The very interesting medievalist Jeffrey Jerome Cohen has a good post on overcommitment… It’s easy to say ‘no’ when the invitations are unexciting; much harder when they are interesting opportunities. The ‘problem’ is I nearly always get asked to do interesting things. But as I discovered when I started the research fellowship, it really does take a while of not committing to things before the diary really does clear out in order to concentrate on a single project.

Cohen’s post also has a terrific list of things he has agreed to do, and will no doubt succeed in doing…

I have in the next twelve months committed myself to compose essays on Chaucer’s (literally) rocky relation to Geoffrey of Monmouth; the sexuality possessed by medieval stones, especially diamonds; the publishable version of my York 1190 plenary [The Future of the Jews of York]; an abecedarium for the New Critical Modes issue of postmedieval; an introduction for a collection of essays on beheading; an afterword for a volume on monsters and monstrousness; a blurb for a new book on women and medieval disability; some lectures for a residency I’m doing at the University of Iowa; and piece on medieval race for a new critical theory handbook. A little further ahead, I’m co-editing another issue of postmedieval, this one on ecomaterialism. I also need to finish my book on medieval stone…

It makes last year, when I published on Kant, Sloterdijk, Beowulf, the war on terror, and Lefebvre seem pretty narrow in focus…