Pop-Up Globe public seminar

See http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/en/about/news/2016/02/tom-bishop.html

Could you survive a Master's degree?

 Could you cope with writing an MA thesis? Take this quiz and find out!

1. To begin a Master's degree you must be

A. mad
B. crazy
C. wahnsinn
D. all of the above

2. To finish a Master's degree you will need

A. a healthy dose of stubbornness and a thick skin
B. a sense of humour
C. long-suffering family and friends who will provide cups of tea as required
D. all of the above

3. Lovely friend asks "And how is the thesis going?" on a day when it is going terribly. You

A. Fling yourself onto their shoulder and weep bitterly.
B. Smile a smile of rigor mortis and lie through gritted teeth, "Fine, thanks!"
C. Curl up into a little ball of misery.

4. Someone with whom you are distantly acquainted asks, "But what will you actually do with an MA degree?" You

A. Fix them with a death glare.
B. Rub your chin reflectively and say, "Do you know, I really haven't thought!"
C. Recite the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales in the original Middle English (backwards).
D. Tell them you are thinking of becoming an anchoress.

5. Helpful person asks, "And when is your thesis due?" You

A. Pretend not to have heard.
B. Scream.
C. Say, "I really have no idea."
D. Laugh maniacally. 

6. You are at a party and a stranger asks you what your thesis is about. You

A. Gulp and wonder where to start.
B. Give a glib little precis and hold out your glass for a refill.
C. Panic. "Ummm... actually... what is my thesis about?"
D. Explain your topic with energy, enthusiasm and passion... to a listener whose eyes have glassed over long before you finish.

7. Your chapter draft comes back covered in red ink and your supervisor's indecipherable scrawl. You

A. Cry.
B. Sulk.
C. Think, "Well, at least he read it."
D. Cry for three hours, sulk for three days, then sit down and make drastic and sweeping changes with a martyred and wounded expression.

8. You are suffering from writer's block. You

A. Try free-writing! Try mind-mapping! Try diagrams! Try bullet points! Try eating chocolate!
B. Go for a walk.
C. Google "how to cure writer's block."
D. Start a blog.

9. You are proofreading your 'final' draft for the third time, looking to hoover up those elusive last remaining typos. You feel like

A. Screaming!
B. Screaming!!
C. Screaming!!!
D. Screaming!!!!

10. You have handed in your thesis, opened the champagne and life is looking rosy. What do you do next?

A. Look for a job.
B. Look for a social life.
C. Look for a PhD supervisor.

Answers:
1. A, B, C = 1 point, D = 3 points
2. A, B, C = 1 point, D = 3 points
3. A, B =  2 points, C = 1 point
4. A = 2 points, B = 1 point, C = 3 points, D = 4 points
5. A = 1 point, B = 3 points, C = 2 points, D = 4 points
6. A = 3 points, B = 1 point, C = 4 points, D = 2 points
7. A = 1 point, B = 2 points, C = 3 points, D = 4 points
8. A = 1 point, B = 3 points, C = 2 points, D = 4 points
9. A = 1 point, B = 2 points, C = 3 points, D = 4 points
10. A = 2 points, B = 1 points, C = 3 points

Results:
30 - 35 points: Welcome to the club! Start looking for a supervisor! Oh... you already have.
20 - 29 points: You are well on your way to Masterhood, but maybe finish your Bachelor's first.
under 20 points: Congratulations... you are a normal human being!

O frabjous day!

SUBMITTED!!

Middle English Collective Nouns

Recently I have been reading Chloe Rhodes' little gem of a book, An Unkindness of Ravens: A Book of Collective Nouns (London: Michael O'Mara Books Ltd, 2014).

Apparently most collective nouns - both those we are familiar with today and many more that have fallen into obscurity - date from the Middle Ages. Like the rest of the Middle English vocabulary, these forgotten collective nouns are often vivid, pithy and downright funny.

Some of my favourite:

a goring of butchers

a gaggle of gossips 

a draught of butlers

a rascal of boys

a worship of writers [because they would flatter their rich patrons]

an eloquence of lawyers

a hastiness of cooks

a tabernacle of bakers [tabernacle (original meaning 'tent' or 'little hut') being the stall the backer would set up in the marketplace and from which he would sell his wares]

Hubberholme medieval rood screen

This is one of only two surviving medieval rood screens and rood lofts in the north of England (the other is at Flamborough, East Yorkshire). All pre-Reformation churches had a rood screen running across the top of the nave, thus separating the nave (where the congregation gathered) from the chancel (where the altar is). During the Reformation the screens were seen as a barrier preventing the people from participating fully in the rituals occurring on the altar and were all systematically destroyed.

