Sunday 30 August 2020

Lady Doctors in Late Antiquity

Before lockdown began in the UK, a friend from work lent me a copy of one of her favourite historical novels, the Beacon at Alexandria, by Gillian Bradshaw. As someone who was first captivated by the Middle Ages by reading historical fiction, particularly the works of Frances Temple, Gerald Morris, Rosemary Sutcliffe, and Frances Mary Hendry, I have a soft spot for novels set in the ancient or medieval past. Most of the time, I don't care whether the story is historically accurate. As kid I wasn't interested in whether something 'really happened' and I continue to find this a profoundly uninteresting question as an adult. My disbelief is willingly suspended: a story is its own truth but it is not fact. Even so, I am always delighted when fiction writers trace their inspiration back to a medieval source: the story's truth and historical fact united.

Cover of The Beacon at Alexandria by Gillian Bradshaw

Which is a long-winded way of saying that the story of the Beacon at Alexandria--that of a young woman from Ephesus, Charis, who runs away from home and disguises herself as eunuch in order to train as a physician in Alexandria--had me captivated from the first page. While novels which focus on the small world of a particular place (such as the Bronze Age farming community of Warrior Scarlet) are delightful, I particularly enjoy historical fiction where the characters travel widely. The Beacon at Alexandria gives a peak into the imagined worlds of fourth-century Ephesus, Alexandria, Noviodunum and other areas around the province of Thrace. Gillian Bradshaw, who has an MA in Classics from Cambridge, was explicit about what was and wasn't real:

Finally, I must state clearly that the central events and characters of this novel are entirely my own invention: I wrote it for fun and in the hope that others would enjoy it. The historical background, however, is tolerably accurate, and many of the characters are based on real people. For those who are interested in knowing more about them, let me recommend a few of the more obtainable books. The history of Ammianus Marcellinus (The Later Roman Empire, available in Penguin) is a fascinating work by a man who had witnessed many of the events he describes. Gibbon's Decline and Fall, though not always trustworthy, is still the best modern narrative of the period, and nearly available in various abridgements; as a corrective to this, The Decline of the Ancient World by A.H.M. Jones (an abridgement of his The Later Roman Empire) is magisterial and authoritative. These are only the beginning, of course: the later Roman period is a great foreign nation, full of people; a world which is an endless adventure to explore. (pp vi-vii)

Endless adventure--what better way to describe the fascination of late antiquity.

Footnote 27

The story of a woman who disguises herself as a man to practice medicine stuck in my head, and a few months ago, I was delighted to come across the following reference:

Women in Roman Gaul seem to have had a positive connection with education: Ausonius himself was brought up by his maternal grandmother and aunts (who included the interesting figure of his aunt, Aemilia Hilaria, so 'boyish' she was known by the masculine name 'Hilarius', vowed to perpetual virginity, and entirely occupied with medicine 'like a man'). Jane Stevenson, Women Latin Poets (Oxford, 2005), pp. 63-4.

I made a note to follow upon on the contents of footnote 27, which directed the reader to Ausonius' Parentalia, Poem 6.

A word about the poet. Ausonius (c. 310- c. 395), was born in Bordeaux; he was the son of a physician and gained a good education in grammar and rhetoric, which he began teaching at his own school in around 334. About thirty years into his teaching career, he hit a high point, becoming tutor to the future emperor Gratian. His presence at the imperial court brought him and his family a number of prestigious appointments in late Roman bureaucracy. Ausonius returned to Bordeaux after Gratian was murdered in 383, and spent the rest of his life there.

Throughout his life, Ausonius was a prolific writer, and some letters and a great deal of poetry still survive. I have had the pleasure of teaching a bit of the Professors of Bordeaux (Professores Burdigalenses), his set of biographies in poetry of the noteworthy teachers of his city, in a seminar on late antique education, but am sadly under-acquainted with most of his work. Late in life, Ausonius composed a series of thirty poems called the Parentalia, in memory of his relatives, including his aunt Aemilia. Literary production was a kind of bat signal for late Roman elites, enabling them to find and recognise one another as members of the same social class. Ausonius' literary output, although it contains personal matters such as family history, always had a public face.

