On 26 April I will be participating in an on-stage panel discussion at the Malthouse Theatre after Felix Nobis’s performance of his adaptation of Beowulf. Details at this Malthouse link.
Beowulf · Malthouse Theatre
. Based on his own translation of the Anglo-Saxon poem, Nobis tells a story of kings, monsters, heroes and dragons in a version that is both faithful to the original and accessible to the modern ear.
MALTHOUSETHEATRE.COM.AU
Some time in 1988-1989 at the University of Toronto I did a large piece of palaeographical calligraphy (kind of insular minuscule): the latter half of one of my favorite shorter Old English poems, The Order of the World from The Exeter Book. The poem had figured in a chapter of my dissertation, and I did the piece as a thank you to the Centre for Medieval Studies, which had been a very happy place for me during my years at the University. Nearly thirty years later, the Centre’s director has just got in touch to ask if they can use it as decoration for their program for the American Medieval Association conference they’re hosting this year. Apparently it’s been on display all these years. I am seriously touched. The text comprises ll. 68-102, in case anyone’s curious.
The opening of Beowulf as it stands in ms Cotton Vitellius A xv
My latest essay for Arena Magazine (no. 146), ‘Beowulf for Today’, has just been published. If you’d like to hear (among other things) how a sixth-century heroic boast might sound as a Trump tweet, read on . . .Arena 146 Beowulf article
Those of us who were in Ross House for the first session of the course on Homer’s Iliad heard the noise of today’s incident on Swanston and Bourke Streets that has so far claimed four lives. It’s a small gesture, given the enormity of the incident, but I’m sure I can speak for us all in extending our sorrow and sympathy to those who have suffered.
We’ll be off and running with
1. 
The MLS Refectory starting its weekly run of hourlong lunchtime poetry sessions on Wednesday 18 January, 1-2 pm in Ross House room 2.1. Room booking details for the whole of 2017 available here:
mls-refectory-room-bookings-2017
2. 
The twelve-week course on Homer’s Iliad will begin on Friday 20 January, 1-3pm in Ross House 3.1 (The Jenny Florence Room). Room book details and course particulars are contained in these two files:
Yup. All the biggies. Over the course of 2017 I plan to offer a series of twelve-week seminars, each of which will take up Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey,
Virgil’s Aeneid 
and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. 
In addition I will try to squeak another twelve-week seminar on Melville’s Moby Dick, a text enormously indebted to those exemplars of the classical tradition. 
Initial details on the PDF below, full scheduling details to be posted as soon as they’re sorted.
In November I’ll be giving a talk in the Salon-Salon series at Alice & Co. in Kyneton. Details on the flyer below.
With thanks to Richard Mudford, who took all these.
Chris playing herald with his accustomed panache.
Me in full flight, with Chris Wallace-Crabbe attending closely.
My translation-with-commentary of Beowulf was launched last night at the Collected works Bookshop. Kris and Loretta hosted what proved a well attended and lively do.
The author? Oh, that would be me.
Many thanks to them and all who attended, with a special shout to my Canberra buddy from ANU, Chris Bishop, who came down to do the introductory honours.
I’ve had a number of requests to reprise the six-session course I taught last year on Beowulf, which used Seamus Heaney’s translation (published by Faber & Faber in 1999) as its text. 
I’m about to book a room for it, and it would be helpful to know roughly how many of you might be interested, so, if you are, let me know, along with what days of the weeks might best suit your schedule.