Tonight I'm off to the Eastern Hemisphere, specifically the origin continent of so-called "western" history: Europe. More specifically to Paris and then London, all within the jet-lagged span of a single week. Since I have never travelled anywhere in Europe, nor really had much interest in travelling to Europe aside from the fact that it is a place to travel and see things "with history" (because apparently there is no "history" in Canada and the United States because these are "young nations" and… oh wait, that's right, there's "no history" because it was actively annihilated in the act of founding Canada and the US!), this trip is job-related in the "professional development" kind of way. Thankfully, because it is job-related, I will eventually get reimbursed and thus the fact that I don't really have the money to travel will be solved when my receipts and boarding passes are presented. Plus it was just as cheap to fly into Paris to visit friends, and then travel by eurorail with one of these friends to the conference in London.
In any case, unless I'm able to find the time to blog, this site might be quiet for the following week––which is probably a good thing since it will prevent me from the ill-advised posting of random thoughts and brain hiccups. I will also be drinking Parisian wine and becoming snobbish towards what passes for wine in North America, within a few days adopting petty bourgeois continental airs as academics who find themselves in Europe are wont to do.
(This is actually a real wine company in Australia. Apparently they didn't see the name as a problem, or an academic slur, but something to boldly advertise their wares.)
Yes, that will be me: eurocentric wine-sipper, continental petty bourgeois academic. Thank god the conference in which I'll be participating, Historical Materialism, will be worth this potential political degeneration. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, whose work on anti-colonialism I have used (and who also founded the first North American radical feminist group, Cell 16), will be in attendance. I can only hope that, since she once commented on this blog, we will meet in person. [If you still read this blog now and then, Professor Dunbar-Ortiz, I will be presenting on Friday at 11:45!]
Anyhow: onwards to Europe!
In any case, unless I'm able to find the time to blog, this site might be quiet for the following week––which is probably a good thing since it will prevent me from the ill-advised posting of random thoughts and brain hiccups. I will also be drinking Parisian wine and becoming snobbish towards what passes for wine in North America, within a few days adopting petty bourgeois continental airs as academics who find themselves in Europe are wont to do.
(This is actually a real wine company in Australia. Apparently they didn't see the name as a problem, or an academic slur, but something to boldly advertise their wares.)
Yes, that will be me: eurocentric wine-sipper, continental petty bourgeois academic. Thank god the conference in which I'll be participating, Historical Materialism, will be worth this potential political degeneration. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, whose work on anti-colonialism I have used (and who also founded the first North American radical feminist group, Cell 16), will be in attendance. I can only hope that, since she once commented on this blog, we will meet in person. [If you still read this blog now and then, Professor Dunbar-Ortiz, I will be presenting on Friday at 11:45!]
Anyhow: onwards to Europe!
Have a great time in Europe! I highly recommend taking the subway out to Karl Marx's gravesite when you are in London - it was about a 20 minute ride north of the downtown area. London was difficult for me, so much going on all the time, and I found the cemetery to be so serene and beautiful, even on a wet cloudy day.
ReplyDeleteI'm in Paris still and I saw the Wall of the Communards in the cemetery that's just down the road from where my friends live.... Well, among other things: I did see a bunch of touristy stuff quickly. I hope I have time in England to get to Marx's grave but I might be stuck at the bloody conference the entire time...
ReplyDeleteWhen in England, make sure to buy a copy of "Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!". It is the best revolutionary communist, anti-imperialist newspaper in this country.
ReplyDeleteI only have a day left but I'll try to find it.
ReplyDelete