It's not the mutiny that gets written down in the diary, it's the manifest
I am still vibrating slightly with adrenaline from Zoom-speaking to Leigh Grossman's class at the University of Connecticut, which I was doing because my short story "ζῆ καὶ βασιλεύει" was included on the syllabus of "Popular Literature: Alternate Histories" and I was invited to come and talk about it. I was warned that the discussion might peter out early because the students were not necessarily chatty over Zoom. They asked questions and we ran right up until the last minute of class. I remember talking about my master's thesis and the Epic Cycle and my arguments with Mary Renault's Funeral Games (1981); I talked about Penelope and Odyssey 13.291–303 and the reasons it matters that μῆτις is not wisdom; I talked a lot about what you don't have to invent in the past, you just have to know where to look for it, like Kynnane and Adeia and pre-Code Hollywood and Axiothea of Phlios. I got asked about fanfiction and while not having a good solution to the shitshow that is American copyright law did manage to mention that I was delighted when it happened to me. I got asked about Catullus and talked about Roman sexual vocabulary. I talked about Carthage. I talked about film noir. I talked about Aṣûšunamir. I talked about Andromache. I explained the meaning of the title and the legend of Thessalonike; I talked about the complex of goddesses associated with the planet Venus and the importance of names. I recommended Elizabeth Donnelly Carney's Women and Monarchy in Macedonia (2000) and Glenn Markoe's Phoenicians (2002) and Craig A. Williams' Roman Homosexuality (2010) and Dorothy J. Heydt's The Witch of Syracuse (2017) and Ursula K. Le Guin's Lavinia (2008) and an assortment of Tanith Lee. I had not spoken to a class since 2011. I worried about boring them, but I think the fact that they kept asking questions argues against Tiny Wittgenstein. One of them had actually written a paper on my story. I don't know that anyone has ever written a paper on my fiction before. ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch ordered from Desfina to celebrate. I have had salt cod with skordalia and dandelion greens and eggplant and loukaniko and goat's milk custard and a fractional amount of mead. I think I have to reconcile myself to the fact that I lecture reasonably well so long as I just think I'm enthusing about something.
spatch ordered from Desfina to celebrate. I have had salt cod with skordalia and dandelion greens and eggplant and loukaniko and goat's milk custard and a fractional amount of mead. I think I have to reconcile myself to the fact that I lecture reasonably well so long as I just think I'm enthusing about something.
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TW is going to have a little philosophers’ run on the deck and maybe a bell jar terrarium to lounge in. He’ll do well with a skosh more vitamin D and you can start bringing him to lectures no problem.
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It still has all the hedges of academia around it, but it did not differ practically from speaking or being interviewed at a convention or a reading or a book launch and I need to remember that.
TW is going to have a little philosophers’ run on the deck and maybe a bell jar terrarium to lounge in.
Fancy! Did we remember to get him the little chaise-longue?
He’ll do well with a skosh more vitamin D and you can start bringing him to lectures no problem.
He can be the rhinoceros in the room.
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He's dithering between that and the woven-vinyl beach lounger for irony. Tiny Freud suggested a fur-lined egg chair, but that made him feel disgruntled. Also, he hasn't seen Tiny Kant since Pesach; please check the bottom of the Manischewitz bottle.
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Nine
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Thank you! I do not believe it was recorded, I'm afraid. I feel like a stage actor.
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Thank you.
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Thank you!
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I mean, I was a guest speaker—I didn't have to create a syllabus or keep the same students interested day after day! But thank you. I don't think I can pull off a Housman, but I could acclimate to more academia in my life. (I need to get over the professionally publishing nonfiction thing.)
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Thank you. It was a lot of fun.
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Thank you!
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Thank you! And I still feel good about it the next day.
I don't think I was aware of the story you spoke about before, but I've bookmarked it for a read in the near future.
It's not widely available; it's never been collected—it was to be reprinted in a charity anthology, but 2020 scotched the publication—and its original magazine is defunct, leaving this archival ghost I link to. I hope you enjoy it!
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It sounds like a con panel of one, and I know you're great on con panels. Glad it went so well.
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Thank you!
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I bet you do! And how lucky we are that your enthusiasms are so many and various.
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Thank you.
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It made me very happy! And interested some students.
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*Saves to reread and absorb and learn*
Re: *
*hugs*
Feel free to ask about anything.
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Thank you. (I don't believe it was recorded. I don't know the rules of recording or linking to classes, honestly.)
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Thank you!
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Thank you!
And yay for the paper on your story! I found out a while someone wrote their masters thesis on constructing the female identity in NZ fantasy fiction and used one of my stories (among others) and I’m still stoked to think about it
You should be; that is completely awesome. Congratulations!
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*makes grabby hands*
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One can't invoke ‘Aštart (and Tanit!) and not talk about Carthage!
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