My research leave ended on 16th June, and so my last proper research post was that published on the 9th. This post, and perhaps one other, however, occupy a kind of grey zone, because – although my leave is definitely and officially over – I am kind of carrying on as I was before: there is no teaching for me to do at this time of year, and no administrative duties to take up (for now). So my leave ended ambiguously and, in a certain way, still goes on.

On the topic of things going on, I sent off a book proposal based on the workshops I talked about in my last post. I also began the work of turning the materials that made a chapter in my thesis into a much neater and sharper journal argument. As I wait to hear back about the book proposal, and the book manuscript I submitted almost three months ago now, this article will keep me busy enough.

With regard to the more general theme of this post, I was wondering if ambiguous endings is a rather typical thing in academice. I wrote about the ambiguous ending of my PhD, and now it seems that the first sustained period of research that I have had since the award of the doctorate is similarly fading away rather than blazing out. Maybe this is typical, something to do with the rhythms of academic research and how their form is dependent on so many other factors not necessarily under our control; maybe it’s just me.