My milieu work took longer tban expected. When about completed, I received notification that my paper proposal for ESSHA had been accepted. It was, however, one of two accepted papers that the organizers had placed within an already-prepared prepared pair of sessions created by a team working on progressive politics in the first half of the 19th century. I was contacted by the panel organizers and asked if I could make my paper fit with these. I thought about it a week and decided that I could make adjustments. I underestimated the extent of these.
I based my decision on the expectation that I could make a quick return to Oldenburg in the fall. The tickets were purchased, files were ordered up. Come August, my left knee began regularly collapsing when I walked. When questioned about whether it would hold up in Germany, I decided that perhaps it would not and cancelled my tickets. I felt confident that I could make good the archival deficit. Ten weeks on, I am not confident that i can achieve what I set out to do.
I began my reoriented paper trying out a series of hypotheses. Sadly, they do not seem to have worked out. I will discuss these in my next post.
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