Quote:
Originally Posted by wiper
damn fine analogy.
what do you actually DO on a daily basis?
last couple projects you've worked on?
most/least favorite era?
do you wear a fedora?
During the semester, I spend most of time preparing classes, grading, and doing committee work (university bureaucracy). During the summers, Christmas break, and spring break, I do research and write. Basically I read over all kinds of primary sources from eighteenth-century France along with all kinds of books and articles written by current historians. I then write up my research in the form of books or articles to have them published.
I'm currently working on a project about the development of modern financial institutions at the end of the Old Regime in France (1770s and ‘80s) through the French Revolution. I’m analyzing the ways in which the development of modern financial institutions intersected with the rise of modern political culture. So for example, one of the things I consider is the way in which publicly traded debt securities led to a more democratic political ideology which challenged absolutist political ideology leading into the French Revolution.
Eighteenth-century France is obviously my favorite topic. I LOVE teaching the French Revolution and Napoleon class. Not sure I really have a least favorite. I guess it would have to be 19th-century Europe generally.
I do not wear a fedora. I don’t do the elbow patches or anything like that. I do know people who dress like that and it drives me nuts. I’m not pompous or a jackass. I’m the most down to earth guy you’ll ever meet. Most summers I spend the night grilling a steak, drinking beer (Bud Light), and watching a baseball game.