PCCBS and San Diego

I am back from San Diego and the annual meeting of the Pacific Coast Conference on British Studies.  The location was pleasant and the conference went very well.  The panels I attended were interesting and I think UCSB made a good showing.  I have already passed my thanks to Abe Stoll and David Como for chairing and commenting (respectively) on our panel.

I unfortunately do not have much else to report.  I haven’t been able to get much work done, and I will likely be working on fellowship and TA applications for the next few days.  As my girlfriend has said, I can’t wait until I don’t have to reapply for my job every year.  In my case, especially since I am more or less certain I will not receive a TAship in my department, the prospect is even less enjoyable.

I recently became an American Friend of the IHR and purchased a subscription to the premium content on British History Online.   While I would prefer to have it for free, I will say that it is very useful and far less expensive than many other options for accessing these materials (and more portable).  As well, I take solace in the fact that it does go to supporting further digitization projects.  Since I am now facing the prospect of working at a university without significant research resources within the next year or two (if I am very lucky), I am more appreciative of the BHO service than I was a year or two ago.  As an occasional employee of the English Broadside Ballad Archive project here at UCSB, I do understand that these digitization projects can be rather expensive and I am happy to support in some way the employment of other poor graduate students in similar positions to me.  Like most people, I am capable of sympathizing with myself and with people like myself.

Anyway, my girlfriend’s cousin is coming into town this evening, and I need to help clean or cook or carry out some other household task.

Forecast is sunny and warm

I am back in comfortable Santa Barbara, CA now.  It is nice to go outside without a scarf.  I should do a long update after having been gone so long, but I am afraid I do not have the time just yet.  I am presenting at PCCBS this weekend and I need to finish up the paper.  It’s mostly done, but it isn’t very polished, and I think it might be a bit confusing.  Work, work, work.

It’s taken from a paper I wrote last year that I will be turning into a chapter of my dissertation.  I am looking at the publication of accounts of Charles I’s trial, and Mabbott’s role in disseminating them.  In doing so, I look at Mabbott’s relationship with two other major newsbook editors: Samuel Pecke and Henry Walker.  I find that Mabbott used his (and the army’s) relationship with Pecke to facilitate the dissemination of the version of the trial published in the Moderate.  The version in the Moderate was in turn extracted from the separate published as the Narrative.  To make a long story short, the New Model organized the publication of that account of the trial, using Mabbott and his connections in London to facilitate it.  At the same time, Mabbott’s rivalry with Walker allowed/forced Walker to publish his own account of the trial, the Notes.  Thus, the episode shows an odd mix of personal, official, and public in the production of the news.  That could be interesting, right?

My work lately has been indicating the extreme importance of Mabbott’s personal relationships throughout his careers (licenser, agent, lobbyist, embezzler, etc.) which grew as government continued to professionalize, and I will probably have more to say on that in the future.  Being a parliamentary clerk opened a lot of doors for him.

I have also found out that Mabbott was a bit of a rake, though a very energetic one.  But I digress.