Exploring the Extraordinary

I find it quite difficult to blog about my current research. Discreet items of collectanea are one thing, but I'm cautious about pre-empting my longer-term analysis. So, it's nice to be able to mention what a good time I had yesterday at the Exploring the Extraordinary network's first one-day conference in York. (The bill is here, if you want to see what you missed).

I've developed something of an aversion to interdisciplinary conferences: too often there's no sharing of disciplines, no searching for points of contact, just some monomanic shouting and no listening. Yesterday, by contrast, was a rather pleasurable sharing of methods and interests. I had little in common with most of the speakers - I'd go so far as to say that I probably disagree quite strongly with some of them - but there were points at which our researches overlapped, and we were able to share material at those fringes. (I had an interesting chat with David Woollatt, for example, who's working on contemporary Spiritualism: it's peripheral but not unimportant in my work on ghost beliefs). I enjoyed it greatly. (Thanks Hannah and co for the efficient organisation, too).

I think the network's a useful resource, and will become even more useful the wider the breadth of scholarly approaches and disciplines it embraces. The JISCmail list is here, if you want to sign up, and they also have a Facebook group.