Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Meet me in St Louis


I will be there. Eileen Joy will be there. Karl MUST be there. MKH might be blacklisted if she decides not to be there. You should be there, too.

13 comments:

dtkline said...

In the words of Yosemite Sam, whenever he hears the words, St. Louis: "St. Looey! Emma!" And then Bugs blasts him with a canon or dynamite as he opens the door or turns the corner. Thus blasted, beard askance and hat akimbo, he mutters contentently, tottering: "Heh. Same ol' Emma."

I have no Emma in St. Louis, but Eileen, Jeffrey, and BABEL are enough. Maybe I can wrangle some money out of my college for a trip.

Karl Steel said...

Interesting. Maybe I'll do some of my meat and resurrection stuff....

dan remein said...

I will be in a new department at a new University in October, working on a 'new' degree (as if, mfa were needed a 'phd' supplement!), and perhaps it will be difficult to get out of a new town for it, and fund the trip, but dang, this looks fantastic!

Jeffrey Cohen said...

Karl, there is no maybe, there is "MUST." We will see you in St Louis. That's an imperative mode, not interrogative. Pack your bags!

Dan and Dan: the MUST applies to both of you as well!

Karl Steel said...

I pack the jussive mode in my bag, too, and open it in October. Sheesh! Okay!

I wonder if we can get any of our international readers to come? Folks: a single Euro can probably rent out a whole floor of whatever hotel you like in St Louis. Bear that in mind.

Anonymous said...

Well, it would be a great way to (not) start off the new academic year!

But fun ideas - and even strongish euro/pounds - can't turn every whim into reality.

Or maybe they can.

What about a virtual conference? I just held a virtual seminar between New York and York for my students using just Skype and my laptop and a projector (thanks Tom and Brian!). It did not cost big bucks/euros/pounds.

Eileen Joy said...

Well, sarah, if it helps, we may podcast some of the conference; I plan to do the same, if I can get away with it, with the BABEL sessions at Kalamazoo this year. But what if, also, you and some of your students put something together on the "bodies" of utopias/utopic bodies and we could broadcast a "virtual" session? I can certainly look into it because the conference center at Saint Louis University [the Busch Student Union, and yes, it's named after the beer family!] is very very high-tech.

And to echo Jeffrey, there is no "maybe" with this conference; BABEL has its ways, we will get you . . .

okay, seriously, we have no "ways"--we just *want* you there.

Anonymous said...

Ooh that is tempting and kind - though it could be the premature invitation that arrived too late.

Prem - because we haven't done the seminar on bodies yet and I have no idea how it will turn out.

Late - because they are final year students and will have all flown the nest months before October.

But I'll see - I'll ask.

Nicola Masciandaro said...

Looks like this is the place to be embodied, emplaced this fall. I will certainly propose something either on embodiment and the *topos* of eros or handiness.

Jeffrey Cohen said...

By the way, I have been castigated as clichéd. I know, not for the first time...

Steve Muhlberger said...

Won't be there.

But speaking of Edwardsville, have any of you been to Cahokia?

This old world is a new world said...

Alas, I won't be there either. From this distance, it's not so much the cost of the hotel that's the problem...

But yes, Steve, I *have* climbed the Cahokia mounds! During our 4 wonderful months in St Louis (when I learned how to pronounce it properly — everyone in Australia skips the final 's' — my son did a school project on them, and insisted we go, which we did, with another visiting medievalist. Very instructive for notions of nation, history, identity. And loss and absence, of course.

I look forward to reading a report of the post-conference excursion on In the Middle...

Eileen Joy said...

A late response to say, no, Steve, I have not been to the Cahokia mounds, but we plan to make that one of the excursions at the conference.