VI. Aemilia Hilaria, my mother's sister, an avowed virgin
You too who, though in kinship’s degree an aunt, were to me a mother, must now be recalled with a son’s affection, Aemilia, who in the cradle gained the second name of Hilarius (Blithesome), because, bright and cheerful after the fashion of a boy, you made without pretence the very picture of a lad...busied in the art of healing, like a man. You ever hated your female sex, and so there grew up in you the love of consecrated maidenhood. Through three and sixty years you maintained it, and your life’s end was also a maiden’s end. You cherished me with your precepts and your love as might a mother; and therefore as a son I make you this return at your last rites.
translated by Hugh G. Evelyn White, Ausonius Vol 1 (Cambridge and London, 1919), pp. 66-69

Tantalizingly, the ellipsis seems to indicate two lines are missing exactly where one wants to know more: could 'the picture of a lad' refer to cross-dressing, or some other form of masculine self-presentation? What does the name Hilarius tell us? Hilarius and Hilaria are the masculine and feminine forms of the same name. Ausonius' poem suggests the masculine form was deliberately used by the family, hence my use of Aemilia Hilarius to refer to her. Where did Aemilia Hilarius learn medicine? None of Ausonius' poems about his mothers' family mention physicians, but both his father, Ausonius Julius, and his brother, Avitianus, practiced medicine, so one possibility is that she learned from her brother-in-law.

One thing we can know for sure: she wasn't alone. The research of Louise Cilliers and Francois Pieter Retief makes clear that there is evidence of female doctors throughout antiquity. Sources range from the philosophical writings of Plato, to the medical writings of the second century physician Galen and other medical writers, to offhand comments in the poems of Martial and Juvenal; to a matter-of-fact aside in the sixth-century legislation of the Byzantine empire Justinian, specifying that a particular law applied to doctors whether they were male or female. The only known surviving medical text written by a female doctor, Metrodora, is from the second or third century CE. Female doctors might also be mentioned in the dedications of medical texts--Gratian's personal physician, Theodorus Priscianus, dedicated a book on gynecology to a fellow doctor named Victoria. Female doctors are also attested in epigraphic sources--that is to say, the commemorative inscriptions which were ubiquitous around the Roman world. Particularly striking is a second-century inscription from Pergamum (modern-day Pergamos, Greece):

Receive, Pantheia, my wife, the farewell greeting of your spouse, who is cast into eternal mourning by the fate which caused your death. Because never before did Hera, patroness of marriage, see a spouse with such perfection of beauty, temperament and wisdom as you. You gave me sons, the images of myself. You watched in turn over your husband and children. You managed the household capably, and along with me you enjoyed fame as a medical practitioner because, dear wife, you were no less qualified than I in the art. Therefore Glykon, your husband, has buried you in this sepulchre, in which the body of the deceased Philadelphus also lies buried, and in which I myself will rest after my death; as I shared your marriage bed, so shall I lie beside you underground. (Cilliers and Retief, 'The Healing Hand: the Role of Women in Ancient Medicine', p. 175)

Women physicians even entered the realm of legend. One of the stories recounted in the Fables (Fabulae) of the first century Latin author, Gaius Julius Hyginus, is about the invention of obstetrics in ancient Greece.

The ancients didn't have obstetricians, and as a result, women because of modesty perished. For the Athenians forbade slaves and women to learn the art of medicine. A certain girl, Hagnodice [also translated as Agnodike or Agnodice], a virgin desired to learn medicine, and since she desired it, she cut her hair, and in male attire came to a certain Herophilus for training. When she had learned the art, and had heard that a woman was in labor, she came to her. And when the woman refused to trust herself to her, thinking that she was a man, she removed her garment to show that she was a woman, and in this way she treated women. When the doctors saw that they were not admitted to women, they began to accuse Hagnodice, saying that "he" was a seducer and corruptor of women, and that the women were pretending to be ill. The Areopagites, in session, started to condemn Hagnodice, but Hagnodice removed her garment for them and showed that she was a woman. Then the doctors began to accuse her more vigorously, and as a result the leading women came to the Court and said: "You are not husbands, but enemies, because you condemn her who discovered safety for us." Then the Athenians amended the law, so that free-born women could learn the art of medicine. (Hyginus, Fabulae 274, translated and edited by Mary Grant)

Bradshaw stresses that the events and characters of her novel are entirely fictional, so I want to conclude by emphasising that her heroine Charis is not Aemilia Hilarius or Pantheia or Agnodike. But without having read about Charis, I never would have been interested in reading about Aemilia Hilarius. The truth of the late antique world is even stranger than its fiction.

