tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-311073602008-08-08T19:40:36.062+10:00Stephanie Trigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567163294720510335noreply@blogger.comBlogger187125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31107360.post-79742904307090216652008-08-08T18:39:00.006+10:002008-08-08T19:40:36.074+10:00

Because she is coming to Melbourne next week, I've been directed to Lauren Berlant's blog, Supervalent Thought. It's on my blogroll, now, and I think I'll be checking it regularly. It's beautifully written, and both philosophical and personal in ways that do the kind of touching that is being discussed over at In the Middle's discussion of Carolyn Dinshaw's Getting Medieval. The most recent post,

Stephanie Trigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567163294720510335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31107360.post-35379317859701370152008-08-03T06:26:00.005+10:002008-08-03T06:57:50.859+10:00

There's nothing like a sporting cliché, in my view. My AFL team, Essendon, has had a grim couple of years, and the start of this season was not much better. But now, as the home-and-away series draws to a close (only three or four weeks to go), we are starting to put together some wins, and if we win all our remaining games, and if the right teams above us on the ladder lose the right ones, we

Stephanie Trigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567163294720510335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31107360.post-81300124976751064612008-08-01T10:48:00.003+10:002008-08-01T11:28:22.841+10:00

At the NCS congress in Swansea, it was clear that there was a renewed interest in medievalism. There were a couple of panels on the topic, echoing the series of panels organised by David Matthews at Leeds, the previous week, while Carolyn Dinshaw's paper on Michael Powell's 1944 film, A Canterbury Tale, as a meditation on time and spatiality in our connections with the medieval, really gave the

Stephanie Trigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567163294720510335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31107360.post-34694120520466116892008-07-30T07:20:00.005+10:002008-07-31T11:13:26.202+10:00

Today is Amnesty International's online day of protest about censorship and human rights in China. For more information, go here. Imagine what it would be like not to have the freedom most of us enjoy, to write and respond and read our blogs at will.

Stephanie Trigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567163294720510335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31107360.post-18538244197416752932008-07-27T11:55:00.003+10:002008-07-27T12:07:45.900+10:00

Well, it's a long flight home, but a happy one. Avoiding the drama of the plane with the big hole in it, our flight was on time and without incident, touching down at what would have been the civilised hour of 8.00 p.m., but for the fact of my case being on the very last trolley load off the plane, and me being at the wrong end of a 25 minute queue in the quarantine check-out. So I didn't get

Stephanie Trigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567163294720510335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31107360.post-39615752244971507562008-07-25T20:05:00.003+10:002008-07-25T20:22:47.789+10:00

So I wonder what demon made me open up my laptop and check the news while I wait to board my plane, so that the first thing I see is a picture of a Qantas jet on the flight I am about to board, a day later, with a dirty great hole in the fuselage, and a report of a terrifying 20,000 foot drop. I'm kind of pleased, now, I wasn't able to change my flight and go home a day early... It's been such a

Stephanie Trigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567163294720510335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31107360.post-88477132450339391092008-07-24T07:52:00.006+10:002008-07-28T10:22:57.878+10:00

So the blog posts about NCS are starting to appear, as we arrive home, with a little time to reflect. Dr Virago (whom I met!) found it a little unfriendly and too full of academic posturing and competing for position, while Jeffrey Cohen wonders what has happened to Chaucer, given the multiplicity of other topics, periods, languages, cultures and historicisms we study. He also speculates on the

Stephanie Trigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567163294720510335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31107360.post-51845552824952559082008-07-23T17:10:00.002+10:002008-07-23T18:01:45.442+10:00

I will blog about the content of the conference, but starting at the end first, this is an account of the practically perfect day that got me back from Swansea to London. There is no doubt that this last week of my trip away has been a thousand times more pleasant and instructive than the first. The day began with a brisk hour-long walk around the rocky cliffs from Langland to Caswell bay,

