This post is short, because I\u2019m busy learning\u2026<\/p>\n
One of the odd side effects of the strange times in which we live is the number of conferences that have been transferred online. I\u2019m using some of them to update old knowledge and understand subjects better. I\u2019ve done best in this respect in learning about the Middle Ages. I\u2019m on all the right lists, you see, because of my curious career.<\/p>\n
My ethnohistory began as Medieval. I research modern culture right now, but I began trying to understand human beings by looking at who we were hundreds of years ago. This and the conferences open many doors to knowledge, for there is an amazing meeting of archaeology and history right now, and it\u2019s changing what we know about the past.<\/p>\n
Last year I attended a conference in Dublin that turned what I knew about houses in the Early Middle Ages upside down and inside out. Thatched houses without chimneys are, it turns out, neither full of smoke nor riddled with infestations. They breathe, through the thatch, and the air is clear and comfortable. From the outside, the smoke comes through the thatch, like a mist rising.<\/p>\n
Right now, I\u2019m attending workshops on Medieval Jewish craftspeople. One can\u2019t avoid hearing about the effects of pogroms and mass murders (in Cologne after the Black Death, for example), but the focus is on what people did with their lives. I\u2019m learning about bakers and goldsmiths, silk workers and bookbinders.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m going to do as much learning as I can, while things are online, for normally I\u2019m the other side of the world and can only dream of these events.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This post is short, because I\u2019m busy learning\u2026 One of the odd side effects of the strange times in which we live is the number of conferences that have been transferred online. I\u2019m using some of them to update old knowledge and understand subjects better. I\u2019ve done best in this respect in learning about the […]<\/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],"tags":[26,202,124],"class_list":["post-1059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-covid-life","category-life-experiences","tag-gillian-polack","tag-jewish-history","tag-middle-ages"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1059","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=1059"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1060,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1059\/revisions\/1060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}