On Thursday, June 11, I'm flying back to the United States to spend the summer in Michigan. While I'll be attending a workshop next week at the University of Illinois on mobility and Russia, I hope to spend most of the summer writing and getting ready for my upcoming job at Montana State. I only have to teach one course in the fall—history of the modern Middle East—but since this will be the first history class I've ever been completely responsible for, I'm anxious to get a good start on preparing for it.

One of the nice things about growing up in a college town is that heading home means heading back to a good library, and I'll probably be spending much of my time this summer in the library of the University of Michigan. Fortunately for me, I'll be able to use my dad's library card (he's an emeritus professor there), which will simply things a bit. Now that I've got a job, producing a book is one of the big projects on my plate, and this summer will hopefully be a productive one in this respect.


My travels have taken me in a lot of directions this year

It's been a heavy travel year for me. Just about a year ago, I flew out to here from Detroit, then immediately headed up to Moscow. From there, I went to Ufa, where I researched for a month, and then to Kazan. I was in Istanbul for a few months in the fall, then went back to North America to visit family in Ann Arbor, as well as attend conferences and participate in job interviews in Philadelphia, Washington, DC, Montana, Vancouver, and Baltimore. Coming back to Istanbul in early January, I celebrated by recent job offer with a trip to Amsterdam and Paris (where I met up with my Dad), then spent the rest of the winter and spring researching in Istanbul. In early April I began my Caucasian Journey, traveling to Georgia for six weeks of research via Trabzon, then returning to Istanbul by way of Artvin, Kars, and Van.

Even though I'll be back in the United States this summer I still plan to keep writing on events taking place in Turkey and elsewhere, so check out the blog this summer if you're interested in seeing what I'm up to.