Author: Milan

In the spring of 2005, I graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in International Relations and a general focus in the area of environmental politics. In the fall of 2005, I began reading for an M.Phil in IR at Wadham College, Oxford. Outside school, I am very interested in photography, writing, and the outdoors. I am writing this blog to keep in touch with friends and family around the world, provide a more personal view of graduate student life in Oxford, and pass on some lessons I've learned here.

The soundest base for a diagnosis

So much depends on style, that factor of which we are growing more and more suspicious, that although the tendency of criticism is to explain a writer either in terms of his sexual experience or his economic background, I still believe technique remains the soundest base for a diagnosis, that it should be possible to learn as much about an author’s income and sex-life from one paragraph of his writing as from his cheque stubs and his love-letters, and one should also be able to learn how well he writes, and what are his influences. Critics who ignore style are liable to lump good and bad writers together in support of pre-conceived theories.

Connoly, Cyril. Enemies of Promise. George Routledge & Sons, Ltd. Broadway House: 68–74 Carter Lane, E.C. 1938

Nobody to write for but myself

It has occurred to me that, while I am waiting to hear back on numerous job applications, and while I am waiting to graduate in absentia on March 10, I can shamelessly use the University of Toronto libraries to research absolutely anything of interest. Today, I got some guidance in digital cartography, was invited into a 2.5 hour workshop on making honest and educational infographics, and began reading Cyril Connoly’s 1938 Enemies of Promise in search of backstory and inspiration for my Sherlock Holmes pastiche project.

By the way, while it hasn’t always been treated with perfect gentleness, and the repairs are such as would be used for a practical object rather than a museum piece (bent corners and pencil-marks abound inside, and whoever taped the barcode on to the cover didn’t think tearing the tape unevenly would mar its appearance), based on the front matter I think the Connoly is a first edition.

I intended the title, incidentally, to refer to self-motivated writing not being actively overseen, edited, or hurried along and not to suggest that nobody is reading my writing or that I don’t care about those who do. In fact, I am always curious to know who is still lurking around here after all these years, or who has stopped by because they found a single post of interest.

New podcast on the U of T divestment campaign from 2014 to 2016

Back in November, Amanda Harvey-Sánchez and Julia DaSilva released a podcast episode for Climate Justice Toronto about the first generation of fossil fuel divestment organizers at U of T. That episode covered from the inception of the campaign in 2012 until the People’s Climate March (PCM) in New York City in September 2014.

They have now released the second episode, which features Katie Krelove, Ben Donato-Woodger, Keara Lightning, and Ariel Martz-Oberlander, and which discussed the period from the PCM until president Meric Gertler’s rejection of divestment in March 2016.