Sunday 23 August 2020

Popcorn for Hard Times

It hasn't been a great week here in the barbaricum, and much love and light to you if it has also been a rough few weeks on your side of the limes*. This week's post is about a dinner for rough or busy days. Back when I started associate lecturing in medieval history, in 2014, I made popcorn for dinner a lot. I got the idea from the wonderful New England cookbook Cook and Tell, which mentions a traditional Sunday night supper of popcorn, cheddar cheese, apples, and hot chocolate. I promptly adopted it as a lazy night dinner for solo dining, and I pass it on to you.

Ingredients for Popcorn Dinner

- 1/4 to 1/2 cup popcorn kernels

- 2 tbsp vegetable oil

- 1-2 grated handfuls sharp cheddar cheese (or cut cheese into wedges)

- 1-2 apples

- a mug full of milk

- 2 tbsp sugar

- 1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

- sprinkling of cinnamon or chili powder (optional)

- other herbs or spices for the popcorn, as your fancy dictates

What to do

There is absolutely nothing stopping you from making microwave popcorn if that's what you need to do but I typically buy a 500g bag of popcorn kernels (you can usually find it in the ethnic foods or pulses aisle of a big supermarket) and pop my popcorn on the stovetop. To do this, take a LARGE pan with a tight fitting lid (you want a pot that can hold about a litre / four cups or more of liquid) and pour about 2 tbsp of vegetable oil onto the bottom of it. I usually eyeball this rather than having to deal with cleaning oil off a measuring spoon--you want enough to have a thin layer covering the bottom of the pot when you swirl the pan. Begin heating the pot over high heat, and while you do that pour a mug full of milk into a small saucepan and turn the heat to medium high.

Now that your oil is a bit hot, drop in 3-5 kernels of popcorn and put the lid on the popcorn pot. Turn your attention to the cocoa now: add two soup spoons of sugar and one of cocoa to your warming milk and stir those in. Lower the heat on your cocoa so it doesn't boil over and collect an apple or two from the refrigerator.

By now, your first few popcorn kernels should have popped and you can add the rest in. A half-cup of kernels generally fills my largest bowl with cooked popcorn, and provides ample food for one person, especially with apples and cheese, but you can always start with a quarter cup and make more later. Put the lid on the popcorn pot again and give your cocoa a stir. The cocoa should be gently bubbling by now and it's a good idea to lower the heat on the popcorn pot to medium or medium high--I find this helps me avoid scorching it.

While you wait, you may wish to add a pinch of cinnamon or chili powder to the hot cocoa. Every so often, pick up the popcorn pot and shake it. It's not absolutely essential to do this but it seems to prevent any kernels from burning, and is kind of fun. It will take about 5-10 minutes, depending on how hot your stove gets, for most of the popcorn to pop.

In between shaking your popcorn pot, slice or grate your cheddar cheese and wash your apples. If you want cheesy popcorn, grate the cheese straight into your bowl. I sometimes like to slice my cheese and apples at the point, so I can eat slices of cheese on top of apple wedges, but you do you.

Dinner is ready when the sound of popping has stopped. I usually find that little tasks like grating cheese, chopping apples, and pouring the cocoa into a mug help me avoid taking the pot off the stove before the popcorn is fully ready.

Pour the popcorn into the bowl. If it's cheesy popcorn for you tonight, simply mix the popcorn and grated cheese together with your hands. If you've chosen to eat your cheese with an apple or two, you may want to think about popcorn seasonings. Half a teaspoon (or a few shakes) of garlic powder, dill, and salt; make a nice combination. You can also try chili powder and a few sprinkles of lime juice, if there's a bottle in your fridge. I once tried a few shakes of curry powder on a whim, and enjoyed it. If I'm looking for a bit of spice, a few twists of the pepper mill are also good. And of course, you can never go wrong with salt.

Enjoy your popcorn and take care of yourself.

* As you can probably guess, barbaricum is the word scholars use to talk about the lands outside Roman borders where barbarians lived; limes is the Latin word for those borders themselves. Both words were used with roughly these meanings in Late Antiquity--Wikipedia is kept well-edited for matters Late Antique.

Sunday 16 August 2020

Why I Am Glad A Memory Called Empire Won the Hugo Award for Best Novel

The Middle Ages are rich source of material for writers of speculative fiction and fantasy. Some of the blockbusters series of the genre, such as Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones or Dune, introduce readers to worlds which seem recognizably medieval--feudal or monarchical systems of governance, male-dominated social structures, militaries which rely on horses and swords, agrarian economies, technology that belies an industrial revolution or imagines it went off on a very different path, structures of communication which rely on humans to relay information, and so on. Then there are novels in which the futuristic present meets a medieval past (Doomsday Book, Lest Darkness Fall). Beyond that, there is the space opera with elements of medieval culture, and there we come to the utterly brilliant novel, A Memory Called Empire.

Before discussing why I love this book so much, I want to address two topics to help me get there: medievalists who write things that aren't medieval history, and the assumed whiteness of the Middle Ages. But before I do that, I want to emphasise that I am writing these from the perspective of a fan, and person interested in learning more. I am not an expert, and would encourage you to check out the work of people who are. For medieval and classical receptions in science fiction perhaps here and here would be good places to start, and on the study of the Middle Ages and race, perhaps here and here. Further recommendations most welcome.

Buckle in!

Medievalists as Writers

As the academic and science fiction author Joanna Russ observed, there might be something about similarities between science fiction and the study of the Middle Ages that particularly attracts medievalists to the genre:

Science fiction presents an eerie echo of the attitudes and interests of a pre-industrial, pre-Renaissance, pre-secular, pre-individualistic culture. It has been my experience that medievalists take easily and kindly to science fiction, that they are often attracted to it, that its didacticism presents them with no problems, and that they enjoy this literature much more than do students of later literary periods. (Russ, 'Towards an aesthetic of science fiction', here)

By a medievalist, I mean someone who has received academic training centred on the broadly-defined Middle Ages AND produced academic publications on the broadly-defined Middle Ages. This a flawed definition of 'medievalist'; it excludes writers like Dr Nicola Griffith, who exhaustively researched her beautiful historical fantasy Hild (you can read about her research process on her blog about writing the novel, here, and I highly recommend that you do.) I am intentionally looking at the medievalist as a creature with some kind of advanced degree in the study of medieval literature, culture, or archaeology, who has produced at least some writing for an academic audience.

But how many of these 'medievalists' have written for non-academic audiences? There is a small but mighty number! I wrote about Tolkein in my last post, and for a lot of people who think of medievalists as writers, he just might be the first person who comes to mind. Certainly, for people who study medievalism in literature and film, his work has provided a wealth of research material. (Interestingly, the only section of Fantasy and Science Fiction Medievalisms: From Isaac Asimov to A Game of Thrones devoted to a single author deals with Tolkien). The next person who comes to mind, for me, is the early medieval historian Edward James, whose publications include both studies of the early Middle Ages and its receptions, and studies of science fiction and fantasy, although James as far as I know does not actually write speculative fiction himself. In reading for this post, I learned about the works of Harry Turtledove, who did an PhD in Byzantine History after reading Lest Darkness Fall (see here). M.R. James studied medieval manuscripts and wrote ghost stories which often feature scholars and sometimes also old and dangerous books (for a good introduction see here)

Arkady Martine (Dr AnnaLinden Weller), whose first novel A Memory Called Empire, won the 2020 Hugo Award for Best Novel, has a PhD in Byzantine Studies and has published about the borders and frontiers of the Byzantine world in addition to her speculative fiction (she gave a delightful interview about producing both at once here). As part of her postdoctoral research, Weller brought together both interests in a conference on medieval empire, Byzantium, and speculative fiction (programme here), out of which the edited volume, Histories of the Future, about post-Roman Empires in science fiction, will hopefully come in due course (it's listed on her CV on academia.edu)

In sum, I agree with Joanna Russ that there is something about the overlap of training as a medievalist and the creation of speculative, science fiction, or fantasy worlds, that makes genre fiction a place where we feel at home. As a concluding aside, it is interesting that Classicists and medievalists were among the pioneers of the development of digital humanities as a field; not to mention the number of philosophers of history who were trained medievalists (at least according to a philosophies of history reading group I attended as a PhD student). There's just something about the Middle Ages...

Brief Thoughts on Medieval Whiteness and SFF

My sister, who is a speculative fiction writer but not a medievalist, sent me a copy of A Memory Called Empire not long after it was published at the end of March 2019. In August 2020, in an awards ceremony hosted by G.R.R. Martin, it won the Hugo Award for Best Novel. Martin's hosting of that ceremony is widely agreed to have been terrible (see Nibedita Sen's twitter threads here and here, and this article from Vulture for details). But Arkady Martine's acceptance speech was brilliant, and it, coupled with the other coverage I've linked above, made me think for the first time about the possibility of connections between the assumed whiteness, maleness, and straightness of science fiction and the similar assumptions people make about the Middle Ages. The assumption that the medieval world centred on Europe, and that it was a white world, have been the basis of white supremacist attraction to the period (for an editorial discussing medievalism and the alt right, see here).

