There’s No Cure for Lucidity

Summertime (and COVID) in Paris; a class on prisons, democracy, and storytelling

Dear all,

Michelle here. Sorry we’ve been out of touch since our piece about the shooting at the Taiwanese church. We’ve been even busier than usual: we flew to California for a conference at UC Irvine organized by Emily Baum that Albert helped with, and which seems to have gone splendidly! (In related news, I can’t resist giving Albert props for publishing his piece on superstition and anti-imperial movements in the British journal Past & Present, a dream venue of his since forever—as he recalls, it was reading articles there by E. P. Thompson and Natalie Zemon Davis that made him want to become a historian.) Then we flew to Paris, where I’m co-teaching an intensive three-week class. Almost immediately upon arriving, Albert tested positive for COVID. Our two-year-old followed suit soon after. I held out for a week or so, feeling superior to the fallen around me, but then I got it too. (While they were sick at home, though, I had tons of fun riding a scooter along the Seine.) We’ve bee…