Norwich
So we took a train to Norwich. Slept most of the way, although I did wake up and peer out when they called the stop at Nottingham. Arrived at Norwich, took a cab to the Earlham Guest House, got settled in. Got a phone call from Angela, our realtor who is selling David’s house for us. A good offer came in the instant we left the US; she gave me some details. I said we’d call the next day. She needed me to find a fax machine to send me the contract. Ate dinner at a pub around the corner, went to bed, where I sat up for a good long while cutting my overlong paper by half and trying to give it some flow.
Friday we woke up to a proper English breakfast. Grilled tomatoes, mushrooms, baked beans, fried eggs, toast, jam and marmalade. Ate heavily, ironed my suit, ran through the paper again, went out to get the bus to the U of East Anglia, where the conference was being held. I ended up at the bus stop with the couple that had been at the next table at breakfast; turns out they were at the conference too. They were archeology grad students from the U of Glasgow, and he was giving a paper on mootscapes, after which they were going to another medieval conference in Leeds. And I thought I was booked up this summer. We muddled around the campus together and found the conference and checked in.
The conference—officially “Collective Memory and the Uses of the Past” –was interdisciplinary. Quite a few historians, some anthropologists and sociologists. And it was nicely international; the other person on my panel was a French guy doing work on myth-making about the Mayflower Compact. Here’s an older version of the program; some of the sessions were moved around (like mine) so the times are not right here. The first day I went to “Remembering the Crusades” and “Literature and Memory II” and then the session I was in from 5-630. The session went well; I had made exactly the right number of handouts, and we got interesting questions. It was funny; some of the European historians were amazed that in a country where Western history only goes back 400 years, that myth-making on this level could take place, and that it could exist at the academic level as well as in popular culture. I was glad to have a French historian on the panel with me; this kept the discussion in the realm of Americans as myth-makers, which was fruitful ground. A great time. Then the sessions knocked off and it was time for dinner, which was an catch-as-catch can affair at the campus eatery, where I had a chance to talk more to Lauric about our session and the World Cup, of course, it being 2 days before the final game. Then he showed me the most amazing thing—a field by the campus center where hundreds, literally hundreds of rabbits come out at dusk. During the day you can usually see twenty or so, but they swarm in the evening. Most amazing. Anyway, then I caught a cab back to the Guesthouse and Vance, who had been feeling weird all day and stayed in. We went walking around for a bit and bought drinks at the corner store, where the kid behind the counter regaled us with tales of his uncle, who hated Britain and moved to the US—Arizona, I think-- where he could have 4 Hummers sitting in his driveway. Found a phone booth, called Angela, said we’d take the offer.
The next day at beakfast, I realized that the two guys who had presented the papers on the crusades were also in our B&B. We shared a cab to campus; Vance went along to see where it was, and see rabbits. I went off to the conference. The conference was interspersed with me running over the campus trying to find a fax machine, which I finally did, so then at some point I called Angela with the fax number, and at some point Angela faxed me the contract, and at some point I signed it and faxed it back to her.
But mostly I was going to conference sessions. (Met some great people too, very friendly conference.) First there were opening remarks (new journal devoted to memory studies coming out!), and then a plenary on “Landscape and memory” which I think has sorted out some of my thinking on place and memory for my dissertation. It had been a sticking point. The I went to a session on History, Photography and memory—quite good—and then another plenary on “sociologies and memory” which was a bit disappointing because one of the speakers didn’t make it. Afterwards I went to a session on “What do we want history for?” and then I had had enough conferencing; I went back to Vance and we walked around Norwich.
He had located a promising looking tapas place for dinner but when we got there, an alarm was going off inside, so we wandered around more and finally went to a low-end French restaurant where we both got some tasty venison. Norwich has 2 cathedrals and at least 2 other churches that might as well be, and a castle, and some of them are made of this unusual flint, and there’s a bazaar that Vance had spent some time wandering through earlier, and we saw some cool lion statues—this is when we realized that the battery was dead in the camera, so we have no pics of Norwich or York, because although we brought spares, we didn’t actually get them in the camera until Edinburgh.
