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José Ramón Díaz Fernández and me in my study. No, I am not sitting in the photo, I have shrunk!

Dear friends and family,

I didn't want to take the time away from JR while he was here for such a short time. I enjoyed our visit together greatly. JR was very understanding about my need to disappear into my room at times and relax on the recliner. Since he had brought his computer and was working on a grant proposal, he seemed content to work when he could and socialize when Merwin and I could.

Thumbnail sketch: in 1999 JR organized the first ever International Shakespeare on Film Conference, attended by hundreds of people, in Belemadena (not sure of spelling), a resort on the Mediterranean, near Malaga, where JR's University is. It was an amazing week. I gave one of the plenary papers (there was one each day, I believe); mine was on flaws in Branagh's Hamlet. Afterward it was very sweet to hear from a colleague, a professor from MIT, that she thought that the many young women in the room would be encouraged and strengthened by my analysis of Branagh's conceptual flaws when in the audience was sitting the scholar who had stood at Branagh's side all through the filming process and presumably had endorsed all those "flaws." The nerve, she said, approvingly, the courage. I had really thought nothing of it. That scholar, an acquaintance of long standing, got even with me, perhaps unintentionally. To show, I think, that he had no ill feelings, he took a empty seat next to me on one of our many bus trips to wonderful sites and gave me the cold he had.

One of the wonderful friends I made there was Sarah H., a young scholar who had written extensively on Branagh and loved his work. She was interested in my view, not at all put off by it. Sarah, who lives in Paris, has, with her friend Nathalie, organized conferences on particular Shakespearean film topics in France. I have had the pleasure of attending and/or written papers for some of these. They always publish a book for each conference.

So many connections came from the Belamadena conference, not least JR himself. While he was visiting this time, we worked out the way his extensive bibliography and filmography for Hamlet on film, which he has prepared for Sarah's and Nathalie's volume based on their last conference, would differ from theirs. For the website there will be two documents, one for bibliography and one for filmography, JR's work in bibliography is amazing, and I am delighted that he will contribute his work soon, perhaps before my talk at the NYPL in April.

About our weekend in NYC, I want to mention one enjoyable aspect that I missed in my prior blog. For his next book group meeting, Merwin is reading Justice, by Michael J. Sandel, a professor at Harvard whose freshman lecture course is so popular that there is a lottery to select who can attend. The book is based on his lectures. Merwin, who is a wonderful reader, read some of the book aloud, and besides being energized by his voice and the ideas, I was brought back to memories of the course in philosophy I had taken as an elderly undergrad (i got my B.A. at age 26). Kant's idea that one must never use people as a means but only as an end was particularly important to me.

I did not do much work during JR's visit, of course, except the discussions we had about his work for hamletworks.org, and now I am eager to plunge back into it. But first I wanted to talk to all of you in this blog.

Love to all,
Bernice