I think it would be fine to reprint it if there were some opening sentence
that somehow indicated the tone of affectionate parody and not real
animosity toward Medievalists. I'm not volunteering to write one, but it
should be doable.
In the spirit not quite of Porlock but of light summer reading I offer
the list a brief account of a conversation I heard about between a
mother and her almost-seven-year-old. The story is quite true, and
will help those of us who have sometimes been asked by our students
"What is allegory?"
Mom: "I think the books your cousin Melissa writes often have a lot
of allegory."
Amost-seven-year-old looks baffled.
Mom, who's very busy: "If you don't know about allegory go ask Daddy."
A.-s.-y.-o. indignantly: "Of course I know about allegory. I don't
need to ask Daddy about *allegory*! He's the man you vote for and
then he doesn't get to be President."
Anne Prescott
> great idea, David. I was not there at the very beginning. Ask Anne P if
> she
> thinks it would be tactless to print Anne Shaver's reminiscence Porlock:
> The Official History in Cogito Interruptus 1986 just distributed to the
> 2004 meeting of Porlock; it criticizes the medievalists. That would seem
> to
> chronicle the first meeting of Spenser at Kalamazoo.At 01:58 PM 6/23/2004
> -0400, you wrote:
>>A couple weeks ago I received the following notice from the Medieval
>>Institute at Western Michigan University (= the people who host Kalamazoo
>>every year):
>>
>>To mark the 40th International Congress on Medieval Studies in 2005, the
>>Medieval Institute is seeking to identify organizations that owe their
>>nascence to the Kalamazoo Congress. We have been told that Spenser at
>>Kalamazoo was formed at the Congress. We are asking you as our most
>>current contact person for the organization to confirm this and to
>>indicate the year of the organization's founding by return E-mail.
>> Perhaps
>>you or a founding member of your organization would be interested in
>>contributing to the 40th Congress Booklet, a compilation of reminiscences
>>about the Congress. The deadline for submissions is July 15. Complete
>>information is available at
>>www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/40thadvance/40th-booklet.html.
>>
>>Since then, I've learned that Spenser at Kalamazoo was founded in 1976.
>> If
>>you were there -- ab condita, as it were -- and would like to contribute
>>something about what you remember, please email me privately at
>>[log in to unmask] Thanks for your help. I am
>>
>>David Wilson-Okamura
>>Chair, Spenser at Kalamazoo
>>
>>
>>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>David
>>Wilson-Okamura <http://virgil.org>http://virgil.org
>>[log in to unmask]
>>East Carolina University Virgil reception, discussion, documents, &c
>>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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