an academic interlude

So the reason I haven't been posting is that I'm at MESA--the Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting--in Washington, D.C. It's my first MESA and I am having a fine time--reunions with old friends working in DC, half my Oxford MEC posse at the conference, and my Oxford housemate SH, who was here for the simultaneous African Studies Association meeting. I delivered a paper at a graduate pre-conference in Turkish Studies, and was blown away by the interest shown in my work, the helpful comments and requests for drafts, and the completely unexpected fact it won a paper prize (a gorgeous book on Sinan's architecture). Between that, the fascinating panels and discussions I've been attending, both at the pre-conference and MESA itself (will write more later about today's especially good roundtable on "Publics in Crisis: Activism and Academia in Middle East Studies"), the general atmosphere of geeky carnivalesque camaraderie, and the dangerously tempting book fair, I am finding myself more than a little bit drawn back towards the academic sphere. My plans to publish the thesis project in some form or other have definitely been reinvigorated. An annoying aspect of the Oxford M.Phil program is that we don't get comments on our theses, only a numerical grade. So although the thesis did well, this is the first time I've really gotten to hear what people in the field (aside from my own teachers) think of it, and was both suprised and really inspired by the warm response. At the time it felt like I was writing into a vacuum, and it's very exciting to feel that I'm finally engaging with a wider audience.