Thread by @byzantineprof

How I wrote #BelisariusAndAntonina Part 6: Funding a book project. As a tenured professor, research is part of my job requirements, and yet there were still aspects of the process of writing my book that required institutional support. 🧵 #History #Book #Publishing

Before talking about my specific situation, I want to acknowledge that academic historians have *wildly* different support for their research programs, something that non-academic followers of mine may not realize.

Tenured professors at elite research universities might teach few classes and have research assistants, allowing them to pump out publications. At the other extreme, many untenured early career researchers are often paid by the class and have essentially zero research support.

So academic historians who might have equally good ideas on a book to write could have very different resources for turning that idea into the reality of a published book. Some might write a new book every couple of years, and others might never write a book.

As a tenured professor at a regional, public university, my position is between the two extremes I outlined above. I teach more classes and do more service than my colleagues at elite universities, but I do have the luxury of full time employment, tenure, & some research support.

So, before I continue, I want to make clear that I am one of the lucky ones. I have a position that allows me and even encourages me to pursue research even while teaching and serving my university in other ways. This is a position that is unfortunately becoming rarer and rarer.

At my school, tenured faculty are eligible for a research sabbatical every seven years. The sabbatical is a semester in which the professor is granted a leave from teaching to focus on research. It is regulated: one must have a plan to be granted a sabbatical.

In Fall 2018, I submitted a proposal for a research sabbatical for Spring 2020. I proposed to spend that semester beginning the writing for #BelisariusAndAntonina. I pointed to my previous success publishing about sixth-century Roman history as evidence that I could do this.

After going through a review process, my request for sabbatical leave in Spring 2020 was granted in Spring 2019. Now I knew I would have a semester without teaching to get started on writing my book. However, there was one more support I wished to have.

I knew that the first chapter I would write would be about Belisarius in Italy and I thought it would be helpful to visit Italy during my sabbatical. So in Spring 2019, I applied for an Indiana University research grant - the “New Frontiers Exploratory Travel Fellowship.”

This grant funded me to travel to Rome and Ravenna in Spring 2020 during my sabbatical leave. With these two crucial forms of institutional support in place, I was prepared financially to immerse myself in the world of Belisarius and Antonina and begin making the book a reality.

Tomorrow: I begin my research travel in the Eternal City in February 2020. The attentive reader might guess (spoiler alert!) that unfortunately this trip did not end up being well timed for global events.