Again, my thoughts are not those of an expert, but it seems that the overlap between G.R.R. Martin's version of the Middle Ages, and what Martine calls 'a poison sort of nostalgia', hinges on a similar attitude towards the past, a longing for whiteness.

A Paen to a Memory Called Empire

One of the reasons that I love this book so much is that Martine's academic work shapes the novel's themes and concerns: empire, diplomacy, and the thorny landscape of cultural prestige among them. To give some context for what I am about to say, a brief summary, hopefully spoiler-free, of the plot: Mahit Dzmare, a native of fiercely independent mining station, is sent to the heart of the Texicalannli Empire as the new ambassador. On arrival, she finds out that her predecessor was murdered. She has to figure out why and defend her home from conquest. These two things turn out to be connected...

As someone who works on late antique Gaul, and thinks a lot about a handful of privileged dudes (and ladies!) frantically trying to still be Roman as the mechanisms of empire crumbled and transmogrified around them, my single favourite passage in the novel is this:

...Mahit knew two things: first, that if she wanted to take a turn at this game, all she needed to do was step forward into the circle, and someone would challenge her, same as any other Teixcalaanlitzlim--and second, that she would fail at it completely. There was no way she could do this. She'd spent half her life studying Texicalaanli literature and she was just barely good enough to follow this game, recognize a few of the referents. If she tried herself she'd--oh they would laugh. They'd be indulgent. Indulgent of the poor, ignorant barbarian playing so hard at civilization and--Three Seagrass wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention to her. Mahit slipped back, away from the circle of clever young people, and made herself disappear into the great ballroom under the glittering starlit fan-vaults, and tried not to feel like she was going to cry. There wasn't any point crying over this. If she wanted to weep she should weep for Yskandr, or for how much political trouble she was in, not over being unable to describe pool grout while referencing a centuries-old poem on departmental conflict. One department or another, clamoring. She'd read that poem in one of her collections, on the station, and thought she'd understood. She hadn't...Most people avoided her, or greeted her with the formality her office deserved, and that was absolutely fine. That was actually pleasant. She could do courtesy ritual, even without Yksandr's help, and she could be personable--these were all amongst her talents, these were the talents she had been specifically selected for, possessed aptitude in, and no Lsel imago-compatibility test ever looked for fluid improvisational verse. That was just a barbarian child's dream of a desire...' pp. 181-2

Poetry contests to advance character development and plot, for the win. This passage reminded me as well of how scholars of Latin literature play a hobbled version of this game, where we try to spot an author's quotation or paraphrase of a text and use this to get insight into what they were reading and hence what they meant. As someone whose Classical training is partial and whose Latin wobbles, Mahit's recognition of her own limitations felt very familiar.

Secondly, that word in the title: Memory. I love how Martine plays with the idea of memory as something that unites personality and identity, to the point where it can be technologically captured and implanted into someone else via neurosurgery. The way Texicalaanli culture and Mahit's people, the Stationers, view memory differently fascinates me:

'Immoral is being someone you cannot hope to emulate,' Three Seagrass said. 'Like wearing someone else's uniform, or saying the First Emperor's lones from the Foundation Song and planning to betray Texicalaan all at once. It's the juxtaposition is what's wrong. How do I know that you are you? That you are concious of what you're attempting to preserve?'

'You pump the dead full of chemicals and refuse to let anything rot--people or ideas or...or bad poetry, of which there is in fact some, even in perfectly metrical verse,' said Mahit. 'Forgive me if I disagree with you on emulation. Teixcalaan is all about emulating what should already be dead.' p. 291.

And a third thing: in an interstellar empire with energy weapons and an AI running its transportation, the reliance on PHYSICAL OBJECTS to contain letters and messages because those are what's appropriate: this is a goddam delight. And again, something that I, as someone who studies letters and thinks about the way they build bridges across distance and become larger than their words, found resonant in personal and scholarly capacities.

And finally, the fourth thing I love about this novel is the believable pacing. According to one of Mahit's statements towards the end of the book, most of the action of the book takes place over two weeks (the action in full covers two weeks and three months, but most of those three months take place either in memory or offstage), and yet for the sheer amount of drama it contains, the narrative doesn't feel rushed or overloaded, but balanced.

