NYCCAP April 9 in Brief

To enjoy a beautiful spring day in the village was simply another reason to be there. But the seminar was well attended, and the discussion was excellent. Jennifer Whiting (Toronto) had travelled the farthest distance to attend; John Partridge (Wheaton) and I had come down separately from the Boston area; Mitch Miller drove down from Vassar and Tony Preus from Binghamton. Attending from the New York area were Hendrik Lorenz (Princeton), Rachana Kamtekar (Princeton, visiting), Dana Miller (Fordham), Michael Rohr (Rutgers) , and Iakovos Vasiliou (CUNY Brooklyn, the Secretary of the Colloquium).

Matt Evans, just out of the Texas program and in his first year at NYU, led the discussion with great skill and remarkable confidence, fully living up to all the good things I had previously heard about him.

My plan was to give a careful recounting of the discussion in this blog. But, as the Scots bard says, the best laid plans of mice and men gang oft a glee. My plan derailed when, threading my way through the streets of Manhattan from the FDR drive to Washington Square, I made a wrong turn, landing me in a crowded street bazaar. And then I couldn't find street parking near the Silver building and had to look for a garage. So I arrived a half hour late to the discussion, missing Evans' introduction, and needing another half hour of listening to reconstruct, as best I could, what interpretative decisions had already been made by the group.

So what I'll do later is present in only a summary way some of the main issues and tentative conclusions.