Via jill/txt comes a link to “Sifry’s Alerts” on the “State of the Blogosphere,” which is based on technorati statistics, which is where David Sifry works. Some potentially interesting stuff for both my teaching in the winter term (and beyond), and also my scholarly endeavors.
Speaking of which: A big public thanks to the folks who gave me some valuable input and support on my recent “last minute” sabbatical proposal– my wife, Linda AK, Steve B, Bill HD… I think that’s all of ’em. I feel pretty good about the proposal I put together, though the creative writer part of me that believes it is both bad luck and tacky to talk about work not yet done is a little reluctant to start posting about it here in too much detail. All I will say for now is that, if nothing else, it was a good feeling to start thinking again in terms of scholarly work, I have a pretty good idea for at least one essay and one conference presentation, and, if I actually follow through on all this (and I think I will), I do think I might have a good book idea.
As for the sabbatical: well, it’s a long-shot, I think. One of the great ironies of things like sabbaticals nowadays at EMU (and I think this is true just about everywhere, frankly) is, because the competition for fewer and fewer sabbaticals is keen, you basically need to have a book contract in hand to win the award. And, obviously, if you already managed to put together a project that merited a book contract without release time before, then you probably really don’t need it now. In effect, sabbaticals are not about granting release to do promising and future research and scholarship; rather, they are a “reward” for a job (already) well done.
But like I said, it has been self-motivating if nothing else, and that’s a good thing. And who knows? Maybe I’ll get lucky.
Good luck! Crossin’ my fingers for the proposal. But I definitely think you should forge ahead no matter what. Looking forward to seeing some chapters.
Also, given the nature of the project, I don’t think it would be out of bounds to publish bits of the work in progress as a series here on the ol’ Official Blog…
-Bill H-D