2016

I've kept this blog, on and off, since 2006. In 2015 I used it to chart daily encounters, images, thoughts and feelings about volcanic basalt/bluestone in Melbourne and Victoria, especially in the first part of the year. I plan to write a book provisionally titled Bluestone: An Emotional History, about human uses of and feelings for bluestone. But I am also working on quite a few other projects and a big grant application, especially now I am on research leave. I'm working mostly from home, then, for six months, and will need online sociability for company!


Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Starting again

It's the nature of blogs to go from feverish activity to inaction, and Humanities Researcher is no exception.

It's been a very busy year, but I am currently in the first week of six months research leave, so the time feels right to take the odd moment and reflect again on what I do.

The bluestone project is still ticking away in the background, but there are rather too many writerly commissions jostling for priority at the moment. I'm just going to list them here, to give myself a fright. These are all due sometime between now and the middle of next year.
  • co-authored essay on climate and emotion, medieval to early modern
  • essay on Chaucer's General Prologue
  • short essay on The Canterbury Tales
  • co-authored book on Chaucer
  • bluestone essay
  • co-authored essay on women as prisoners and brides in the middle ages
  • afterword to an essay collection on heritage culture and emotions
  • essay on face and emotions
  • write up big talk I just gave last week on 'Chaucer's silent discourse'
  • co-edit special issue of a journal
  • talk on medieval love for Romance Writers of Australia
  • talk on Hoccleve for CHE
  • talk at Yale
  • talk at Columbia University
  • co-convene conference at Columbi
  • big grant application
  • talk to Lyceum club
  • Bluestone book (not due, but I'd like to get cracking on it)
There might be more that I have not remembered, here, but that seems enough to be going on with.

It's just as well I have leave. So, no teaching; a vastly reduced administrative load; and, because our Centre's research offices are moving to another building and the room I'm going in to is still occupied by someone else, I'll shortly have no office on campus, so these will be quiet days at home with the books and computer, apart from three weeks in the US.

One of the best things about this leave is that it began with a big talk in London last week that was weighing on me for some time. It went well, so although there are lots of things to do, I don't think any of them is going to be so fuelled by adrenaline. Just lovely, steady work as winter turns into spring and summer.