My Regensburg Year, Part 1: August 2024
“You should come work with us here in Regensburg.” These words from Tobias Nicklas in 2020 made my heart leap. I was in Regensburg for a conference held by Tobias’s Beyond Canon Project and fell in love with the town. Several of my friends and colleagues had already spent time at the project; it seemed the “place to be.” So I immediately began to think of how to make it happen.
My sabbatical in 2024/2025 would be a perfect opportunity. I had never spent time out of Canada on sabbatical before. I had family obligations (two daughters) and three cats to care for. But in 2020 I could see a time soon when the kids would be adults and the cats (sadly) would be meeting their maker. As the time approached, I solidified arrangements with Tobias, my wife and I helped the girls get established, and grieved our feline family members one after the other. Everything was falling into place.
We arranged to live at one of the university properties: the Gasthaus at Hinter der Grieb 8, a thirteenth-century building in the heart of the medieval city. Most apartments in the building are a single room but we managed to get a large one-bedroom unit that would enable us to host guests (we invited all of our family and friends). Staying in the same building are two English-speaking scholars we met in Oslo in June (Sam Cook and Roxanne Bélanger Sarrazin), and not far away are two others I had …