In conclusion, I love this novel because of the ways it engages with medieval (specifically Byzantine) history and culture, the ways it uses these as the springboard into an exploration of what the author calls in her acknowledgements 'the seduction and horror of empire'. It spoke to some of the things I think about as a scholar, and it expanded my view of the complexity and destructiveness of empires to their citizens and neighbours.

I am eagerly awaiting the sequel, A Desolation Called Peace. Roll on 2 March 2021!

Sunday 9 August 2020

'What I Have Found Time to Do': Tolkein and the Academic Cover Letter

Introduction

My sister, knowing my love of letter writing, gave me a copy of the collected letters of the man who might be the world's most well-known early medievalist: J.R.R. Tolkein (1892-1973). Tolkein has a distinctive and delightful epistolary voice, and the collection is worth reading whether you are interested in him as the writer of high fantasy or as a scholar of Old English literature and language.

One of the few of Tolkein's letters to survive from the period between 1918 and 1937 was his letter of application for the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon. When I am working on an application for an academic position, I usually end up re-reading it at some point. Please find it below for your reading pleasure.

To the Electors of the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon, University of Oxford

27 June 1925

Gentlemen,

I desire to offer myself as a candidate for the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon.

A Chair which affords such opportunity of expressing and communicating an instructed enthusiasm for Anglo-Saxon studies and for the study of the other Old Germanic languages is naturally attractive to me, nor could I desire anything better than to be reassociated in this way with the Oxford English School. I was a member of that School both as an undergraduate and a tutor, and during my five years' absence in Leeds am happy to have remained in touch with it, more especially, in the last two years, as an Examiner in the Final Schools.

I entered Exeter College as a Stapledon Exhibitioner in 1911. After taking Classical Moderations in 1913 (in which I specialized in Greek philology), I graduated with first class honours in English in 1915, my special subject being Old Icelandic. Until the end of 1918 I held a commission in the Lancashire Fusiliers, and at that date entered the service of the Old English Dictionary. I was one of Dr. Bradley's assistants until the spring of 1920, where my own work and the increasing labours of a tutor made it impossible to continue.

In October 1920 I went to Leeds as a Reader in English Language, with a free commission to develop the linguistic side of a large and growing School of English Studies, in which no regular provision had as yet been made for the linguistic specialist. I began with five hesitant pioneers out of a School (exclusive of the first year) of about sixty members. The proportion to-day is 43 literary to 20 linguistic students. The linguists are in no way isolated or cute off from the general life and work of the department, and share in many of the literary courses and activities of the School; but since 1922 their purely linguistic work has been conducted in special classes, and examined in distinct papers of special standard and attitude. The instruction offered has been gradually extended, and now covers a large part of the field of English and Germanic philology. Courses are given on Old English heroic verse, the history of English*, various Old and Middle English texts*, Old and Middle English philology*, introductory Germanic philology*, Gothic, Old Icelandic (a second-year* and third-year course), and Medieval Welsh*. All of these courses I have from time to time given myself; those that I have given personally in the past year and marked *. During this last session a course of voluntary reading of texts not specially considered in the current syllabus has attracted more than fifteen students, not all of them from the linguistic side of the department.

Philology, indeed, appears to have lost for these students its connotations of terror, if not of mystery. An active discussion-class has been conducted, on lines more familiar in schools of literature than of language, which has borne fruit in friendly rivalry and open debate with the corresponding literary assembly. A Viking Club has even been formed, by past and present students of Old Icelandic, which promises to carry on the same kind of activity independently of the staff. Old Icelandic has been a point of special development, and usually reaches a higher standard than the other special subjects, being studied for two years and in much the same detail as Anglo-Saxon....

The large amount of teaching and direction which my post has hitherto involved, supplement by a share in the general administration of a growing department, and latterly by the duties of a member of Senate at a time of special difficulty in University policy, has seriously interfered with my projects for publishable work; but I append a note of what I have found time to do. If elected to the Rawlinson and Bosworth Chair I should endeavour to make productive use of the opportunities which it offers for research; to advance, to the best of my ability, the growing neighbourliness of linguistic and literary studies, which can never be enemies except by misunderstanding or without loss to both; and to continue in a wider and more fertile field the encouragement of philological enthusiasm among the young.

I remain,

Gentlemen,

Your obedient servant,

J.R.R. Tolkein

From The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkein, ed Humphrey Carpenter (London, 1981), pp. 12-13.

