Montreal

Shortly after returning from Leuven, I took a whirlwind trip to Montreal. I left Edinburgh on Friday morning, arrived in Montreal for the American Academy of Religion's annual conference Friday night ($50 cab ride to the hotel) and then left Sunday afternoon for my evening flight back to Edinburgh. So, I wa in Montreal for Friday night, all day Saturday, and then essentially Sunday morning. Not much time. After my connecting flight was cancelled in Paris Monday morning, I finally got back home Monday evening at 6:30pm.

Nevertheless, it was a fun trip. What I saw of Montreal is beautiful. I roamed around McGill University's campus and took some shots. The beer is expensive though: $8 a piece! I got to reconnect with some old friends from my time at St. Louis University: Michael Pahls (a PhD student there) and Brian Robinette (a professor of theology).

All three of us gave papers at the conference. I gave mine on Sunday afternoon on phenomenology of authenticy in Jean-Yves Lacoste and Martin Heidegger. The other papers in my session were (1) the possibiliyt of spiritual exercises in Husserl and (2) Sufist mysticism read as a body without organs. The second one, on Muslim mysticism and Delueze, garnered the most attention, which is not surprising given the AAR's excitement over all non-Christian discourse. At any rate, I ran over to catch the last 45 minutes of the "Promise of Scripture and Phenomenology" panel discussion, and it was good. It was put on by Kevin Hart and a group of his students at the University of Virginia. I should have presented there! They would have welcomed my ideas more.

Overall what I learned:

• Montreal is beautiful, expensive, and cold in November
• The AAR can be annoying but they have a great book fair
• Most of all: I should never travel that far of a distance in that short amount of time. Why, you ask? Well, I got the flu really bad when I returned!