The exam was in June 1987 and my fragile memory suggests it was at an examination centre in Redcliffe.

In two hours we had to pick four topics out of fourteen and I wrote on covenant traditions, prophetic vocation, apocalyptic literature and the reform of Josiah.

I got a passing grade only, despite my notes suggesting I did get a fair bit of work done in between exhaustion, etc. That semester I also learnt to do an appendicectomy, pin fractured hips and coagulate bladder tumours amongst other things. Thankfully, I became neither a surgeon nor an Old Testament scholar but I don’t think it hurts to have dabbled.

The second assignment for RE100 in 1987 was:

Discuss the problems associated with identifying the original words of the prophet Amos and the social situation in which the words were originally spoken.

Amos

The marker did not like this at all. Instead of being criticised for not putting my own ideas I was told my ideas were lousy and poorly argued and got a bare passing grade.

He may have had a point.

Incidentally my suggestion of linked Wisdom and Prophecy traditions turned up years later in my dissertation on the Gawain poet.

I just recalled that because I was living out of Brisbane (just) at Redcliffe, I could continue as an external student. Later in 1987 we moved to Daisy Hill in Logan City and so was still outside the Brisbane area.  I could continue as an external student but still have access to the Brisbane libraries. Sweet.

The first assignment for RE100 was due in early April and somehow I got it done. Irritatingly there was a third different style for referencing in three semesters. In retyping the assignment I have replaced endnotes with footnotes and adapted the style of referencing somewhat. I also corrected rather more typos than I had anticipated suggesting my proofreading was done while sleeping off a late night in Casualty.

Scholars have generally been concerned with identifying the literary sources that they see underlying the Pentateuch in its final form and with the interpretation of these underlying sources. Focussing your discussion on Genesis, write an essay in which you discuss the strengths and limitations of this approach.

Pentateuch

Conrad’s marking was scanty and his comments to the point:

A well constructed and presented summary of the material. You should work on introducing more of your own thoughts and critical evaluation of the material as well. 4/5

That does not mean 4 out of 5, rather a score of 4 to 5 in a scale of 7. The problem with that was that I doubt I had any original thoughts on the matter at all.  Rereading the essay I am impressed by a well structured but completely derivative argument, which I would fully expect from a first go at a religion subject.

Having studied an English and a Government subject I had a go a religion. It was not a startling success but it certainly let me know how ignorant I was. In 1987, we moved to Redcliffe for my fourth year in the hospital system. For the first six months of the year I was a spare parts surgical registrar doing general surgery, urology and orthopaedics, as well as being on call for the accident and emergency. The ward work I could get away with, but I was seriously out of my depth in emergency work and practical surgery. I recall being seriously exhausted and if I was called out through the night I would be zombie for some considerable time. Our first child was only a few months old and while a good baby still involved disrupted nights.

So it made no sense to continue studying that year, but attempt it I did.  The course was run by Dr Edgar W. Conrad, now Associate Professor. As an external student I never met my lecturer and imagined him a crusty old man. This was completely incorrect as I find him to be still active at UQ to this day and to have had a stellar career with many books and articles and even a Festschrift in his honour in the years since. His brief comments on my work told me that I was stunningly average and unoriginal but he passed me nonetheless.

The course involved twenty six lectures and was assessed with two assignments and an exam. I have no idea how I managed any of it and I’d like to think under other circumstances I might have made a better fist of it.  I felt more at home with New Testament and Christian history than Old Testament over the years, but this course was a solid background.

This exam had eight questions, but only three had to be answered. I knew that one of the options was going to be a critical review of one of the books by a political ideologist.

Choosing Bernstein and memorising the headings for that essay left only two to pick and the past exams indicated some safe topics that included more on Marxism and Social Democracy. This allowed me to narrow my exam preparation somewhat.. a lot actually.

I passed.

The second assignment for GT105 wasn’t due until October 1986, which gave some me breathing space and also time for a daughter to be born.

I chose this topic:

Neo-marxists customarily criticise Social Democrats for believing that it is possible for a social democratic party to use the state in order to mediate the inherent and basic conflict of interest between capital and labour and thus bring about a transition to socialism. Outline the Neo-Marxist critique and set out what you would consider an appropriate response.

A real rib tickler.

Neo Marxists

I was pleased with the mark and surprised by a page full of constructive comments from the lecturer.  I recall that I was quite attracted to Bernstein’s version of socialism.

This was only a few years before the breakdown of Soviet bloc communism, but none of us had a clue.

GT105 in 1986 was assessed by two assignments of 10% and 30% and a 60% examination.

The first assignment was due in May 1986 and had three alternatives. We had an extensive bibliography for each question, which was needed for external students away from the library databases in a preinternet world. It looks like I just asked the Thatcher library for the first ten or so suggested books as most of them turn up in the bibliography.

Topic C

Roger Scruton has defined conservatism as : “The political outlook which springs from a desire to conserve existing things, held to be either good in themselves, or better than the likely alternatives, or at least safe, familiar, and the objects of trust and affection.” (A Dictionary of Political Thought) Discuss, making some reference in your discussion to the opposing socialist view that conservatism is an ideology of class privilege and class exploitation.