Stephanie Trigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567163294720510335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31107360.post-51876719057966142232008-07-22T09:34:00.003+10:002008-07-22T19:12:13.556+10:00

Well, I’m just back from the conference dinner on the last night of the Chaucer conference in Swansea. Lots of great papers, debates, arguments and discussions, which I’ll digest a little before I blog about in more detail. For now, just some reflections on how to go to a big conference. There seem to be two main options. You can stay in the college accommodation on site, and meet your fellow

Stephanie Trigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567163294720510335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31107360.post-83045566557144821972008-07-14T06:55:00.003+10:002008-07-30T07:31:19.073+10:00

Poor neglected blog… I’m just over half way through my trip, and have been struggling a bit to find the energy and spirit to blog. Before I came away, I had to put together my application for the National Teaching Awards, and I talked a bit there about this blog, so I have been thinking of it a little as a teaching instrument. When you are a bit down, and you have to go into the classroom, you

Stephanie Trigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567163294720510335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31107360.post-13500785880279212482008-07-09T07:10:00.002+10:002008-07-09T07:46:47.240+10:00

Well, I certainly intended to blog this trip properly, but it didn't really start as expected. I found it very hard to leave my home and family this time; and it's taken the best part of a week in England to throw off a dark cloud of anxiety and depression. I won't go into all the ins and outs and whys and wherefores, but it is not to be recommended, travelling in such a state. It's certainly not

Stephanie Trigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567163294720510335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31107360.post-16307585197593587002008-06-30T22:12:00.006+10:002008-07-01T16:14:12.296+10:00

When I "went public" with my cancer diagnosis in October 2006 on this blog; and when I wrote two "op-ed" pieces on cancer and blogging and the consumerism of the pink ribbon campaigns ("Shop for the Cure" -- urrghh) for the Sunday Age, I was unprepared for the correspondence that ensued. My blog was only a few months old and was only just starting to expand beyond its intended readership, when

Stephanie Trigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567163294720510335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31107360.post-65322108224982622692008-06-28T18:07:00.005+10:002008-06-28T23:38:43.759+10:00

Oh well. In line with my theory that blogging is the perfect example of the pleasure principle at work in the life and time-management of a busy academic, it'd be no fun if we kept all the rules all the time. So yesterday was a day for running round. In the morning, two completely ridiculous examiners' meetings, where we struggle vainly and furiously (in both senses) to make our marks and grades

Stephanie Trigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567163294720510335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31107360.post-76899998636095879202008-06-24T20:41:00.004+10:002008-06-24T21:17:20.952+10:00

If you had asked me, say, four years ago, whether I preferred doing things in groups, or on my own, I would have answered resoundingly with a preference for the latter. Exercise, research and singing would have been three obvious categories for me where solitude was the preferable state. But over the last few years, I have come to see the fun of working and teaching collaboratively. I still

Stephanie Trigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567163294720510335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31107360.post-43749780692729037652008-06-23T11:24:00.003+10:002008-06-23T11:41:35.325+10:00

On my walk this morning, I came to the spot where I regularly pause, and make a modest obeisance to the goddess, and breathe deeply and in the morning sun visualise any cancer cells being rinsed from my body and passing down the creek. As I approached the spot, I saw there was a little clump of brown mushrooms glistening in the sun. Oh good! I first thought. Here's a sign that something is

Stephanie Trigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567163294720510335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31107360.post-80437264518990069522008-06-22T22:34:00.005+10:002008-06-22T23:01:47.961+10:00

Can't help but be moved by the death of Jane McGrath this week, after complications from surgery for secondary cancers. If it's easy, sometimes, to mock the WAGs of international football and cricketing stars, here was a woman who faced breast cancer and its ghastly aftermath with courage and grace. When I was given my passport to the country of illness, it was inevitable to look around me and

Stephanie Trigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567163294720510335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31107360.post-76790234831709402892008-06-20T09:27:00.002+10:002008-06-20T09:36:10.150+10:00

