Alas! The holiday weekend has come to an end; the fall semester is upon us. But cheer up! We aim to lift your spirits and facilitate your continued productivity with a new installment of our occasional advice column, "Ms. Peppercorn Considers."* Enjoy!
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This post began with a prompt from an author who has just finished a (superb) book manuscript (now out for review at an eminent press). It occurred to Ms. Peppercorn that legal historians, like other mortals, may find themselves wrestling with basic questions about the meaning of life, such as “how the hell will I ever come up with a second book project?” Such nagging questions try our souls. There are so many excuses NOT to do a second book, and so much other work that lands on the shoulders of the newly published.
Nonetheless, we persevere. And some people out there recognize how hard it is to overcome commitment anxiety, fear of a whole new subject (or of just duplicating the first book), or even the notion that one should quit while ahead. For example, the William and Mary Quarterly and the Early Modern Studies Institute together sponsor an annual workshop geared toward mid-career scholars who work in early modern history. Last year’s conference, on legal history, saw fine work from a variety of perspectives (although it was notable that none of the papers was written by a scholar based in a law school).
And yet one hopes there’s more to be said than “Put your nose to the grindstone” and “grab lifelines where you find them.” To generate other ideas, we turned the tables on the author whose predicament prompted these musings and asked, ‘How does it feel to be without the ball and chain that filled your time for the past several years? And how are you thinking about whether and when to put on the yoke again?’ Read on for our conversation with the (pseudonymous) Professor Peregrina.
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