Moving right along...

[NewGuise]

It has again been several months since I have surfed through here. Life has been ... full. Many days in there, despite some cold weather, I was kilted. No pictures, but ... pictorial evidence of a strange sort. A colleague sent a picture of me in a kilt to friends in Russia, who - at a conference in Estonia last week - presented her with a gift for me:



Yes, the front is pleated; mine certainly was not. Clearly the poor Russians responsible for making this had no idea, really, what a kilt was all about. But otherwise, I fear it actually looks more than a bit like me.

This was a farewell gift of sorts.

I have been Chair of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies since July 2010; before that I was Chair of English and Film Studies, and before that I was more simply a Professor of English, teaching medieval theatre and gender studies and sundry other subjects, here in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. But as of September 2012, as announced here last week, I will be serving as director of a new University of Alberta program in Lille, northern France. Living there, permanently. Teaching courses on Canadian cultural representations of WWI, on "Shakespeare's France" and on Canadian-French cultural relations, but likely not on "gay Canadian drama" as I once got to do, and likely never again on medieval English theatre or culture, either. A strange and somewhat frightening thought. But an adventure, and a great challenge. As one colleague noted, it should stave off Alzheimer's by a few more years...

Yes, I will bring - and wear - my kilts. And I will try to stay in contact.

[BEEDEE]

Bonne chance!! and enjoy Lille, it's a great little city.

Brian

[cessna152towser]

Great. Such a thoughtful gift.
Perhaps we will have an opportunity to meet up once you are in your New Guise as a resident here in Europe. Lille is not too far away from Scotland.

[NewGuise]

Personally, I hope to get to Scotland frequently ... or at least more frequently than I have managed in recent years, which is not at all! At the very least I will need to find a source of Scottish beef, as opposed to the never aged, chewy French substitute, for my stalwartly carnivorous partner. But I think these things should be picked up and delivered personally, when/if it means a trip to Scotland.