Rood screens are a late medieval development; before the rood screen was the chancel screen, which developed as a form of protection for the Blessed Sacrament after the Fourth Lateran council (1215) declared this to be truly the Body and Blood of Christ. A medieval rood screen

consisted of three levels. The lowest was formed of solid panels, used normally for the exhibition of religious pictures. At Bignor, Cherry Hinton [both in southern England] and elsewhere, the panels were pierced by apertures; these probably allowed kneeling children to view the ritual in the chancel. The middle level was a row of open and usually traceried windows. These, too, afforded parishioners in the nave a sight of the high altar. [...] The uppermost level... supported the rood loft. (Robert Whiting, The Reformation of the English Parish Church (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 9.

'Rood' is simply the Old English word for a crucifix, the most important furnishing in any medieval church. This was originally hung from the chancel arch but over time became incorporated into the chancel screen, which then became known as the rood screen.

Close up view of the rood loft, which would originally have incorporated an full and almost life-size Crucifixion scene

People in the Middle Ages never did anything by halves, so the crucifix would have been almost life-size and usually flanked by the figures of the Sorrowful Mother and St John. The figures at Hubberholme have long been lost, but they would have looked something like this:

This is the 19th-century reconstructed rood screen in All Saints North Street, York

Hubberholme rood loft from the chancel side

The Hubberholme rood loft (medieval equivalent of a choir loft) now lacks its floor boards ('elf and safety would never approve!).

The church, named St Michael and All Angels (not to be confused with the two other churches in the near vicinity unimaginatively named St Michael and All Angels too), is also famous (locally at least) for having the graveyard where JB Priestly's ashes were buried, and for housing some of the handiwork of Robert Thompson, the "Mouseman of Kilburn." He was the wood carver who made the church pews; his 'signature' was a little mouse:

The church now sells little knitted mice; this is my one, named Nicholas, after one of the people in my thesis :D

Photographs of Hubberholme church by Peter and Sebastian.

Church website: http://www.achurchnearyou.com/hubberholme-st-michael-all-angels/

"How do I love thee, thesis?"

Found this hilarious website depicting the life of a PhD student in comics: http://phdcomics.com/

Here are some of my favourites (they apply to Master's theses too!):

via

via

via

via

Thesis update: nearly there...

via

The last lap is always the longest!

Been having a bit of fun with this when the typo-spotting gets too much :D

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2011/08/how-shakespearean-are-you/ 

I put in a paragraph from my thesis and it came up as "83% Shakespearean... the waters of the Avon practically lap at your feet."

How poetic! Let us hope the examiners agree...

via

via

"Shakespeare, what do you say we write a thesis?"

Greensleeves

Diary of a Summer Scholar

via

Harry was asked to write a profile for the university website about his summer research scholarship. Here is the link:

http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/en/about/news/2016/02/harry-bloomfield.html

York Minster 2016 Mystery Play production | Interviews

Feast of the Purification

via

Haill, floscampy and flower vyrgynall,
The odour of thy goodnes reflars to vs all.
Haill, moost happy to great and to small,
For our weyll.
Haill, ryall roose, moost ruddy of hewe,
Haill, flour vnfadyng, both freshe ay and newe,
Haill, the kyndest in comforth that ever man knewe,
For grete heyll.

[...]

Harke, Mary, I shall tell þe truth or I goo.

This was putt here to welde vs fro [wo],
In redempcion of many and recover also,
I the say.
And the sworde of sorro thy hart shal thyrll,
Whan thowe shall se sothly thy son soffer yll
For the well of all wrytches, þat shall be his wyll
Here in fay.

Simeon's speech from The Purification of the Virgin, l. 366-73,  437-44, in The York Plays: A Critical Edition of the York Corpus Christi Play as recorded in British Library Additional MS 35290 (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the Early English Text Society, 2009).

Sorry, I don't have time to translate it - a little matter of finishing my thesis, don't y'know :P