Conservatism

… and what an angry little snot I was. The lecturer gently pointed out the many flaws in my arguments and kindly ignored most of my typos and referencing lapses. Having got my wife to type this from my execrable handwriting, I was at fault as a lousy proof reader and remain so to this day. ( I  know she typed it from the absence of correction fluid.)

Apart from a lamentable tendency to repetition, I noted on rereading this as I typed it into Word that I dropped in some religious matters. Later when doing more advanced government subjects I gravitated to the Christian thinkers and eventually I recall that I switched to studying the history of Christian thought instead.

Until I actually looked at my notes for this subject I had assumed that this was second semester in 1986, because that is where the grade was placed on my academic record. In fact this was a year long subject so I was actually studying two arts subjects in the first semester of 1986 along with working in a hospital etc etc. I must have been mad.

Although in the government department by coding, this subject originated in external studies and the lecturer is identified as from external studies rather than from the government department. The course materials were extensive, comprising 26 lectures and augmented by bibliographies and course readings. I also bought seven of the recommended texts, which were noted to be essential minimal reading, and some of which I have still to get around to. After introductory lectures on ideology and politics, the lecturer covered Liberalism, Conservatism, Democracy. Socialism, Marxism and Nationalism.

The lecturer was Dr Neil Thornton. I can find little trace of him on the net. I found an article from 1986 on “The Politics of Pornography.” It also appears he was Sigrid Thornton’s father. Other than that I can find nothing biographical about the lecturer, the absence of which implies either retirement many years ago or death before the internet tracked our lives.

Looking at my written work there was the problem that English and Government had differing citation styles. Government was old fashioned and similar to that required in Medicine at the time.  English was MLA and therefore sensible but with a learning curve.

The Introduction mentions a weekend seminar, which I was not able to attend and something about country visits. I don’t think he got to Bundaberg, but the thought of lecturers travelling to meet their external students does seem like something from another universe.

I have no recollection of why I chose this subject other than it looked interesting. My father was involved in union and Labor party politics, but I never, unlike my wife, studied anything specific to Australian politics. I suspect this was the start of my study in religion, about which more anon.

Halley’s comet had come and gone, my wife was 32 weeks pregnant, I think I should have been at work, but no, in June 1986, I was doing an introductory English Literature examination worth 50% of the course mark.

Barbara Garlick had given us extensive notes on the form of the exam and a sample paper. I suspect she had grave fears that as we were both first year Arts students and well dispersed in a pre-internet world, we external students needed all the help we could get.

We were allowed to keep the paper that has my notes made during the ten minute perusal. From these scratchings it looks to me that for the poetry section, I selected Milton’s sonnet “On the Late Massacre in Piedmont” and Owen’s “Anthem for Doomed Youth” to compare. For plays it was comparing the final scenes of “The Importance of Being Earnest” and “Saint Joan.” For prose writing there was a question that allowed me to comment on specified images from novels and short stories.  Given the option to discuss the cathedral in “The Spire” and snow in “The Dead”, it appears I took the opportunity to regurgitate some of my second assignment.

I must have done OK as I got a good mark for the subject, although as was customary, I got no specific feedback on the exam itself.

Reviewing the course materials, I’m taken by the depth of provided bibliographies, although how anyone would have had time to take advantage of the assistance is beyond me.

I’m up to May 1986, still before children, still working long hours at Bundaberg hospital (pre Dr Patel) and apparently I was spending my spare hours reading novels and short stories from the EN104 reading list. Bundaberg was dragging, as we had gone to every half decent restaurant enough times to be blasé and I was doing the same job as the previous two years. On the plus side we had moved out of the hospital flats and were renting a nice house on the other side of town. My wife was pregnant with our first child and she was finishing work about this time I think and the second assignment is better typed, so I strongly suspect I did not type this assignment. I found what looks like an attempt at a full hand written version that was probably the manuscript for her labours.

In a delightful turn around, a daughter nowhere near born in 1986 was kind enough to retype her mother’s typing into Word for me.

I recall being most impressed with “The Spire” but have little recollection of Joyce’s short story.

The assignment was:

Modern theories of narrative have placed stress on the elements of repetition and pattern in fiction. Choose two pieces of fiction studied this semester and show how repetition is used and how it builds the pattern of the work.

The Spire and The Dead

I was rightly chipped for appalling referencing and can only assume I forgot to indicate the pages of the quotes or had yet to master MLA style, but I was pleased to have it labelled excellent apart from that. As further evidence of the hard work going on in this first year subject we were sent a copy of a really good essay with which to compare our own. I can guarantee that in a lot of study since, I have seen very little to match the thoroughness of this initial Arts subject. I certainly don’t recall that sort of interest in those running the medical course at the time.

I’ve recently seen the Spire at Salisbury Cathedral that inspired the book. It certainly looks a risk.