I'm sending a monthly newsletter to my kind scholarship donors and thought I'd share it with you all as well. So here it is, the first monthly update from St Andrews:
Friends! Change is afoot! I'm taking a break from Leuven (🥲) to spend a year studying Theology & the Arts at St Andrews 🥳 - looking forward to reading and pondering all things related to Beauty & the Divine💫
I was rather melancholy earlier, but then I went to mass & discovered my raincoat is the same colour as the buildings here, and now somehow Vienna has washed away all my tears in its rain.
Excessive travelling is ruining all my relationships but this weeks trip to Budapest should dry all my tears - and if it doesn't, Vienna next week certainly will
I've been in St. Andrews for 6 hours & can already confirm that it is the most beautiful place I have
studied in so far. Current ranking: 1. St. Andrews, 2. Vienna, 3. Leuven. You know you're doing well when one of the loveliest cities in the Lowlands ranks merely third place.
Happy to report that Deep Austria still exists. I just returned from a village party in wine country: alcohol flowed, traditional dress was worn, folk dances where danced, life is good.
16 y/o me read Stefan Zweig's The World of Yesterday & decided to base her life of it, vowing to become polyglot, cosmopolitan, in one word: European. 22 y/o me, preparing for my 8th international move, thinks this might have been a mistake.
⬇️ Enkele weken geleden verscheen ik in Elsevier! Het is erg moeilijk dit soort vragen in twee zinnen te beantwoorden (net zo erg als Twitter) dus, voor de nieuwsgierigen: de 10-jaren planning is drie kinderen & een PhD💃
Going through my childhood photo-albums and realising its just pictures of me reading. Reading right through Canadian winters, reading whilst contemplating English woods, reading and blatantly ignoring my mother, reading whilst taking two seats on a Dutch train, etc etc
Usually, I find myself providentially led to read the right books at the right time, but once in a while the timing of reading a book is just off. Have any of you ever come across a book 'too late' or 'too early'? Here is one of the books I read 'too late' /1
I've started spending my Saturday evenings at the library, which is worrying in itself. Worse is that I am enjoying it - who wouldn't want to spend an evening amidst books in an old college, rereading Laudato Si' & pondering the 'ecology of man'?
Care for the soul means that truth is something not given once and for all, nor merely a matter of observing and acknowledging the observed, but rather a lifelong inquiry, a self-controlling, self-unifying intellectual and vital practice. (Jan Patočka, Socrates of Prague)
One of the few things I already have planned for 2025: Pusey House Conference, with the likes of
@jennfrey
@malcolmguite
& St Andrews own Judith Wolfe. Come join us in Oxford next July!
The House is very pleased to announce the 2025 Pusey Conference: ‘Restoring the Image: Creation, Salvation, and the Human Person’
For information about tickets and guest speakers and other details, please go to our website:
I keep hoping I will leave politics behind but somehow I spent the morning listening to online lectures on ultramontanism (?) & Rerum Novarum whilst packing and actually, I remain obsessed with Catholic Social Teaching
Would recommend living in a conservative christian bubble; you will have at least four weddings per summer all throughout your twenties, in other words, a perpetual excuse to buy new clothes
Wonderful to meet
@Ljiljana1972
in Belgrade today - with who else can one cover Balkan life, womanhood, obscure ancient philosophers (hello again, Emesius) and Orthodox fasting regulations in one conversation?
@lijukic
Also shows a lack of knowledge of European geography - even if the Croatian supporters did literally drive from Croatia, its really not that far?
A while back I ended up discussing the so-called meaning of life with a random young man I sat next to on the train. Don't let people lead an unexamined life, its such a waste. Heckle them with Plato instead💃
Philosophy-lovers need to be Socrates-maxxing. You need to be discussing ideas with everyone who’s even a little interested—loved ones, new friends, random people, internet mutuals… You need to be scaring the hoes but also exciting them into convos, you need to become The Gadfly
Before I forget: leaving Belgium also means leaving
@EuroConOfficial
. What a pleasure it was to work under the guidance of
@FantinaVienna
with the likes of
@Harry_pitt
whilst proofreading brilliant articles all day. I doubt I'll have a job as interesting any time soon.
"Keep your soul free. What matters most in life is not knowledge, but character. There is a knowledge other than that which is of the domain of memory: the knowledge of how to live. Study must be an act of life, must serve life, must feel itself impregnated with life."
