Writer, Gardener, Jobbing Humanist
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I went to Carleton, sight unseen, with high expectations and I count myself exceedingly fortunate that those expectations were not only met, but surpassed.
I learned Italian so I could study Dante and Greek so I could read Homer, and fell in love with philosophy because of Boethius. After my B.Hum, I completed my M.A. and my Ph.D at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Medieval Studies. My dissertation for my was on “Poetry and Philosophy in Dante and Boethius” – the unconventional lack of a colon and subtitle, like the topic, very much a product of the College of the Humanities.
I was hired as a Teaching Fellow in the Foundation Year Programme at the University of King’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia. When the three year contract ended. I decided it was time to go forth and see a bit more of the world and try my hand at writing. Accordingly, I walked down the length of England in 2013 and published my first novel, Till Human Voices Wake Us, in 2014, and am hard at work contemplating my next adventure, which is likely to be a smallholding in the Maritimes and a few new novels (if interested, please visit my website).
At the College of the Humanities I learned to ask the old questions, and to live always as if they matter – and in doing so, I learned the courage shown by those, ancient and modern, who try to answer them. In short, I think I can say that my writing, like my life, is shaped by the past, and the College of the Humanities did not only show me those shapes, but also taught me to see.
Victoria Goddard has a Ph.D. in Medieval Studies, and is a Writer, Gardener, and Jobbing Humanist.
Blog Interview with Victoria Goddard