I’m back! And this is why I have been so quiet of late: as of 1 September, I will be a lecturer in the English department at the
University of Amsterdam! (Go see their slideshow — I will be working at the Bungehuis, on slide 6!). I landed a job before even finishing or defending my PhD thesis. I have been — and still am — working like mad to complete the thesis before August, leaving me one month to dive into Chaucer, Dickens, Austen, and all the other texts that I will be teaching. I am really looking forward to my new job! I get to teach a Shakespeare course, and will be teaching an MA course of my own design in the second semester. I am thinking of a course on “Bodies and Selves on the Early Modern Stage.” Will you let me pick your brains again when the time comes?
The Medieval-Renaissance drama lecture at Utrecht University worked out nicely, thank you for all your suggestions and ideas. The professor in medieval lit. and I decided to read Faustus next to a Dutch medieval play, called Marieken van Nieumegen. The two plays make a wonderful pair. Marieken (little Mary) is seduced by the devil, who tells her he will teach her the arts, and makes her perform her academic tricks in a pub in Antwerp. Unlike Faustus, Marieken is saved. She repents and returns to the Christian faith when she sees a performance of a miracle play in her hometown of Nijmegen. In my seminar, we compared the role of dramatic performance within the two plays, and read the differences in the context of the theatrical practices of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. I really enjoyed the discussion, and I think the students did, too.
So, that is where things stand with me. I will try to return to a more regular blogging and blog-reading rhythm, because I missed you all!
Serendipities 
That’s fantastic news!
Let me be the first to congratulate you on your new position!
All the best,
B.
Dammit, somebody beat me to it. This really is fantastic news.
Congratulations!!!
Also congratulations … there must be something in the water, sounds like a great (challenging!) job.
Gelukwensen!
I hope you’re able to find time to keep the blog going. It’s one of the best.
For myself, I’d like to do more on Sophia Carteret, Lady Shelburne, but that — given my distance from the Bowood archive and their hefty research charges — isn ‘t a near-term prospect. Meantime I’m waiting to hear whether I’ll be accepted to do distance-ed PhD research on John Collins, a figure in Early-Modern English Science.
¡Felicitaciones!
Thank you all! And Jeff, I’ll keep my fingers crossed for that PhD post!
Congragulations Kristine. That’s wonderful news!
..one month to dive into Chaucer, Dickens, Austen, and all the other texts that I will be teaching
A whole month!? You’ll have time for a holiday and a book draft and a romance and housepainting and and and…oy! You will be busy.
Haha — thanks Peacay for boosting my confidence. I might just take a one-week holiday in August, though ;o)
Oooh, I so envy that lovely position. Hopefully, one day, I wish to say (or write) the very same thing.
Good luck, though!
Many congratulations from me too. I think all of the contributors to this blog will probably want to have a lectureship at some time or other. It’s great after all to talk to people who like what you like on what you both like 😉 and get paid for it too. Though of course ohne Geld wird nicht gedichtet as the writer of another play on the Faustus character said.