2011: I am on the Eurostar train, streaming from London to Paris in just over two hours. My friend, Padeen, is dozing on a seat nearby. I’ve been awarded a faculty grant to follow the itinerary of the medieval story of King Arthur’s Roman War, an intermingling of my interests in medieval literature and geography. Reading and topography is a nexus that can bring forth emotion, passion—thus the title of this blog: Passionate Geography. A landscape is replete with collective memories—it is a living portal to the past. And an experience of the living earth.

I teach at Marylhurst University, a small, non-elite liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon, a faculty position I’ve held for about 8 years. An Associate Professor of English (medieval lit, book history) and a self described provincial scholar, I live and work about as far away from the geography of medieval England as one can be.

Of course, when I decided to pursue a doctoral degree in medieval literature at age 38 with two young kids, there were, to put it politely, family skeptics. But here I am, just over the brink of 50, with a faculty position and a fellowship to follow the Roman War itinerary, a fictional journey in Sir Thomas Malory’s fifteenth century Arthurian epic, Le Morte Darthur (The Death of Arthur).

In Malory’s account, Arthur battles his way from London to Rome and back, a journey of approximately 3,500 miles.  It took Arthur and his men the better part of a year, but Padeen and I will drive and explore the route in somewhat less than a month. My older son is away for a wilderness skills camp at the Oregon coast and my younger son is at a one-month study abroad in Paris. Though a mom of teens, I’ll take the adventure.