Conference

This past month has mostly been spent preparing for a conference I am speaking at next weekend. Unfortunately this means that once more the thesis writing process is delayed. I can only hope that this is the slowest part of my PhD - I had planned to have finished chapter two by Christmas this year. Will it happen? Only I can be responsible for that.

The conference itself is exciting - I never have a problem with the idea of speaking to an audience - up until the last minute, at any rate! I'm taking it rather easy and basing my presentation on the one I had to give in June in order to be upgraded to PhD status. The conference is actually a classics conference, but the involvement of antiquity  in my research means that I'm able to contribute something on the subject. I feel as though I ought to have a big disclaimer at the beginning of my slideshow, saying, "THIS IS WHAT PEOPLE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY THOUGHT!" because I'm sure I'd get a great deal wrong if I were talking about classical Greece and Rome independently.

What I'm finding the most difficult - and this is really very good practice - is the difficulty of keeping on topic while still making the subject accessible. The fact that most of the conference attendees will have a background in classics rather than seventeenth-century literature will be both an advantage and a disadvantage to me. I can make some mistakes which may go unnoticed, but how can I talk about gentlemanly violence in the Restoration without going into some detail about the history and significance of duelling? It's a delicate balance.