Vive le subjonctif ! Qu’il renaisse et s’infiltre dans toutes les langues, ainsi que tout ce qu’il représente. Que le « que » soit la clé.
An introduction to the subjunctive in French
SF
Radical professionalism (3): what it is and what it could be
Images above: the Winchester Psalter, British Library Cotton MS Nero C IV – Herrad of Landsberg, Hortus deliciarum – The Tree of Life, Gua Tewet, Borneo
“Radical professionalism” goes beyond “professionalism” and returns the latter to its deep true conservative sense. This is the longest in a series of posts. The project started with thinking about con– and pro– words in spring 2016, in relation to local (university) current events. The first “deliverables” were some images at the end of a self-flagellating work in progress post in July and a preamble in mid-August. Then followed two posts looking at what professionalism is not, on false values that will be very familiar to readers of Medieval allegory and satire: a first post on neutrality (false balance) and a second post about appearances (seeming, or: false being and false value(s)) and their connection to appropriateness, propriety, and property. There were two other entremets posts (here and here). This present post looks at what professionalism is; and what, in the shape of a radical professionalism as modelled by radical academic professionals, it could be. [UPDATED AFTER POSTING TO ADD] In a fourth post, we’ll see how radical professionalism actually exists, in the world of Medieval Studies. (more…)
Radical professionalism (2b): … but it can be about imagination …
Early Science Fiction (A Medievalist on the Chemical Wedding) @Lollardfish
This “chemical” wedding, I hasten to add, bears no relation to—and is neither a reference nor even the subtlest whiff of an allusion to—a certain “red” one…
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On early science fiction / SF
Littérature = imagination
(En français à l’exception du prologue et des enluminures en anglais.)
(Postcript preamble: this piece is in French, sorry, it just kind of happened that way.
It was triggered by a video from La Brigade du Livre, and I’m currently back to reading Montaigne’s Journal de voyage en Italie, par la Suisse et l’Allemagne as a digressive pause from Infinite Jest and as a palate-cleansing entremets after the wonderful Station Eleven which is one of those beautiful imaginative adventures after which one needs a pause just to get one’s breath back; and where I felt it would be rude, maybe difficult, to read more SF immediately after. Forgetting as ever that SF, speculative fictions, and imagineering are always all around: in Montaigne too. Besides, Montaigne always leads to Thinking. That’s bad enough already. Worse: Montaigne leads to Thoughts about writing, and reading, and big questions about literature and blogging and The Meaning Of It All.
So. In French because of Montaigne and LA BRIGADE DU LIVRE.
As a compromise, I’ll add some pretty pictures of recent reading. They kind of punctuate the text, so it’s a medieval-manuscript-like bit of bilingualism.)
La lecture, la littérature, et la vie littéraire sont désormais bel et bien en vie. Vive la vie imaginaire !
Comme tout lecteur assidu.e de meta-meta-medieval aura remarqué, je n’ai pas beaucoup publié.
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