Anderson

This week has been pretty interesting. Benedict Anderson (of imagined communities fame) came to visit for a week and held several talks and a seminar. The grad seminar wasn't really a seminar at all but more of a Q and A session with him doling out bits of writing wisdom here and there. I'm glad I didn't dedicate hours and hours to reading the two books that were required (yay procrastination!) otherwise I would have been pretty annoyed. They were good reads but not to my interest and definitely not useful for my current research. The annoying part for most people was that the professors tricked us into reading them as a requirement to attend this seminar, (but with 40 plus people, it could not be a seminar in earnest) and yet Anderson himself didn't know that we had read them (lol) and we didn't actually get to discuss them. Sneaky, sneaky profs. However, some of us did manage to have dinner with him (yay dept sponsored meal!!) and I think he's a lovely and funny old guy. I totally want him to adopt him and make him be my gay grandpa :D