March, 2023 Research Update

Amici!  It is now April!

March was a very busy month!  I was scheduled to give three invited talks, as I mentioned last month.  The first two, at the University of Maryland and iDiv happened as planned, where the last one at Tel Aviv University did not due to the political unrest there (it was cancelled when the university joined the general strike).  Obnoxiously that means it was cancelled late enough that I put in the time to write the paper and such.  My hope is that we can reschedule me to at least deliver it via Zoom at a later date.

The other unexpected draw on my time was that I was asked by an editor at the New York Times to write an essay on the decline of the humanities/liberal arts in higher education.  That ended up being more time-involved than I expected, since the Times has a pretty involved editorial process.  Nevertheless that article is planned to appear online on April 2 (but probably not in the print edition), so I am excited to see my writing in the Paper of Record.  It's a big platform in which to try to make the case for the humanities.

I've also been wrapping up the last few of my podcast commitments made when I thought I wouldn't be teaching this semester, in particular appearances with the Prancing Pony Podcast as they move through the chapters on the Siege of Gondor and the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.  I have bits in episodes 281-283 and should reappear in episodes 288-291 when they come out in the next few weeks.

I also put in an appearance on Three Moves Ahead talking about imperialism, snowballing and the latest Victoria III patch.  I'll probably be back on 3MA later this month to talk about the recently released The Great War: Western Front so keep an eye out for that too.

In the meantime I am continuing to push on the book, though as you may imagine with teaching and all of the talks and such above I did not get very far.  Chapter 4 (Gallic military equipment) has been the focus and it is a bit short of halfway done, so we're not quite off schedule but I had hoped to make more progress.  Fortunately, we're also reaching the end of the semester: my students take their final on May 2 and I have no additional talks or such to get in the way.  My hope then is still that I can get chapter 4 finished by the end of April, leaving May and June to lock down Chapter 10 (Roman military equipment) and hit my schedule target.  My better half and I are laying plans on how we'll try to protect my writing time from our new arrival, set to join us in May; fortunately my wife has several months of leave (but of course I have no intention of having her fend for those months alone).

In terms of plans for next year, I have a full teaching load (on an adjunct, pay-per-course basis) scheduled at NCSU in the fall.  There's also the possibility of a post-doc at UNC or a position managing the Ancient World Mapping Center (also at UNC) in the mix.  The department at NCSU has found themselves in a bit of a pickle, with sudden retirements leaving them without a military historian in a school with a large ROTC program that requires a military history course for its cadets to commission.  My hope is thus to bargain for a permanent/long-term teaching post there (adjunct, not tenure line - the TT hiring process is different; I'd obviously take it if they offered, but they won't) at a reasonable teaching load.  With luck I can use the existence of options to lock down something that will make a good spot for the next couple of years at least while I finish the book and stay on the job market.

I have to admit, securing something that runs longer than a semester or a year is a big priority for me.  I know I try to always be at least a little upbeat and cheerful here, but those of you who follow me on Twitter may have gathered that this academic year and the last few months especially have been pretty trying on me.  Another year of 'close but no cigar' on the job market, plus the continual uncertainty of knowing what I am going to be doing in the near future, it wears one down - so at least getting some certainty out of one of these gigs would be helpful and allow me to be a bit more long-term in my planning and goals.

In terms of what is coming up on the blog, of course we have at least two most posts to go finishing out our look at the polis.  After that, we'll probably turn to look at some of the topics voted on by the ACOUP Senate (Roman Roads and Greek and Carthaginian colonization) and then as we get into the summer a series on the Roman Republic to match our series on the polis.  I expect I'll also probably write something about The Great War: Western Front, because I think its vision of trench warfare is surprisingly on target for a RTS game (but also not without flaws).

And that was the month!  Busy, for sure, but also fairly productive.  Do check out the Prancing Pony Podcast if you have even a passing interest in Tolkien, by the way - they are really well done fairly deep looks at the book, moving chapter by chapter in some depth.  Absolutely worth your time.

Until next month!