So, OK, two evenings ago I sent the final proofs of Problems and Possibilities of Early Medieval Charters off to the publishers along with the index, and that was only the most urgent thing of about twenty I still have to do, but one of those is certainly to deliver the promised news that the last three posts haven’t contained. So, the quick way seems best: when the book comes out, my affiliation in it will be University of Birmingham, because it is they who have kindly taken me on as a Lecturer in Medieval History for the next little while. So that’s the big news: Jarrett finally leaves the Golden Triangle, and not before time. Everyone I’ve had dealings with in the department so far has been really nice and I’m looking forward to it, though just now I’m mainly looking forward to the move being over.
Aerial view of Edgbaston campus, Birmingham University
I will not conceal that for quite a lot of this year I’ve been fairly sure I was going to have to leave the profession at the end of this month, and indeed I’d started applying for non-academic jobs and had even been interviewed for one when this came up. Many of you who know me will have heard my various spiels about what seems to be happening here, but I will keep them out of this post. I have stub posts written about some of these issues, and given how backlogged I am, whether or not I reach them before I am back on the market is somewhat uncertain. [Edit: This post initially went on to advertise various publications that had since come out, but they have now all had their details reposted at the right place in the backlog, so search for “Name in” in quotes and you should catch them all if you care!]
A Corner of Tenth-Century Europe 
Congratulations!
Ditto congratulations. I hope it is the beginning of a long and fruitful career in academia.
Well, I hope the job I’m leaving was the beginning, but yes, so far I’m not stopping!Thankyou!
I’ll add my congratulations as well on your new position. I very much enjoyed your article in Literature Compass. I’ll need to take a closer look at it and some of the other essays in that issue.
Me too, actually, but thankfully it is also available at the new place (which it wasn’t at Cambridge…). Thanks for kind words also!
Huzzah! Lucky old Brummies! Won’t be quite the same visiting the dreaming spires now – a pint or four (!) with you having become part of the ritual – but it’s all to the good. Probably my liver thanks you too. ;p
We only managed that twice, it’s not a tradition till the third time. That just means there is still time for new traditions, though!
Twice *this year*; OK, maybe not 4 pints the second time… And then there was the infamous whisky occasion… (But now I’m just showing off. ;p)
Anyway, new traditions are great too, while slightly oxymoronic.
Stet.
Ah, well, while I can’t match the Queen’s wine cellars, I can more or less match their whisky selection, so you need not necessarily have escaped that!
Very good news – congratulations.
I’ve been hoping to hear these news! Congrats!
Great news about Birmingham–congratulations! Be sure to get to know Simon Yarrow. He’s been over here as a Fellow at the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute for the past few years & has been good to get to know. His research is some good stuff too.
Thanks for the shout-out to my review; it’s a great volume, not least because of your contribution.
I have met Simon before, indeed, but should have many chances to renew the acquaintance now!
Not sure moving to my neck of the academic woods is worthy of congratulations or commiserations, but I’ll go for the former. It does mean Problems and Possibilities is going to give far more credit than Birmingham may deserve though…
They were the people who were interested in *taking* the credit, though…
Congratulations on your new job!
excellent news and well deserved, even though, let’s face it, after meeting you for the first time, I cycled head first into a tree. Some say I was under the influence, but part of me thinks it may have been your influence ;)
I can safely say, Steve, that whatever my influence may be you’re the only person who’s ever had that reaction to me, I think the burden of disproof rests with you still :-)
Congratulations on the job – very glad to here you won’t be leaving academic life. I hope you won’t be too rushed off your feet teaching yet more new courses and get some time for blogging.
The teaching load is fairly manageable, in fact, so far the difficulty has been getting Internet at home! Once that’s sorted, just watch me…
Well done and good luck at Birmingham. Also congrats on the publications.
Excellent news! warmest congratulations.
Belated congratulations on Birmingham !
Congrats from me as well.
Thankyou all, and sorry for my slow acknowledgement; when one’s only Internet access is in the office of a new job, the blog has to come some way down the list alas!
Excellent news! I can think of only a handful of people who I deem as deserving an academic post as you are and it would be criminal not to have it happen on a permanent basis.
Birmingham, excellent. I have been absent here and am shocked to discover that even you were considering leaving. Nobody is more deserving than you and Birmingham is lucky.
Oh, lots of people are at least as deserving than me, that’s the whole problem. Lots of cooks and a very limited kitchen! People are playing safe, and I have five years in museums and am ten years older than most other applicants, work on Spain not England and didn’t get a first-class degree. None of this, of course, should matter, but in a field so over-populated with qualified people I can’t see how it doesn’t. But I am enjoying Birmingham so far and everybody seems glad I’m here!
Huzzah! I’m very happy for you! Just look out for that Morris Zapp fellow (though I’m not sure Philip Swallow is any better in the end). And if you don’t get these references, then David Lodge’s _Changing Places_ is required reading for you next chance you get for leisure reading.
I only know what you’re talking about because my girlfriend was lately reading the series, but I do more or less know now. I plan to find a third way :-)
Congratulations on such a lot of wonderful news, Jonathan! Does firm employment mean we’ll be seeing you stateside this May at the ‘zoo?
Aha, well possibly, though if so only as guest not presenter; at the submission deadline I had no idea where I was going to be by now. But my teaching will be over by then so it is technically, and maybe even financially, feasible…
Congratulations, and good luck!
Oooh – Just saw ‘Problems and Possibilities’ announced by Brepols on Twitter! Link here. Congrats!
Yes, we were told it’s out a few days ago, but this appears to mean that copies exist at the printers’; I’ve been waiting till I actually have one I can hold (and photograph) before making an official announcement. In fact I have three book chapters in this state right now! But I admit that that book is two of them…
Did get excited on returning home yesterday to find a parcel such as might hold books waiting. Unfortunately it appears it was my wife buying Christmas presents early…
not to comment on the cover of the name — are these available in any months ahead in Toronto through College ordering? when anyone finds out.
The contacts I have in Toronto are all too lowly to do much about that, I fear you’ll have to take local measures! Get them to order several copies :-)
Off topic but have you heard about this and what is being done about it?
http://voices.yahoo.com/construction-crew-bulldozes-century-old-mayan-pyramid-12154466.html?cat=37
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Glad you are still in, and belated congratulations !!!! I am on the market too, in the steppes if necessary, and interviewing alt-ac too, so we are twins, but you are ahead.
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