Why I Love It So

Writing academic cover letters is an excruciating process: matching one's own research and teaching expertise to an often opaque description of the requirements of the post can be difficult enough, but moving productively through feelings of hope, fear, and inadequacy is even harder. Re-reading this letter reminds me that:

A letter of application can be beautifully written: the repetition of the 'ex' sounds between the first and second paragraphs! The 'service of the Old English Dictionary'! The 'five hesitant pioneers'! (the limited use of adjectives and adverbs which thereby increase their effectiveness!) The structure of the final sentence!!
It is possible to write clearly about one's achievements without boasting: the 'teaching paragraph' uses 'I' only four times, an astounding feat given that Tolkein was essentially describing the wholesale creation of a programme of linguistic study within the span of five years. By any standard, Tolkein's 1919-1920 teaching load was heavy: various Old and Middle English texts, the history of English, Old and Middle English philology, introductory Germanic philology, second-year Old Icelandic, and Medieval Welsh. By implication, he also supervised a reading group for students across the department, volunteering his own time outside of his teaching load.
A good teacher inspires enthusiasm in their students: The Viking Club. Case closed.
Highlight the highlights: Rereading this letter, I am struck by how streamlined it is. Only the most important and relevant matters are included.
What the applicant will get out of the post matters just as much as what the post will get out of the applicant: I adore the fact that Tolkein OPENS THE DAMN LETTER with why he wants the job: to express and communicate his enthusiasm for Old English and also to return to Oxford again. The transition into reminding the electors upfront that he is a native son of the place is so, so smooth. The final sentence, which sums up again why he wants the post and why he is a good fit for it, is both tailored to the specifics of the professorship and summarises what he has demonstrated in the previous paragraphs of the letter.

The four dots indicate where the editor abridged the letter, so I do not know whether Tolkein says anything about his own research (the curious reader might wish to see Thomas Honegger's article on Tolkein's academic writings, and the Tolkein Bibliography on Wikipedia), but for me the most striking difference between good practice in 1925 and 2020 is how little an applicant could get away with saying about their own work. Tolkein seems to have regarded his own desirability as a candidate as hinging on his proven ability to successfully expand the study and teaching of philology, as well as what we would now call his interdisciplinarity: his ability to bring together linguistic and literary studies. Research, in the age before REF, seems a distant third.

In Conclusion

The academic job market for medievalists is miserable and getting more so. We are very far from the days where the successful applicant for an Oxford professorship could 'append a note of what I have found time to do' as the sole mention a 'research programme'. Academia has changed so radically between Tolkein's day and our own that it may seem ridiculous to read a century-old cover letter when applying for a modern-day job. And yet, this letter gives me hope that now and in the future, we can all find time to do the work we want to do, whether or not an academic post comes of writing a cover letter about it.

Sunday 2 August 2020

New Recipes of Quarantine

I want to start writing about food and knitting again. A lot has changed over the six years since I started writing this blog--I moved to a new city in 2016, graduated with my PhD and got a permanent job in 2017, ran my first marathon in 2018, came to the end of a five-year relationship in 2019, and finished the first draft of the book that my thesis has become in 2020. I don't need to tell you what else happened in 2020, of much greater import than all of that: the coronavirus pandemic.

At the start of the national lockdown in the UK, I began writing down what I was eating every day. I don't even remember why I started to doing it--as someone who can get very anxious, I find activities like counting coins and organising books soothing, so its origins may lie in that impulse to impose order. In those first few weeks, my sister told me about the short story 'So Much Cooking' by Naomi Kritzer, which I read in delight, half-disbelieving that a story told in the form of a food blog could be published speculative fiction, and half-terrified how much it didn't feel like science fiction at all.

After fifteen weeks of recording what I ate for every meal, I stopped. It had started to feel like a chore rather than something that interested me, and chose to record only the new recipes I cooked. Here's the list!

