My professional life has run flat-out the last five years but I’m finally taking a somewhat over-due sabbatical break after serving a three-year term as Director of Laurentian’s School of Liberal Arts which was a lesson, in and of itself, due to our institutional “challenges”. Suffice it to say, I’ve done a lot of administrative and pedagogical work since 2019, so I’m enjoying a chance to focus on some of my seventeenth century favourites. Between a six-month sabbatical and the application of many banked credits from overloads, I’m out of the classroom until September, 2026.

That means lots of time for early books, modern scholarly book purchases, and inter-library loans to supplement our own institutional holdings. I’ve been transcribing primary sources and note-taking at a break-neck pace, all the while completing one much-delayed book proposal while picking up an interrupted article draft. I hope to share more tidbits here. In the meanwhile, enjoy an image from one work that informs my recent scholarship and teaching: Hannah Wolley’s The Ladies Directory.