What Happens Now?

On my last day in Stirling, I checked out early and dragged myself to the old bridge to watch the imposing Firth of Forth dissect the landscape into the future and the past: to its South ran the train lines that would take me to Edinburgh, kick-starting a 12-hour journey back to Nürnberg through Berlin; on its other side nestled the university, framed by the towering Wallace Monument and the Ochi Hills, the Scottish highlands further beyond, from where I just came out of a 3-day conference organised by the British Association for Contemporary Literary Studies (BACLS). After uncharacteristically sunny weather, the day had finally turned a more familiar grey, and between the overcast and the gaping hole vacated by the intense intellectual intimacy fostered over a period of time, I returned to myself, allowing the theme of the conference, “What Happens Now?,” to percolate in my head. I am thinking of the 1967 film, The Graduate, where a torrid love affair between Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman), Elaine Robinson (Katharine Ross), and Elaine’s mother, Mrs Robinson (Anne Bancroft) culminates in a kinetic closing scene at the church, as Benjamin arrives to break up Elaine’s marriage to one Carl Smith (Brian Avery). Benjamin’s reckless gesture of love succeeds. Benjamin and Elaine fight off dissenting wedding guests and escape onto a bus, with Elaine still in her wedding gown. But as the bus drives on, their expressions turn from ecstatic to blank – “what do we do now?” – and the screen fades to black.