Week 1 (23 March 2020)

chocolate granola from Bosh!
a red cabbage soup from Twelve Months of Monastery Soups
masala chai from Masala
sticky mushrooms from Bosh!
dry-tossed broccoli from Chicken and Rice
Brownies from Heartland
Rutabaga casserole, also from Heartland
Beet Hummus (I had made this the week before)

Week 2 (30 March 2020)

Spicy parsnip soup from Twelve Months of Monastery Soups
Homestyle-Tofu from Food of Sichuan
Bean salad with herbs from Mamushka

Week 3 (6 April 2020)

Buckwheat Mushroom Broth from Mamushka
Piyaz (Turkish Bean Salad) from Persiana
Korean Carrots from Mamushka
Spice-perfumed shoulder of lamb from Persiana
Gluten-free sponge cake from Food 52

Week 4 (13 April 2020)

Tahini Cookies from Jerusalem
Lamb and sour cherry meatballs from Persiana

Week 5 (20 April 2020)

Tadka Dal from Masala

Week 6 (27 April 2020)

Lentil-chickpea salad, from Smitten Kitchen
Chicken roasted over vegetables from Cooking in the Moment

Week 7 (4 May 2020)

Open Kibbeh from Jerusalem
Vegetable Kurma from Masala

Week 8 (11 May 2020)

Custard-filled cornbread from Orangette
Mapo Tofu from Food of Sichuan
Tadka Dal or Vegetable Kurma (my notes are a bit confused)

Week 9 (18 May 2020)

Homemade wheat thins from Smitten Kitchen
Zucchini tofu koftas from Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant
Cuban Black Bean Soup from Twelve Months of Monastery Soups
Spiced Root Vegetable Cakes with Date and Tamarind Sauce from Persiana

Week 10 (25 May 2020)

Beet and Chickpea Salad from Good and Cheap
Crumiri Cookies from Classic Home Deserts

Week 11 (1 June 2020)

Chickpea and carrot burgers, adapted from Smitten Kitchen
Stir-fried celery with minced pork from Food of Sichuan

Week 12 (8 June 2020)

Baked German Potato Salad from Cooking from Quilt Country
Oatmeal Cake from Cooking from Quilt Country

Week 13 (15 June 2020)

Rhubarb Cake from Chocolate With Grace
Red Bean and Rice Soup from Twelve Months of Monastery Soups

Week 14 (22 June 2020)

Rajma Galouti Kebab from Masala

Week 15 (29 June 2020)

Schwenkfelder Cake from Secrets of Saffron
Simplest Spaghetti al Limone from Smitten Kitchen
Yogurt Drop Scones (Oladky) from Mamushka

Week 16 (6 July 2020)

This was the week where UK lockdown restrictions eased significantly and I stopped recording what I ate every day. I continued to note down the new recipes I tried!

Greek Breads with Spring Onions from Mamushka
Fennel and Carrot Pot Pie from Food 52 Vegan

Week 17 (13 July 2020)

Lamb Sharma from Jerusalem
Cabbage Apple Slaw with Sweet Tamarind Dressing from Chicken and Rice

Week 18 (20 July 2020)

Smoky Black Bean Chili, adapted to feature the vegetables I had on hand, from Food 52 Vegan

Week 19 (27 July 2020)

Mr Xie's Dandan Noodles from Food of Sichuan
Stir-Fried Pickled Mustard Greens with Tofu from Messy Vegan Cook

Why and How

Forty-eight recipies over nineteen weeks, an average of 2.47 new recipes a week, feels like a lot. Particularly during lockdown, when I was cooking just for myself. If I had to pin down the reasons I bothered, they would be:

I like to eat.
It was something to do.
It was something nice to do in the middle of a global health crisis.
In early March 2020, I purchased a meat share from the local university's farm, something my former partner and I had talked about doing but never actually did. I had a half a lamb in my freezer, and the dinner parties I'd hoped to have weren't going to happen. Might as well do something with all that food.

Lastly, and most importantly, prior to the start of the UK lockdown, when my workplace had switched to a schedule of alternating work from home with work in the office, I hit up my local library to stock up on reading material.

photo of a stack of library books on a wooden table

My local library has a good cookbook section and prior to the shift towards lockdown I had checked out the following food related books:

Secrets of Saffron by Pat Willard
Mamushka by Olia Hercules
Food of Sichuan by Fuschia Dunlop

And as you can see in the picture, I also picked up Chicken and Rice by Shu Han Lee and Bosh! by Henry Firth and Ian Theasby. Having new cookbooks around helped motivate me to try new things.

Secondly, about a year and a half ago I signed up for a fortnightly delivery of fruit and vegetables from Eden Farms, which has been an absolute godsend during the pandemic--it means that I am able to limit my grocery store trips to about one a month. The vegetable boxes in particular are seasonal and change weekly, so one of the reasons to try new recipes is to figure out how to use up what arrives on my doorstep.

So in sum, I had the privilege of the time, motivation, and opportunity to try new things, and the resources to make that happen. It has helped me cope with the current situation, and if you are in a position to cook new things, I hope it is helping you too.

Pages