Scattered Musings

• Dad the Emeritus Historian of Graeco-Roman Egypt posed a burning question the other day: does any college have a good alma mater? There must be an aesthetically pleasing one out there somewhere.  (Yes, convocation is almost upon us.  By the way, it really does pay to buy your doctoral robes--or, rather, to have somebody buy the robes for you.  Granted, my snazzy U of C robe cost about $600, but I see that my college's rental rates are about $50 a pop.  Even an English professor should be able to do the math...)
• Much to my delight, my students got a real kick out of The Turn of the Screw--in fact, a couple confessed that it genuinely frightened them.  The other ghost story that always scares the students is J. S. Le Fanu's "An Account of Some Disturbances in Aungier Street."  (Er, no, my desire to scare the students does not derive from any ongoing over-exposure to the Marquis de Sade on C 18-L.)  I did cause some cognitive dissonance, however, when I called their attention to the setting of the Turn's prologue: "The Victorians told ghost stories on Christmas?!" Yes, among other things. (See also a nice post at Snarkout.)
• I appear to have spent today disappointing students of various sorts.  Perhaps I should rename this blog "Dr. No."
• King Tut is back! I have very vague memories of seeing the original exhibition when it toured in the late 70s, to go along with my equally vague memories of seeing Michelangelo's Pieta at the Met.
• If you have a desperate yearning to read a long post (with bibliography of recommended readings) about religion & literature in contemporary Victorian studies, you can always visit The Valve.   

Comments

[Andre Mayer]

My college has a pretty good alma mater, I think, although the revised disgendered text is in some respects a step backward:
http://www.commencement.harvard.edu/background/fair_h.html

The tune is that of "Believe me if all those endearing young charms," but I believe that these lyrics predate Moore's.