Traveling Tuesday

Last week I had the wonderful experience of traveling to Boston to attend a roundtable around a book manuscript that is currently under review. The manuscript is by Eric Driscoll and focuses on the place of the Hexamilion Wall in Byzantine and modern political thinking. Since the book is still wending its way through the publishing process, I’ll leave details aside, other than to say that the book feel poised to make a significant impact on how people think both about the Hexamilion Wall and the tricky matter of Greek identity both in the Medieval and Modern periods.

Having just gone through a traditional review process for my book and found it somewhat confusing (at best) and unsatisfactory (at worst), I was blown away by how much more collegial, supportive, and natural our conversation was around the manuscript. It felt like the best version of a seminar. 

In particular, I was struck by how attentive the group was to the relationship between details in the manuscript and its various larger arguments. The group had really sharp experts on various elements of this expansive manuscript, but since the group collectively understood their task to critique the entire manuscript, there was a real balance between the specific critiques and general insights. This meant that the participants in the workshop always articulated their critiques of the evidence and interpretation in light of the overall argument. Of course, the best traditional reviewers tend to do this too, but in this environment it felt especially balanced and I came away feeling like the quality of critiques were much higher than most reviews that I’ve experienced (as a reviewer or as someone reviewed).

Of course, this kind of intervention (in the best way) isn’t cheap and I can’t imagine that the environment would be ideal for all books, all authors, and all reviewers. At the same time, I can imagine that this kind of review experience would be especially valuable for books and authors that take greater risks or seek to approach problems in unconventional ways.

From the stand point of a reviewer, I also found the experience quite remarkable. It turned reviewing from a rather solitary task that had relatively modest pay offs into a conversation which made me feel like not only was I contributing to field but also developing as a scholar myself.

My institution is perhaps a bit too isolated for this to be financially (and logistically) viable for us in a regular way. MIT is close enough to so many institutions both in Boston itself and further afield on the East Coast. 

It also gave me a chance to see MIT’s campus including (on the recommendation of Kostis Kourelis), Ereo Sarinnen designed chapel which I wasn’t able to get into (unfortunately), nevertheless it still cut quite a figure adjacent to the Sarinnen designed Kresge Auditorium. The chapel had plenty of Late Roman and Byzantine flavor to it which made it an appropriate dessert after a great day of conversation about the Hexamilion Wall.

No trip to MIT is complete (evidently) without checking out The Great Dome flanked by post-peak foliage.

The foliage also made my view during the workshop especially distracting: