Winding Up and Down

It's finals week for our summer session and that slightly tense exam-week pheromone is in the air. It's been a busy summer and we are now in the countdown time to fall semester--looking ahead to our upcoming lectures (Robert Somerville, Sarah Kay, John Marenbon) and MI research colloquia (ND Professor Maureen Bolton and MI Librarian Marina Smyth) that will bring us up to 2010. September will bring the Midwest Medieval History Conference to the MI and the program looks varied and interesting.

We're also saying hello/goodbye to new faces and well-known stalwarts. Recently arrived from Rome are two patristics scholars: Marco Conti and Gianluca Pilara. Joining us from Beijing is historian Cheng Liu from Capital Normal University. And on his way back to Catholic University after his annual stint teaching paleography and medieval Latin to our summer students is Frank Mantello. (Frank's summer boot camps have become a rite of passage for many ND medievalists as he gives our photocopier a workout providing numerous texts for translation and paleographic detection.) Our 2008-09 Mellon Fellow Susan Dudash has moved eastward back to her home base at Fordham, and good wishes from the MI follow in her wake.

As circumstances permit, I will post updated info on our MI activities. For now, it's back to a typical day for me which will include cleaning up mailing lists (in progress), directing a visitor to the Arabic department (done), and buying a phone for the rental property we maintain for visiting researchers (tbd).