Today is the last day of the first week of my research leave, and my last opportunity to begin something that I promised I would do, namely to resurrect this blog with weekly posts for the duration of my time out of teaching. I have no idea what I’ll be writing about, but I do know two things: first, that a similar practice helped me during my PhD; and, second, that I intend to write somewhat uncritically, with vague ideas, long sentences and insufficient editing. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Vague ideas, long sentences and insufficient editing are things that I will be doing my hardest to eliminate from everything else I’ll be producing over the next few months, so it feels only right to give them a place here. The other thing that this post, as the first of my leave, should do is to lay down my plans for this period. We can then return to the following list in a later post and both see how I’m getting on and relieve myself of the obligation of thinking up a more interesting topic to write about.
Without further ado, therefore, I intend to do the following three things on my research leave:
- Submit the manuscript of my book.
- Submit a funding bid to the AHRC.
- Submit an article to a journal.
That’s a lot of submissions, and each item has a host of smaller tasks within it, some of which I see clearly and some of which I do not. My book, for instance, is currently occupying me, and so I can list here the immediate, little tasks (rephrase the opening of a paragraph in the introduction, polish the segue from talking about Descartes to talking about Hume, define precisely the utility of Hume’s theories to my own, rejig the book overview to emphasis Garrick’s centrality to my examples, etc.) to the slightly more distant ones (footnote the introduction and last chapter, detach the last section of the last chapter in order to serve as a conclusion, etc.), and, finally, the larger work that is only now peeking over the horizon (reread everything, format as a book, check every footnote, etc.).
Listing about the work that awaits me is hardly an interesting way to begin these posts, so let me finish with a different idea. After dusting, hoovering and reorganizing my office at the start of this week, I sat down to write feeling like I was living in another dimension. Around me, the university’s teaching term was beginning, I could hear people rushing up and down the corridor and when I stepped outside my (locked and blacked-out) door there were students and staff everywhere. Yet all these people had absolutely nothing to do with me and I had nothing to do with them. On Thursday I had an awkward lunch with colleagues in the staff room, all of whom were talking of their classes. On Friday I got to 5pm without speaking to another person. It’s like being a ghost.
Or maybe ‘spirit’ is the better word: I’m living for this term the kind of existence that many academics, myself included, dream of. I can read what I want, write without interruption, and finally finally free myself from the ceaseless demands of the university. As such, it’s no wonder that I feel a little separate, it’s as if to interact too much would risk tainting that dream.
And there’s a nice vague thought to end on.