Well, I write this from the keyboard of my friendly desktop PC back in dear old Oxford. We can’t afford central heating, and my housemates have left the kitchen in a complete mess. I’m home. It’s over.
It occurs to me that I’ve been using this blog to show detailed little fragments of thought rather than to take a moment to point out what, to me, is obvious – that this has been, from the start, an almost flawless week. It’s not just that the Gladstone Library had heat, cleanliness and an overabundance of food (although I do think you’d have to hold a fairly terrible conference there before I’d quit – the place is a dream). We’ve been treated to a spectacular programme, beautifully planned and never for a moment dull. This last point leaves me almost speechless – I really can’t think of any other week-long event I’ve attended without flagging slightly. Given the sometimes intensely academic nature of a lot of the sessions, it really is amazing that I never felt overwhelmed or mentally tired in five days.
I attribute this to the fact that we’ve all met each other. We’re a very diverse group, both within and between our disciplines, so general conversation has always been exciting. I regretted at several moments that there were fewer people with scientific training in the room, but it occured to me yesterday that in focusing on this relative disappointment I’d ignored a massive success – that although the nineteenth century was somewhat over-represented, we had an extraordinary array of periods on offer, from the sixteenth century onwards. I’m glad that no-one drew much attention to this, because it sort of shows that some of what I believe about re-approaching subdivision and categorisation really is possible to achieve: we did so in this instance by ignoring periods, or rather, by not seeing them as a necessarily defining aspect of each other’s work. And guess what – it turns out that sixteenth-centuryists and twenty-first-centuryists can have respectful and productive and exciting conversations with each other. Who knew?
The word ‘necessarily’ is key here. Some people have intensely period-specific work to do, and need the label. But I suggest that not using it as a primary identifier helped us out quite a lot this week. It happened, perhaps, because everyone had new ‘primary identifiers’ – English, History of Science, Creative Writing – imagine if we could background those terms as well; get them into a place where they are still visible and useful, but no longer binding, constrictive, definitive, final…
That was my big thought from the week. I have a few smaller ones and I’m going to keep posting on this blog for a few more days as I file my notes. To finish for now though, it needs saying that my astonishment at how continuingly engaging and exciting this week was is nothing compared to my astonishment that it happened at all, that it was planned and came off. I can barely imagine the effort that Salford and Sharon Ruston in particular had to put in to make everything go right. Thank you so much to everyone involved.
Will Tattersdill
Will. Yes. I agree totally. I imagine that this is echoed from all those who haven’t signed up for litscimed, too. It was a truly great week and it has been a pleasure to meet you and hear about the scientifically-proven perfect cheese roll!
I’m about to set off back to London from Bolton. Later, you should see that soft nose once again. May you paw at the screen with a tear of joy in your eye!