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choco_froshThis afternoon, I left work early to go to Ricardo Quinto’s lecture on “Stephen Langton’s Theological Method in his Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard.” For an event co-sponsored by the Div School, Medieval Studies, and the Department of English, it was remarkably ill-attended. I’m not sure whether this was because a) everyone was visiting-lecturer’d out after the Smail lecture yesterday, or whether they weren’t sure of the date. Certainly, I wasn’t sure whether it was this week or next, and had formed a backup plan to go buy bootlaces if it wasn’t on.
In retrospect, I kinda wish I’d bought bootlaces.
It wasn’t, interestingly, that Quinto was a bad lecturer. Given that English is not his first language, and that his topic was both obscure and difficult, I thought he did a remarkably good job (though I wound up rather wishing he’d just delivered it all in French.). No, the trouble was that
1) despite his best efforts, a lot of the material STILL went right over my head. I should know more about medieval philosophy…
2) The insistence of some emeritus-type of asking questions that could be boiled down to “Why isn’t Langton as cool as Aquinas”, to which Quinto failed to make the obvious rejoinder, “Because Aquinas had the advantage that he had read Langton, whereas Langton was obviously NOT in a position to read Aquinas!”
3) The fact that Quinto more or less failed… no, that’s unjust. He merely spent too much time expounding Langton, and too little time actually discussing the methods by which he got to his conclusions—which were the supposed subject of the paper. Looking back, I get the impression that Langton’s method basically boils down to 1) using PL as a springboard to discuss certain issues that interest him, 2) taking orthodoxy as given, and then figuring out what logical rules are necessary to prove it, 3) doing this almost exclusively using semiotics, and 4) disagreeing with the Master of the Sentences when he feels it necessary. But since Quinto discussed (2) only in passing, and (3) only by implication, I’m not too sure about this…
I DO give Quinto mad props for actually having some sense of time, rather than rabbiting on ad infinitum; but we started late, the questions showed no sign of letting up, and I had promised to be home for dinner. I slipped out early.
Professor Minnis slipped out after me. “Do feel free to have a drink before you go,” he told me. As usual, medieval studies had laid out a fairly nice little reception. “Thanks,” I told him and the bartender. “I need one.” Especially after those questions.
I dream, one day, of being able to attend the post-talk drinks again…
Further thoughts:
* Or maybe everybody figured out that it was going to be sixty minutes of incomprehensible medieval semiotics, and so THAT's why they didn't come?
* Langton talks about tautology a lot. After a week of hanging out with the likes of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
magdalenrose and straussmonster, "tautology" makes me think of "longcat is long" and related catchphrases. sigh.
In retrospect, I kinda wish I’d bought bootlaces.
It wasn’t, interestingly, that Quinto was a bad lecturer. Given that English is not his first language, and that his topic was both obscure and difficult, I thought he did a remarkably good job (though I wound up rather wishing he’d just delivered it all in French.). No, the trouble was that
1) despite his best efforts, a lot of the material STILL went right over my head. I should know more about medieval philosophy…
2) The insistence of some emeritus-type of asking questions that could be boiled down to “Why isn’t Langton as cool as Aquinas”, to which Quinto failed to make the obvious rejoinder, “Because Aquinas had the advantage that he had read Langton, whereas Langton was obviously NOT in a position to read Aquinas!”
3) The fact that Quinto more or less failed… no, that’s unjust. He merely spent too much time expounding Langton, and too little time actually discussing the methods by which he got to his conclusions—which were the supposed subject of the paper. Looking back, I get the impression that Langton’s method basically boils down to 1) using PL as a springboard to discuss certain issues that interest him, 2) taking orthodoxy as given, and then figuring out what logical rules are necessary to prove it, 3) doing this almost exclusively using semiotics, and 4) disagreeing with the Master of the Sentences when he feels it necessary. But since Quinto discussed (2) only in passing, and (3) only by implication, I’m not too sure about this…
I DO give Quinto mad props for actually having some sense of time, rather than rabbiting on ad infinitum; but we started late, the questions showed no sign of letting up, and I had promised to be home for dinner. I slipped out early.
Professor Minnis slipped out after me. “Do feel free to have a drink before you go,” he told me. As usual, medieval studies had laid out a fairly nice little reception. “Thanks,” I told him and the bartender. “I need one.” Especially after those questions.
I dream, one day, of being able to attend the post-talk drinks again…
Further thoughts:
* Or maybe everybody figured out that it was going to be sixty minutes of incomprehensible medieval semiotics, and so THAT's why they didn't come?
* Langton talks about tautology a lot. After a week of hanging out with the likes of
magdalenrose and straussmonster, "tautology" makes me think of "longcat is long" and related catchphrases. sigh.
