Hannah Eagleson’s first guest blog series, which she wrote before joining ESN as a writer/editor in 2014. At the time Hannah was a musician, writer, and recent PhD recipient living in central Pennsylvania. The Summer Quote Series offers brief reflections on quotes that she found helpful when thinking about her academic work. Thank you, Hannah!Â
I’ve always loved Dorothy L. Sayers’ Peter Wimsey mysteries. There are many reasons, but two of them are Lord Peter’s love of quotations and his affirmation of work (even if he did inherit a fortune). Like Lord Peter, I sometimes find it hard to say anything without quotations, and also like Peter, I go a bit crazy if I don’t have work to do. So, combining these two interests, during the month of July I’ll be posting a series of quotations that I’ve found helpful in thinking about my academic work.
Not all of these are quotations from scholars, and not all of them were originally intended to describe the academic life. But each helps me in maintaining a wider perspective about the academic vocation, in seeing how God’s Kingdom might be at work in the details of semester schedules and library visits and scholarly writing.
I would welcome conversation in the comments or via email. I’ve offered a few possible questions after each quotation, but feel free to suggest your own, challenge my terms, or take the conversation in a different direction as well.
The first quotation comes from a contemporary of Sayers, Simone Weil. [Read more…] about Quote: Simone Weil on Effort, Attention, and Unexpected Results