The Liebster Award

A few days ago I was surprised to learn that my friend Sarah had nominated my blog for the Liebster Award, an award given to bloggers by other bloggers whose writings they like and contents they find interesting. I'm very grateful to Sarah for this nomination, and I gladly accept the obligation further this nomination according to the Liebster Award rules, which are as follows:

1. Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog and link back to the blogger who presented this award to you.
2. Answer the 11 questions from the nominator, list 11 random facts about yourself and create 11 questions for your nominees.
3. Present the Liebster Blog Award to 11 blogs of 200 followers or less who you feel deserve to be noticed and leave a comment on their blog letting them know they have been chosen. (No tag backs)
4. Copy and Paste the blog award on your blog

 

     Anglophilia and history: Exhibition Square in York

My questions from Sarah

What is your favourite book, of all time?

This is practically an impossible question to answer, as I have many favourite books of such a great variety that it is difficult to choose between them. However, two of the books I've re-read the most are Alistair MacLean's World War II thriller Force 10 from Navarone and Geoffrey Hill's recent collection of poems Clavics.


Which five historical figures would you invite to your fantasy dinner party?

Edward the Confessor, Edmund Spenser, Jesus, Pelagius and Patrick O'Brian.


Do you have any bad habits?

Too many to enumerate. One of the worst is the tendency to sometimes forget what people say to me only minutes after it has been said, which makes me sometimes come off more arrogant than I really am.

Facebook or twitter?

That depends entirely on purpose. For keeping up with friends I prefer Facebook. To connect with like-minded people from all over the world and share ideas and knowledge, twitter is by far the better alternative.

Do you have a pet hate?

Several. The two biggest are anachronisms in novels or films and hipsters. Hipsters ruin so much for me.

Hipsters have been a problem for a long time (c) Kate Beaton

Has there been a book, song or movie that changed your life? How?

I find it difficult to assess which moments or experiences have been truly life-changing, largely because there are so many factors which compel us to take the roads we end up on, and in most cases we are not aware of these choices until long afterwards. Accordingly, there have been many books, movies and songs that have changed my life in various ways, but one I would like to point to is Umbert Eco's marvellous novel Baudolino, which I read when I was 19. The book really opened my eyes to the Middle Ages and gave a fertile ground in which the later exposures of academia could blossom into an enamoration.

Are there any historical fiction ‘crimes’ that really get on your nerves?

Anachronism is a major problem for me, but also cynicism. It's too easy to depict historical agents according to some objective mechanics we construct with hindsight, rather than embracing the idiosyncratic humanity of people inhabiting ages past. This is particularly the case in the depiction of the medieval religious. What is your greatest achievement to date?

My MA thesis.

Commemorative photo of me at my reading desk, taken after I had recieved the printed copies of my thesis

Can you tell us about one of your goals for the future?

I would very much like to write a book at some point. Novel, non-fiction, poetry collection, it's pretty much all the same.What is your favourite thing about blogging?

First of all that I can share a wide variety of things and thoughts with like-minded people. Secondly, I like blogging because it inhabits a middle-ground between gossip and academia, meaning that when I write on historical or history-related subjects, I need some of the rigour of academic writing, but at the same time I'm much more independent.
And finally, have I annoyed you by nominating you for the Liebster?

Not in the least, so thank you again!

York Minster, picture taken from the city walls

 

Eleven facts about me

1) My favourite band is Dire Straits and has been since I was at least fourteen years old.

2) I'm a committed anglophile.

3) I actually like British cuisine, or at least great parts of it, but I will never understand why sausage rolls are so popular.

4) I sometimes spend hours on end stalking Italian cities on Google Maps. Usually on the wrong side of midnight.

5) Despite having visited Schiphol several times, I have not properly been to the Netherlands.

6) I find the Dutch language to be a charming one, although completely unintelligible when spoken.

7) I have a fascination with small countries, particularly Nauru, Andorra, San Marino and Liechtenstein.

8) I didn't know I wanted to be a medievalist until my second year at university.

9) I grew up on a farm in Western Norway.

10) I aspire to become a turophile.

11) I like dogs.

My dog, taken on a boatride on the fjord back home

My questions for my nominees

1) What prompted you to start blogging?

2) Name three of your favourite books.

3) Name three of your favourite travel destinations.

4) Name three travel destinations you would like to visit.

5) What is your oddest fascination?

6) TV-series or movies?

7) What TV-series are you currently watching regularly?

8) Which architectural style do you like best?

9) Name three subjects in which you would like to become more fluent.

10) Name one yet unamed phenomenon or concept which needs a name.

11) Which is your favourite band?

Dragons from The Queen Mary Psalter, because dragons are fun

My nominees:

A Clerk of Oxford - wonderfully eclectic medievalist, literature scholar and Oxford resident writing about a wide array of subjects.

Art History with Caroline Quintanar - art historian specialising in Spanish medieval art and architecture.

General Grier's Civil War - letters from Brevet Brigadier General David Perkins Grier, of the 77th Illinois Volunteer Regiment, transcribed and made accessible for the reading public. A fascinating source to Civil War history.

In the Middle - a joint venture of medieval scholars presenting articles, extracts, musings and tidbits from their academic work.

ivry twr - concerned primarily with digital humanities, ivy twr presents articles, podcasts and videos embracing a wide variety of academic subjects with the digital age as its vantage point.

medievalfragments - the blog of a project concerned with medieval manuscripts, led by twitter's Erik Kwakkel.

Text Technology - with a medieval focus, this blog is concerned with text technologies throughout history.

The Cantos of Mvtabilitie - An Oxford don's infrequent musings of a wide variety of subjects. This was the blog that inspired me to start My Albion.

The Early Modern - a scholar presenting selections from the period 1500-1800.

The Monstrous Middle Ages - medievalist focussing on the monstrous in medieval texts. How can that not be fascinating?

Meshalim - multilingual medievalist presents fascinating snippets from academia.