One Year of Opapa Research

Reflections and Next Steps

January 22, 2024 marked the one year anniversary of Opapa Research! I was traveling last week and didn’t have time to post then, but I thought this would be a good opportunity to reflect on what I’ve learned during this year of research — and how I want to move forward.

One year ago, I was beginning my sabbatical in Florence, Italy. I wasn’t sure what I would do during the semester, and I had ideas for a few different research projects. One of those projects was to write about my grandfather. I have wanted to write about him for nearly 20 years — ever since he died in 2005 with an unfinished autobiography — but I wasn’t sure if it would be the right time. Also, I felt scared to begin: this research didn’t “fit” into my professional identity in a clear way: it wasn’t about the 18th century, and I wasn’t sure what my colleagues would think about it. It’s more personal than my previous historical research, and it felt vulnerable to embark.

I was unsure of what to do until I found my grandfather’s Diary from 1944. I began my first post on January 22, 2023 with a quotation from his diary. I still love it today. He wrote:

“I have started writing “big projects” before. That’s why I feel [a] little self-conscious to start again. Will I go on? Will it become something worth losing a little added sleep, or reading far? In the past I’ve stopped because 1) I felt too lazy; 2) wrote letters instead; 3) felt that there were more immediate things to be done.”

George Gerbner, Unpublished Diary, May 18, 1944

Opapa in either 1944 or 1945, around the time he wrote the diary entry above

I still don’t know what “big project” Opapa was talking about, but I resonated with the impulse: the desire to start a big project, and the insecurity and doubt that goes along with that vision. “Will I go on?” he asked himself. When you start a big project, you create the opportunity for failure: what if you don’t go on? What if you don’t finish? I was struggling with some of the same emotions as my grandfather was in 1944.

And then I started writing. And researching. And I loved it. I still love it — at points, I don’t want to do anything else.

So, what next?

This is where I feel conflicted. Or more precisely, I feel pulled in many directions. In September, my sabbatical ended and I had to go back to work: I didn’t teach in the fall, but I was running the College in the Schools Program for US History, organizing events for the Center for Premodern Studies, and editing the Journal for Early Modern History. I was also supervising graduate students and serving on various committees. And working on other research projects. But I still had enough time to post twice per week, and I enjoyed it.

This January, I started a new role at the University. In addition to being in the History department, I am now (as of January 11) the Director of Religious Studies, an exciting new appointment, but one that will be an adjustment. I also have other research projects — one on the history of Ethnic Studies in the 1970s, another about an 18th century Afro-Caribbean woman named Damma, who wrote one of the only surviving letters written in Gbe. I’m working collaboratively with Gbe linguists to translate her letter for the first time.

So the struggle now is how to balance all of this with Opapa Research. I have been brainstorming different ways to approach my posts — perhaps starting a series that spotlights specific sources or focuses on questions, rather than writing a full narrative post with an introduction and a tidy conclusion. Or perhaps I keep the same format, but write once a week instead of twice a week. I want to maintain my momentum, but also be realistic.

So my question is not “will I go on?” but rather: “how do I go on?” And on that note, I will end — as usual — with some “nuts to crack.” In this case, is an appeal for advice.

Nuts to crack:

• What other formats would be interesting to see on Opapa research? I’m thinking close-reading of sources; photographs; letters/articles.

• Can you imagine other ways I could post aside from the narrative “article”?