Hello, again.

Since I wrapped up Breaking ABD in October 2020, a fair bit has happened. Indeed, a fair bit was already happening over the couple months between defending and filing my dissertation and my final post. I’ve had to scan over those final few posts to remind myself where I left things. A bit of auto-archival research, if you will.

In a post published May 13th, I shared my plans for at least 2020–21: I would be a post-doc at the University of Chicago, teaching a few classes while continuing my research and writing. Not a bad gig by any means. Although, I wrote at the time that I did feel some disappointment at not having secured a permanent academic position.

Plans changed over the summer. At the end of June I was invited to interview for a four-year teaching position at Cambridge. This was quite a surprise, as this search (and others) had been frozen on account of then-current events. With the search reopened, I was short-listed, interviewed two weeks later, and then offered the position a couple hours after that. Since my post-doc at Chicago was for only two years, the four-year Cambridge position offered a bit more medium-term security, which mattered quite a lot in summer of 2020. The powers-that-be at Chicago were graciously understanding, I accepted the position, and (given the short turnaround time and global chaos) all parties agreed for me to teach at Chicago in the fall and then start at Cambridge in January. We left Chicago on December 31 and arrived in the UK on New Year’s Day 2021. Which is where we’ve been, more or less, ever since.

As a result, Breaking ABD has been out-of-date since before I even finished. I suppose I didn’t feel like doing a “What Next? Part II” post, especially since some of the core sentiments of that post still held. I’ve long mulled a post to bring readers up-to-date. The piling up of potential topics to write about has only made that harder: navigating the Cambridge collegiate system—supervisions, directing studies, gown-clad formal halls, and all—tripos reform, gobbets, double-marking, marking boycott, etc. (I swear those are all real things.) There was another baby too. (“Was,” as he’s now a rather more autonomous and adventurous two-year-old.)

There’s no shortage of things to say about Cambridge, both centuries-old features I’ve had to adapt to, and some things that have changed fairly dramatically just since I’ve been here. There are many more people who have contributed to my intellectual and professional development to whom thanks are owed. Joys and indignities of living in a (different) foreign country. So much that has been new.

And so much that has stayed the same. My sojourn at Cambridge was never likely to resolve the indeterminacy with which I ended Breaking ABD. As I anticipated then, I was still in a short-term post, trying to secure permanent employment, unsure if or when that would come. That, as much as anything, is why I never came back for an update, I think.

Now, though, the claw has moved. This summer, we’ll be moving back to the U.S., where I’ll be starting as an Assistant Professor at Illinois State University in the fall. It’s a permanent position in a department with lots of students, a great group of colleagues, and opportunities for me to develop my research, teaching, and service in new directions. We’ll be close to family and also Chicago, which retains a hold on us. In a real sense, life is entering a very different phase, where it may well be the case that we never have to move unless we choose to.

That’s difficult to grasp. After all, I’ve been applying for jobs since fall of 2018, before my daughter was born. She’s now reading and writing. There’s nothing particularly unusual about that. It’s all in the life—past, present, and future—of a dissertation-writer.

It will take me a long time to unpack how my professional choices and trajectory have shaped my life. As I’ve indicated throughout the blog (not to mention things I’ve left out), PhD life has intersected, overlapped, and sometimes conflicted with so much of the rest of life. [The two-year-old is momentarily entertaining himself with cars, so we’re OK for now.] I’ve always imagined that a bit more stability and security would be of benefit both professionally and personally. I guess now is the time to find out.

This fall, it will be thirteen years since I started grad school. I’ve spent a lot of time and energy in that period waiting to “find out.” Looking back, though, I’m not just glad that things have taken a series of turns for the professionally better. I’m also really happy for the ways—some big, some small—I’ve managed to build a life not entirely predicated on an uncertain future. The family, the friends, the fun times that would have mattered even if the PhD hadn’t worked out the way I’d hoped.

Looking ahead [this sentence has been interrupted by a demand to read Milly the Meerkat], I’m more mindful than ever that the resolution of Breaking ABD is really the beginning of a new journey. What happens along the way from here is no less certain than having gotten where I am now. And somehow that makes it all the more worthwhile.

I’ve now completed the Breaking ABD update I always figured I should write. I can’t say if it will be the last. Either way, I hope you’ll remember that this blog has always been a work-in progress, a partial representation of a life half-lived, so far. [We’ve moved on to The Gruffalo, and the five-year-old has endeavored, unsuccessfully, to assert exclusive occupancy of the kitchen and dining area.] You’re very welcome to look me up on Google or shoot me an email if you ever wonder where I’m at. And who knows? Maybe down the road I’ll have the impetus and occasion to return in some tomorrow to write a post-script to today.