I'm willing to bet my entire fortune (heh) that whoever invented blogging did not conceive it would be used to disseminate poems written about the Order of the Garter. And who amongst us would have thought the genre would be so much fun? Today's poem comes from the reign of James I. It's memorable for its excruciating syntax — "Catcht up the ribbon had a leg imbract/That never capor’d with a

Stephanie Trigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567163294720510335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31107360.post-82831171881590708192008-06-19T09:39:00.005+10:002008-06-19T10:06:43.435+10:00

I'm replying to Highly Eccentric's comment on the previous post in a new post, as I wanted to show some pictures. This is Edward, Prince of Wales, from Bruges' Garter Book of c. 1430, with a much older version of the ties holding the mantle: And then by Charles I's time, they had become so long (especially on a young man: here he is as Duke of York) they had to be looped up into his sword

Stephanie Trigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567163294720510335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31107360.post-4986426332021388412008-06-17T15:48:00.006+10:002008-06-17T16:03:13.385+10:00

One of the things I love thinking about with the Order of the Garter is the slightly uncomfortable effect of dressing up. The Queen's recent encounter with Annie Liebovitz touched this nerve; and there is always something "lunatic" about the Order and its pageantry (the word is the Duke of Edinburgh's). So I was delighted when C sent me this link to a bunch of pictures of Prince William's recent

Stephanie Trigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567163294720510335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31107360.post-59303945287510458442008-06-15T15:42:00.001+10:002008-06-15T15:43:50.618+10:00

See the Bomber fly up, up...

Stephanie Trigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567163294720510335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31107360.post-15921694632098668982008-06-13T08:37:00.004+10:002008-06-13T08:47:50.048+10:00

While the traditional story about Edward III picking up the garter of the Countess of Salisbury (or the Queen, or some other woman) persists in English tradition, there has long been a rival theory, propounded by those who cannot accept that a military and chivalric order can have been organised around such a chance encounter, and such a "mean" item. Accordingly, it is often proposed that Edward

Stephanie Trigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567163294720510335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31107360.post-43125021347426192842008-06-11T08:44:00.003+10:002008-06-11T09:01:44.730+10:00

.. have wonderful blogs. I have links to two already in place; and here are two new ones. One is a craft blog demonstrating that there is a wonderful life of social activity and artistic endeavour beyond the world of the thesis; the other is an away-from-home journal by a former student working in a small European town. A beautiful example of writerly blogging.

Stephanie Trigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567163294720510335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31107360.post-57415840815820349782008-06-10T12:04:00.004+10:002008-06-10T12:10:00.204+10:00

Check this out: a card made by one of my students in the Medievalism class, who is not deficient in the designer's gene: the day they are handing in their essays, no less. In addition to the real ribbon tied on the bottom, it's complete with picture from the blog, and Marion and Belle from our Robin Hood and fairy-tale lectures. I discreetly won't mention her name, but thanks so much. You know

Stephanie Trigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567163294720510335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31107360.post-4601724137632624392008-06-09T11:16:00.006+10:002008-06-09T12:34:41.708+10:00

I do not exaggerate when I say I don't have any visual or design skills. My talents in this area go only so far as experimenting with a larger size of Times New Roman as a header. And even my stick figure drawings are laughable (seriously: they make people LOL). So you can imagine my delight when I realised my son had inherited my partner's talents in this regard, which are not inconsiderable.

Stephanie Trigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567163294720510335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31107360.post-43197651030500189082008-06-08T10:03:00.002+10:002008-06-08T10:06:06.181+10:00

Dr Virago's post on Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights" video prompted me to search for a video I had never seen, but always knew of: her "Hounds of Love", which features my ex brother-in-law as the male lead. The story in this video seems almost completely obscure to me, but it's great fun to see Gow in this role. He was a dancer with the Australian ballet, but was living in London with convenient

Stephanie Trigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567163294720510335noreply@blogger.com