Anyway, that was Norwich. We took an earlyish train to York on Sunday.
Friday we woke up to a proper English breakfast. Grilled tomatoes, mushrooms, baked beans, fried eggs, toast, jam and marmalade. Ate heavily, ironed my suit, ran through the paper again, went out to get the bus to the U of East Anglia, where the conference was being held. I ended up at the bus stop with the couple that had been at the next table at breakfast; turns out they were at the conference too. They were archeology grad students from the U of Glasgow, and he was giving a paper on mootscapes, after which they were going to another medieval conference in Leeds. And I thought I was booked up this summer. We muddled around the campus together and found the conference and checked in.
The conference—officially “Collective Memory and the Uses of the Past” –was interdisciplinary. Quite a few historians, some anthropologists and sociologists. And it was nicely international; the other person on my panel was a French guy doing work on myth-making about the Mayflower Compact. Here’s an older version of the program; some of the sessions were moved around (like mine) so the times are not right here. The first day I went to “Remembering the Crusades” and “Literature and Memory II” and then the session I was in from 5-630. The session went well; I had made exactly the right number of handouts, and we got interesting questions. It was funny; some of the European historians were amazed that in a country where Western history only goes back 400 years, that myth-making on this level could take place, and that it could exist at the academic level as well as in popular culture. I was glad to have a French historian on the panel with me; this kept the discussion in the realm of Americans as myth-makers, which was fruitful ground. A great time. Then the sessions knocked off and it was time for dinner, which was an catch-as-catch can affair at the campus eatery, where I had a chance to talk more to Lauric about our session and the World Cup, of course, it being 2 days before the final game. Then he showed me the most amazing thing—a field by the campus center where hundreds, literally hundreds of rabbits come out at dusk. During the day you can usually see twenty or so, but they swarm in the evening. Most amazing. Anyway, then I caught a cab back to the Guesthouse and Vance, who had been feeling weird all day and stayed in. We went walking around for a bit and bought drinks at the corner store, where the kid behind the counter regaled us with tales of his uncle, who hated Britain and moved to the US—Arizona, I think-- where he could have 4 Hummers sitting in his driveway. Found a phone booth, called Angela, said we’d take the offer.
The next day at beakfast, I realized that the two guys who had presented the papers on the crusades were also in our B&B. We shared a cab to campus; Vance went along to see where it was, and see rabbits. I went off to the conference. The conference was interspersed with me running over the campus trying to find a fax machine, which I finally did, so then at some point I called Angela with the fax number, and at some point Angela faxed me the contract, and at some point I signed it and faxed it back to her.
But mostly I was going to conference sessions. (Met some great people too, very friendly conference.) First there were opening remarks (new journal devoted to memory studies coming out!), and then a plenary on “Landscape and memory” which I think has sorted out some of my thinking on place and memory for my dissertation. It had been a sticking point. The I went to a session on History, Photography and memory—quite good—and then another plenary on “sociologies and memory” which was a bit disappointing because one of the speakers didn’t make it. Afterwards I went to a session on “What do we want history for?” and then I had had enough conferencing; I went back to Vance and we walked around Norwich.
He had located a promising looking tapas place for dinner but when we got there, an alarm was going off inside, so we wandered around more and finally went to a low-end French restaurant where we both got some tasty venison. Norwich has 2 cathedrals and at least 2 other churches that might as well be, and a castle, and some of them are made of this unusual flint, and there’s a bazaar that Vance had spent some time wandering through earlier, and we saw some cool lion statues—this is when we realized that the battery was dead in the camera, so we have no pics of Norwich or York, because although we brought spares, we didn’t actually get them in the camera until Edinburgh.
Anyway, that was Norwich. We took an earlyish train to York on Sunday.
posted by kathy at 9:05 AM
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