I lost my job.
Official word arrived today. I will be unemployed after the 20-21 academic year.

Two years until tenure and the rug is mercilessly ripped from under my feet.

Thread.

I am devastated as this is not only loss of employment, but in all likelihood the end of my academic career. I really liked being a history professor and have worked to become one since I was 19 years old. This hurts very badly.

I’ll have much more to say about this at the appropriate time, but for now I want to make sure that I give my students the best possible classes. It’s going to be a difficult year for everyone. I will strive to savor these last few months as professor.

The unfairness of being stripped of your career as your field withers away, then being required to risk deadly infection by teaching six semester classes this coming year is palpable.

At least I have a continued paycheck and health insurance for the time being. So many have not been so fortunate.

Most of you don’t know me, but chances are if you’re still reading this you’re a fellow academic. Silly as it is, a little validation from colleagues in the broad sense would mean a lot right now.

I'd just like to hear that I was a good teacher, and that the book I wanted to write would've been worthwhile.

The book was to be titled “Conflicts over Environment in the Age of the Samurai: Local Society, Resources, and the Birth of Japan's Early Modernity, 1450-1650.”

I wanted to show how local disputes over resources in late medieval Japan were critical conflicts, and the ways devised to resolve them without violence was key to reestablishing stability and maintaining it throughout the Edo period.

I had some great examples, primarily from Kai Province, but also Suruga, Sagami, and Shinano.

Village militias clashing over timbers, samurai landlords ousted after droughts, coup de etats in the wake of natural disasters – all set against the backdrop of marauding samurai armies and rapacious warlords. Alas.

It was not the main argument, but I also had some points to make about why I think "early modernity" remains a useful concept in Japanese history.

I’m just in a lot of pain right now. Thanks for reading.