This week I’m in Denmark to assist as an external reviewer in a PhD dissertation defense at Aarhus University. I’m pleased to report that Eva Elisabeth Houth Vrangbaek defended her research with aplomb & will soon be awarded the title of “Dr.”
EEHV’s dissertation debuted a unique “marriage of methods” between advanced computational analysis of a textual corpus and traditional close reading skills. By combining these approaches, she was able to shed fresh light on the vexing relationship between three Latin terms frequently used by Augustine of Hippo and often translated as “love:” amor, caritas, and dilectio. This was an example of Digital Humanities at its finest.
The day after the defense, I delivered my own talk on another hotly debated term in the Augustinian corpus: peregrinatio, which can be translated as pilgrimage, but which I argue is better rendered as something like “migrancy.” One of the benefits of doing so is that we can build bridges between Augustine’s call for the adoption of a welcoming attitude towards ancient migrants and the need for a similar attitude today, in a world that continues to be marked by the plight of migrants. It was an honour to get to deliver this lecture immediately following a visually engaging talk given by Dr. Anthony Dupont (Leuven), in which he explored pictorial representations of Augustine’s conversion scene across more than six centuries. I’ll be heading back to Canada soon, but I feel like I’ve deepened my research connections in Europe on this trip, and I’ll be looking forward to my next journey across the pond.
