis Perry, a hot young rock star of Jacobean cultural studies, has spawned so many imitators of his look--shaved head, black-rimmed glasses, goatee, all black--that the conference was like a lookalike competition.
Also, there was much job market fallout: "Oh, she got the Greensboro job! Well, who did Louisville end up hiring?" Et cetera. I'm just happy to have a job at all, considering how strenuous everything was this year.
I came away from the conference with a renewed confidence in my ability and identity as a scholar, and I enjoyed the general sense of satisfaction and excitement among my generation of Shakespeareans that we're the next version of the coterie of people we've admired and been intimidated by for years. Good stuff.
posted by James at 12:38 PM
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