Today's John North talk very good - enjoyable, lucid, a good subject, and accessible. I wonder if the attendees who expected him to stick more literally with Aristotelianism were disappointed, but, knowing his work, I would have been a bit surprised if he had addressed the subject so narrowly. Instead he spoke about Aristotelian interpretations of comets in Aristotle, Seneca, and several major and interesting later Medieval sources, including Albertus Magnus and Grosseteste, but finishing with his most interesting character, Giles of Lessy.

I did indeed go along to dinner afterwards and, eventually, had a chance to speak to the guest speaker. It was so good to speak to someone who actually knows the ambient material surrounded my dissertation topic - I so rarely have that opportunity. He's promised to email me some useful followup dissertation. Between that conversation and the one I had with my advisor the other day, I feel as if I'm filling in many of the gaps I should have already known, but it's just as well I know now before my dissertation is much further along.

If you're in the right city, he's giving a talk on "Time and Scholasticism" this Friday, 8pm, Rm 100, Alumni Hall, St. Michael's College. I recommend it.