U.S. Intellectual History Blog

A USIH (and S-USIH) Welcome to Lora Burnett!

Image from Library of Congress

This is just a quick announcement to welcome the latest addition to the U.S. Intellectual History Blog: Lora Burnett!  Lora is a PhD student in the History of Ideas program at the University of Texas at Dallas.  She’ll be joining the blog as our regular weekend blogger.  For the past year, Lora has been a frequent commenter on this blog, posting under the initials LD. 

Lora is also joining Tim Lacy and myself as the third member of the Society for U.S. Intellectual History’s Publications Committee which, among other things, is responsible for this blog.

Welcome to the blog and PubComm, Lora!  We look forward to your contributions!

(Finally, as promised last week, and no doubt breathlessly awaited by our vast readership:  my book ms word count for the previous week.  I’m afraid it’s a not very magnificent 200 words. I could blame THATCamp AHA, a weekend of solo parenting, and various other commitments.  I could also plead that I did a lot of other book-related work last week. But a book doesn’t write itself and, at least last week, I didn’t write it much either. I hope to have a more impressive number for y’all next week.)

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  1. As they say, everything old is new again.

    Thanks for the welcome, and thanks to you and all the other regulars and readers of USIH for putting up with the pseudonymous pontifications of “LD.”

    Now that I’m signing my name, I’m really going to need to shape up. So, no more swearing on the internet; it’s just damn unprofessional.

  2. Welcome to the blog, Lora. I look forward to reading your posts.

    And, Ben, I like your ms word-posting idea. For last week, I have done even less than you: 0 words. I am trying to “clear my plate,” by turning in revisions on an article that I promised by January 1. While this might qualify as a “good reason,” it fits in with my worst pattern of not getting work done: I have a tendency to not do serious work on the book until I’ve been able to take care of every single task that sits before me. In my mind, I feel like this is prioritizing the book by finding long stretches of quality time for it. But in reality, there are always more tasks of various sizes, and this pattern means that I never get to the ms.

    I have a hard time keeping my priorities straight and always have to remind myself that if on January 1, 2013 (my deadline with the editor), I don’t have the book done, I am not going to think how happy I am that I was right on top of my grading, kept my bills paid, or even got that article done. I need to be more ruthless in doing other things quickly (and, perhaps, poorly) or even not at all.

    On that note, I’ve spent ten minutes reading this post and writing this comment. That’s all the time I should commit to it. Now I have to prepare for the S-USIH Executive Committee meeting…or do I?

    Mike

  3. Varad: yes, I will take this opportunity to extend my public apologies for assuming that she was male. I’ve already made my private apologies. I think it is a worthwhile question why I assumed she was a man. Right now, I’m leaning towards internalized misogyny/expectations of style of discourse.

    I’m very glad she’s joining the blogging group and the publications committee.

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