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October 29, 2006

Pipe Dreams

I have passed St. Salvator's Chapel countless times on my walks up and down North Street. It stands directly east from the Old Union Building where my office is, but has remained shrouded in mystery as its gates are rarely open. The initials P and H are woven into the fabric of the cobblestones directly in front of the chapel, marking the spot where Patrick Hamilton became the first matyr of the Scottish Reformation at the age of 24.
The other day I got to see inside this jewel of a chapel for the first time. The University Organist took me and one other in at the side entrance and up the steep, round, wooden staircase at the very back of the church. He was introducing us to the organ on which I will be having my lessons.

It is a magnificent instrument, made up of some 3,000 pipes, not too many years old, with four manuals (keyboards). The first time I climbed up on the bench, looked down at the row of pedals at my feet and the hundreds of keys in front of me I felt myself at the start of a journey I couldn't wait to begin.
A minute into that journey I was completely overwhelmed. I mean, can it be that difficult to add feet to what my fingers can already do so easily? Let's just say I fumbled through the first exercise with little precision and even less grace.
Vange, this one's for you!

Posted by j and b at 10:15 PM | Comments (7)

October 20, 2006

Turgenev's Faust

On a train ride up from Edinburgh a couple of evenings ago I read Ivan Turgenev's "Faust" (as well as his "Yakov Pasynkov" which is in the same book). It's one of those stories I feel a bit guilty about liking. It's very much a "Romantic" story that centres on a guy's reading of Faust as an introduction to the power of poetry -- the classic story of the contrast of reason and feeling, 'factual' books vs. poetry, usefulness vs. passion, etc. Combine that with the somewhat grey mystique of these Russian authors and you've got a candidate for the most melancholy romance I've read. All that to say I really liked it anyway; the translator shows an outstanding use of English and the style of the book is intriguing. You read 9 consecutive letters from one friend to another describing particular events surrounding his involvement with an old crush. At times I felt the letter genre had been pushed aside to tell the story, but maybe that's because I have no idea about letter genre in 19th century Russia (not exactly something they taught me in school...). But an interesting book in any case and one that I would recommend if I didn't feel guilty recommending a 'melancholy romance'!
Josh

Posted by j and b at 07:03 PM | Comments (2)

October 16, 2006

My Thesis... or, What are you doing over there anyway?

I realise that not everyone is going to be interested in this post, but thought I'd do it anyway. Besides, we've not put anything up for almost a month now and this thesis is in large part the reason (though it's also because classes have started and I'm working with two classes and doing a little lecturing for one). I sometimes get a kick out of telling people that I'm spending three years looking at four verses from Jeremiah (31:31-34). That's something like 9 months per verse....
Actually that's not far from the truth. My whole thesis is about the interpretation of those verses and the promise of the "new covenant". I'm attempting to take contemporary discussions on the text (to which I'm trying to contribute) and place them in dialogue with part of the history of interpretation. So I've got a chapter on Jerome and Augustine, one on medieval interpretations and Thomas Aquinas in particular, and just turned in a chapter on 16th century. The gameplan is to turn in a brief look at some 17th century folks (the Reformed Scholastics, who hold a special place in my heart... philosophy, logic, theology, exegesis, and all in one place: could you ask for more?) -- which should be done in about 2-3 weeks. Then put together a paper on 20th century discussions, the most recent spate of material has come from Germany and mostly Roman Catholic circles (in case you're interested). Then the last three chapters will be my own proposal for reading the text with regard to the role it plays in the book of Jeremiah -- chapters that are already in draft form and should take only a few months at the most to get into final form.
The reason for this post today is that I just had a very good meeting with one of my supervisors about the Jerome/Augustine and the 16th century chapters and it looks like I could get them into basically final draft form within a day or two (mainly just typos). The medieval paper is still awaiting some resources to come in, but all in all it looks like I may be able to hit my "submit in May" goal. That will make a total of three academic years (a little less), and by then I should have these 4 verses down....

Posted by j and b at 07:57 PM | Comments (3)