Today\u2019s post is brought to you live. I\u2019m in Canberra at my computer and at a conference in the UK, both at once. This is not my first conference this week, and won\u2019t be my last.<\/p>\n
The first was Boskone. I felt very privileged to be able to meet old friends, make new ones, meet authors and readers and all kinds of fascinating people. The focus was on science fiction.<\/p>\n
Today and tomorrow is all about Jewish history. I\u2019m not on any panels, I\u2019m not helping run any events, and it\u2019s not even related to my current research. My first PhD was in Medieval History and I attend events whenever I can, to keep my knowledge up to date and to keep in touch. It\u2019s so cool. Right now I\u2019m catching up on Jewish Medieval England in what I\u2019m listening to now is a discussion of whether or not Jews were actually permitted to own land. It\u2019s complicated and one of those questions that can\u2019t be answered easily. It sounds simple and is not. However\u2026 freehold agricultural land was unlikely to be able to be owned by Jews, but earlier\u2026 it may have been possible. One of the scholars pointed out that there may not have been a lot of interest in Jews owning land in the transactions on record. Canon law in the 1190s had a gloss concerning land belonging to a church being owned by Jews. This was documented because of possible problems in swearing fealty.<\/p>\n
This is my Middle Ages. Not something simple. Complicated and tangled and absolutely wonderful. Not, however, something that is easy to write into fiction. Fiction has to give clear claims.<\/p>\n
This leads me neatly to my third conference in a week. I\u2019m in this for my current research, and I\u2019m moderating a session and delivering a paper between 4.30 am and 6 am my time. Mind you, the UK conference finishes at 6 am my time and I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll manage to make the final session. Australia is not close to the UK or the US.<\/p>\n
Why is the last conference of the week so important to my research and to my fiction writing self? It\u2019s all about popular culture. Popular culture is totally critical for novelists. We use it to bring stories to life. My paper is on foodways in modern Australian fantasy novels.<\/p>\n
My current conference has a tea break. I need to stretch. I also need to wash dishes. Last break I hung washing up to dry. Housework fits into gaps.<\/p>\n
I may never get to do so much in a single week in my life again. This is a side-effect of all of us being closed into small environments due to COVID. In a few months time my night will be night and my day will be day and life will return to normal. This week, however, is a lot of fun and I am treasuring every moment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today\u2019s post is brought to you live. I\u2019m in Canberra at my computer and at a conference in the UK, both at once. This is not my first conference this week, and won\u2019t be my last. The first was Boskone. I felt very privileged to be able to meet old friends, make new ones, meet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166,56,20],"tags":[220,219,26,124,86],"class_list":["post-1027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-covid-life","category-life-experiences","category-process","tag-boskone","tag-folk-culture","tag-gillian-polack","tag-middle-ages","tag-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1027"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1028,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027\/revisions\/1028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}