Today I bought two books on a whim, baked some bread and tried to resist the urge to plan a dinner party. Very happy summer travels are done and I can go back to being an academic hobbit, just pottering about with books, food & good company.
Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi had a younger sister Ida, a Catholic theologian. Pope Benedict XVI (then a professor in Tübingen) spoke at her funeral, calling her an "insightful, brave, and faithful woman." Excited to start reading her tonight.
Jena in the 1790's was insane, it must have been so mad to be a student there at the time. The question Jena raises is this: in which town are the geniuses of our age gathered and can I live there at a reasonable price?
Those guys were alright, but let's talk about one town for one decade - Jena, 1790s: Fichte, Schelling, Hölderlin, Reinhold, Schiller, Goethe, Novalis, the Schlegel Bros + the spirit of Kant, who lived only 135 miles north. Hegel arrived only in 1801, but let's include him too.
Sent the thesis proposal to the supervisor & it seems I might get away with talking about desire in Plato, Novalis & CS Lewis - watch me write every paper from this time forth on romantic love and other related concepts💃
Went through nine (!) ink cartridges for my pen over the last two weeks of studying. Just bought 24 more, should be set till Christmas. Okay, maybe just the beginning of the next academic year.
This weekend's view from the kitchen in a Greek-Catholic vicarage deep in Slovakia. Not pictured are the nine bridesmaids preparing for the wedding of the priest's eldest son to the sweetest Czech maiden.
Also in America: read the Phaedrus on the way to Wyoming, then went on to memorise "The World Is Too Much With Us" whilst trekking through the mountains. All thanks to my friends at Wyoming Catholic College ()
The writer of the article I'm reading on Eric Rohmer is seemingly surprised that reactionary royalist Rohmer might simultaneously be a hardcore environmentalist. My dear, it's called being a Catholic, there are more of us than you think.
Really important thread - I was in Eastern Slovakia last week & was once again astounded by the racism I encountered against the Roma from my own friends, who are generally God-fearing folks. We need to do better.
Waiting for my doctor’s appointment.
Man, talking about his time in Bulgaria: ‘they’ve got this problem, dark-skinned Gypsies - you actually look like you could be one - sorry, but they’re all thieves basically’. 🫠🫠🫠
I… don’t even know where to start but I’ll try. (1/)
Might need to review my earlier tweet; recently spoke with broke philosopher & he remains broke but also promises me & the girls a tour of Esterhazy palace when I'm next in Austria, so it could all be worth it-
Can't stop thinking about my two friends who went to a ball in Vienna last winter, met a pair of Swiss guards & are now gallivanting off to Rome - I only ever met broke philosophers at balls when I lived in Vienna? What went wrong???
Despite homesickness to Central Europe, I'm pretty happy living in the weird part of Europe where Dutch, French & German meet - the languages mixing creates so many surreal situations.
Can't stop thinking about my two friends who went to a ball in Vienna last winter, met a pair of Swiss guards & are now gallivanting off to Rome - I only ever met broke philosophers at balls when I lived in Vienna? What went wrong???
Pondering this as I read about high & low art - so often ugly things, from architecture to music, are due to a lack of money. Still, the existence of nouveau-riche vulgarity shows us that money can't be the only factor.
The atmosphere was probably more Bruegel than the Waldmüller shown above. With its Catholic joviality Flanders is truly the northern sister to Austrian peasant decadence.
Dear all, we are happy to announce our upcoming conference Science, Faith, & Superstition (Uni Library, Belgrade, June 27-29). For the program & the book of abstracts follow the link. It will be livestreamed too!
America continued: in typical Eurosnob fashion I derided California all my life, only to find it my favourite state of my American tour. But beyond being a Eurosnob, I'm also cosmopolitan & the suburban sprawl that is SoCal is a cosmopolitan dream in an endless Technicolor summer
When reading books written by obviously unhappy men (currently reading Huysmans À rebours) my automatic reaction is that essentially a good woman would fix the author. Despite the fact that good women have fixed great authors (cf. Dostoevsky), I should probably stop thinking this
For the bookish souls among you, I bought Charles Taylor's Cosmic Connections (for thesis purposes of course ;) & a third copy of Marilynne Robinson's Gilead, I keep buying copies to give away to friends.
