[My sabbatical
this Fall has been hugely beneficial and just plain awesome in a number of
ways. So for this year’s installment of my annual
Thanksgiving series, I wanted to highlight a few of the things for which I’ve
been especially Thanks-full. Share your own Thanks in comments if you want!]
On three vital
things this sabbatical has given me.
1)
Book Promotion: I’ll highlight some specific
takeaways from a handful of the Fall’s
many awesome book talks in a series in a few weeks, so here I just wanted
to note the simple and crucial fact that I would never have been able to travel
to many (probably most) of these talks without the time and flexibility
provided by my sabbatical. Given how important I find such talks to promoting
and sharing a book, to helping it find audiences and readers as any of us who
write hope that our projects will, I would say that this is both one more way
in which I am very lucky
to have a tenured faculty position and something that we should be
advocating for for all our colleagues and peers. Publication is one scholarly and
professional goal and deserves its own support of course; but promotion beyond
publication is another and an equally important goal, a fact of which I’ve
become more and more aware over the years and which this fortunate Fall has
very much driven home.
2)
Future Plans: For one of those talks in
particular, for the Southgate
Women’s Circle Breakfast, I shared not We
the People but the first public talk on my proposed next project: Of Thee I Sing: The History of American
Patriotisms. That proposal remains in progress (you’ll be among the first
to know if and when it moves forward, of course!), but I’m very excited to have
had the chance this Fall to start thinking about that next project, one that I
hope can land with the same wonderful Rowman and
Littlefield American Ways series in which We the People appeared. I think it’s fair to say that when we’re
teaching a 4-4 load (or more), much of our ability to think and plan is
dedicated to that present pedagogical work, and rightly so. So I’m very
thankful to have had some time this Fall to think about what comes next, not
only in terms of this scholarly project, but for other ongoing aspects of my
work as well, including for NeMLA, the Scholars
Strategy Network’s Boston Chapter,
and more.
3)
Vital Perspective: To be honest, though, my
central focus this Fall has been on none of those professional efforts. For
whatever reason—perhaps the fact that my sons are both at the same middle
school now, in 8th and 7th grade; perhaps my summer move
back to the town where I lived when they were babies—I spent much of the Fall
thinking about the dwindling number of autumns we have together before they’re
on to all that’s next. Fortunately, my sabbatical also gave me the perfect
response to such thoughts: I’ve been able to get the boys from school just
about every afternoon (when I’m not traveling, anyway), and to have so many of these
precious afternoons with them during the weeks when they’re at their Mom’s as
well as during our scheduled weeks together. I don’t want to speak for them,
but I hope and believe that they’ll remember this time as they grow older—and I
know I will remember and treasure it, and am beyond thankful to have had these
afternoons.
November recap
this weekend,
Ben
PS. What are you
all thankful for? I’m also very thankful for you as readers, conversation
partners, and colleagues in AmericanStudying!
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