Balancing Teaching, Research, and Writing (Dr. Karen Robbins)

Hi everyone. Professor Marinari has asked me to contribute to this blog, telling you about my recent experiences professionally. As many of you know, it is one of our goals as your professors to help our disciplines further themselves, and that is generally translated as doing publishing of articles and books in reputable presses. Our department is very active in this area, and I am currently trying to publish a book I’ve been working on for a long time, as well as start a new book length project. Unless one is an established, well-published scholar, it can take time to find a good press to accept one’s work.

Recently, my publishing life seems to be on the upswing. The University of Georgia Press is considering my book. A good press sends one’s manuscript to anonymous, scholarly readers, which they have done. One reader suggested changes, most of which I have made, and the press has now sent it back to her/him for their reaction. Keep your fingers crossed for me. I am turning blue from holding my breath. It does happen that publishers reject a book and then the author needs to try another press.

History at the movies (Dr. Karen Robbins)

Last Friday, my husband and I wound up going, unplanned, to see the new movie "Contagion." It is fairly clinical, and shows the audience how science (and society) might respond to a new major epidemic, but there were interesting references back to the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 as well as smallpox. It serves as a reminder that, no matter how technologically advanced we become, we remain at the mercy of things we cannot see. Still, our only way of fighting these things is through reason - and luck.