Happy to announce I'll begin studying at
@HSS_KULeuven
later this year to start an MA in Western Lit - like my dear dad
@jellehsmn
I'll be studying philosophy & theology under the guise of studying language. The question is, who will leave with a degree first, him or I?
Friends, I made the mistake of packing all my clothes for Scotland already, leaving only my clothes for the trip to Austria still accessible. Long story short: I wore a dirndl to a concert in the heart of the Netherlands.
Doing something we used to do when I grew up: Saturday Afternoon Music in the Dom of Utrecht. Organ this time with Bach, Mozart, Franck and more. Still nice 40 years later. Happy to do this with my dad and with the next generation,
@MHHuisman
.
"By creating cities, we create ourselves... A beautiful village, a beautiful house, a beautiful city can become a home for all, a universal home. But if we lose this aim, we create our exile here on earth." (Budapest today)
Excessive travelling is ruining all my relationships but this weeks trip to Budapest should dry all my tears - and if it doesn't, Vienna next week certainly will
Returned home depressed after my attending my first lecture, drowning amongst 300 students (I was blessed with only seminars during undergrad so this 'lecture' thing is proving a shock). Providentially this article turns up on my feed: there is still hope for education after all.
“A proper teacher does not educate another person because she seeks power over the student, but rather because a lack of appetite for knowledge is a lack of love.”
Me for
@Athwart_Mag
👇
Recently bought some books thanks to the influence of folks on Twitter. Here is a🧵 1) At least three people told this Huisman to read Huysmans. I wish I could spend the next week reading my way through a whole list of French Catholic authors, unfortunately, I cannot.
Between my sister and I, there is virtually always one member of the Huisman family in Austria. She has good reason to go as the love of her life happens to reside there, I less so: what motivates me is a mixture of friendship, Viennese coffee & Heimweh for the Danube.
Scenes from Nieuw Sion, a monastery near Deventer where I was a guest last week. If you looks closely, you can make out 'urbs fortitudinis nostrae Sion' above the entrance.
We are please to announce our next speaker in our Fall seminar! Dr David L. Dusenbury
@DusenburyDavid
will speak abt "The Limits of Punishment: Plato, Galen, and Reincarnation in Nemesius of Emesa’s On Human Nature" on Thursday, Oct 5th, at 6.30h CEST
Zoom
And here's to the book I still haven't bought: Owen Barfield's Poetic Diction (must read before
@ResIntellecta
does) + anything by Gabriel Marcel (recommendations welcome!)
Weer iets geschreven voor het WI, ditmaal over Simone Weil die een haarscherpe analyse van onze moderne ontworteling geeft. Ze zal ook besproken worden op onze avond over de canon van christelijk-sociale politiek (19:30, 22 september, Jacobikerk Utrecht).
"The brain appears to possess a special area which we might call poetic memory and which records everything that charms or touches us, that makes our lives beautiful. Love begins with a metaphor. Love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory."
Going over these notes again today. Unfortunately, some are irretrievably lost, so I never will know what my professor wants me to know about Huysmans. All due to a cup of tea.
Terwijl we gisteravond door Leuven wandelde werd de verhouding tussen her christendom & nationalisme meer dan een uur gediscussierd. We liepen hierlangs en het gesprek bereikte een natuurlijk einde. Christus is koning. Gezegende zondag!
After three years of channeling "let's resurrect the Habsburg Empire" in Central Europe, I think it might be time to lean into "let's revive the Hanseatic League" for the coming years (tweet sponsored by the free city of Kiel, where I'm waiting for my boat to Klaipėda/Memel).
At the coffee shop this morning I was witness to an awkward date between two American undergrad's & the initial meeting of a Classics society ("I've spent the last week translating this play from the Civil War, as Henry doesn't read modern Greek"). I love university.
I've rarely enjoyed proofreading an article for
@EuroConOfficial
as much as this one - Morello argues we need a revival of the monastic life, not a New, Very Different St. Benedict. I couldn't agree more.
Dear all,
Our regional workshop Science, Faith, & Superstition starts tomorrow. It will not be livestreamed but it will be recorded & up on our site shortly after. Stay tuned as our big conference (June 27-29) is also approaching & it will be livestreamed.
I want to start reading Gabriel Marcel, the Catholic existentialist philosopher & playwright. I was hoping to start with fiction, as I won't make the time to study more philosophy next to my studies this autumn. Where shall I start?