It seems Milan has really been making the most of his High Table meals at Wadham. Up until tonight, I was viewing them as little more than free food and the chance to practice making small talk with academics.
I'd spoken to Gustaf Arrhenius several times while he's Senior Research Fellow in Jesus. I already knew him, via Krister, and I knew he was working on moral and political philosophy, and population policy in particular.
Tonight, however, I found that he also has interests in democracy. In fact, my friend Toby even gave him my contact details while he was in Sweden - and Gustaf had been meant to look me up but lost them. Thankfully, in this small world we live in, our paths crossed on High Table tonight.
Gustaf kindly asked to read my MPhil thesis, and has sent me one of his working papers (an updated version of this) - I think I got the better end of both deals! I hope we can have many more discussions in the remaining month that Gustaf is here, and hope it proves profitable collaboration.
I managed to get into a fair bit of trouble with the high table dinner last week, actually.
ReplyDeleteThe porters let me sign up, as usual, then apparently discovered that it was for fellows only. They struck my name from the list and left me a note, which I never found. Now, both they and the SCR Butler are mad at me, because they think I willfully disobeyed a prohibition that I hadn't actually heard of until the dinner was over.
It seems that the incomprehensible protocols of Oxford involve traps, in addition to simple bewilderment.