I learned about demonic possession! And made a new friend! Um...not related.

As if I have time to be learning anything outside of the papers I'm supposed to be writing, I went to a lecture last night on the topic of demonic possession. That's one helluva sexy topic, am I right, people? If you walk into the American History Association and by way of introduction say, "Hello, I'm John Doe, and I work mainly on demonic possession," well a. you just completely shut down the game of that guy studying the relationship between Northern European weather patterns and tribal migration in the Iron Age, and b. you win the conference. You....you just WIN.

So I had some high expectations of the lecturer. And dammit if he wasn't the biggest glop of weirdsauce on the planet. His whole point (an hour later and couched in every single postrstructuralist keyword ever invented, with one glaring, though reasonable exception: liminality) was that maybe when historians are studying someone who claims to be possessed, they should treat that person as being, in point of fact, possessed. Um, thanks. I do take his point, though, that historians, despite the overwhelming move toward social/cultural histories, are the last people to accept that eventually, if enough people believe something, it becomes functionally, if not actually, true.

Anyway, the best part of the lecture was his monotone description of the symptoms of demonic possession. Did you know that one of the signs is vomiting hair and/or needles? I did not! Also, I just tried google imaging some of the symptoms but...I couldn't handle it. You've all seen The Exorcist, I'm sure. Just picture poor little Linda Blair puking the devil's tresses.

After the lecture I went and got a drink with one of the girls from my American Revolution class. We'd sort of been circling round each other for the last couple weeks, before finally asking each other out, and she's awesome! So excited to meet a new person (whose knowledge of French, both language and revolutions, I may incidentally be able to shamelessly exploit...everyone wins! Mostly me).

So a good night, aside from the inevitable hacking and coughing and phlegming that accompanied me everywhere I went. Really must get rid of the flu-stricken hunchbacked butler I've been keeping around.



Unrelated:
This is mostly funny because of the Britsh accent. Most things are. Ever so slightly NSFW.