June 7, 2018

7.45 am: A communion. 8.15 am: A readying for a busy day of teaching and admin ahead. Yesterday (a Diary sabbath), I began work on the composition(s) about racism. As a way into the biblical text, I read through Martin Luther King Jr’s famous ‘I have a dream …’ speech, which he delivered at the The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on 28 August 1963 –  just over a year before Scourby made his recording of the scriptures. The speech contains a number of allusions to biblical texts. I determined to remake some of King’s pronouncements by collaging together the same words spoken by Scourby. In this way, just as the Bible had been incorporated into his speech, his speech would, henceforth, be incorporated into the Bible:


President Lyndon B Johnson meets with Civil Rights leaders
Martin Luther King Jr, Whitney Young, and James Farmer (courtesy of WikiCommons)

9.00 am: I awaited a Skype call that didn’t materialise (which isn’t quite the right word for something so patently immaterial). The second call at, 10.00 am from China (5.00 pm), did however:

10.20 am: Off to the Old College for what will be my regular Thursday, postgraduate teaching day over the Summer period. The weather was invigorating; the sun transformed everything over which its poured its goodness:

The day began with two PhD Fine Art tutorials. The latter mutated into an indoor picnic and a discussion about the student’s latest exploits abroad. A good morning: trajectories were established; opportunities, realised; and new undertakings, resolved. There’re times when the ‘spirit’ of illumination graces a tutorial in an exceptional way.

2.00 pm: A cancelled tutorial permitted me to venture onto the Promenade and rub shoulders (but not too closely) with the tourists. The beach bathing brigade were out in force:

3.00 pm: The remainder of the afternoon was devoted to my MA students, who were working on their September exhibition. They’re facing the toughest part of the degree so far; it’ll sort out the women from the girls. In principle, each has to:

  • Identify the most conspicuous virtues of the first exhibition’s work and enhance them.
  • By the same token, weed out whatever encumbered or limited the earlier work.
  • Establish a set of objectives that, while tied to those of the first exhibition, exceed them in clarity and ambition.
  • Refine and tighten the conceptual underpinning of the work.
  • Refine the technical and methodological underpinning of the work.
  • Interrogate everything (again). Accept nothing as read.
  • Work increasingly independently, and trust their own judgement far more.

7.15 pm: Admin catch-up. Again, it was bitty but necessary stuff.

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