Anyone here?

If anyone still comes by, I apologize for my long, long silence. Two months quiet in the blogosphere is perhaps irreparable, but I am going to try to resuscitate Serendipities anyway. It was too much fun to just let it die quietly. So I just renewed my hosting package for another year, and this blog hopefully has a new lease of life.

What happened in the past two months? I ditched the s in drs. and became a doctor! I publicly defended my PhD thesis in front of a packed Senate room at Utrecht University, and was awarded the degree afterwards. It was a wonderful day, with a long festive lunch and a great party at night. And it feels great to have finished the project. Here’s the cover of my book:

In the coming year, I will be trying to find an English or an American publisher — so if you have any advice on transforming a PhD thesis into a publishable book, it is more than welcome!

I also switched jobs - I will leave the University of Amsterdam next month, to become an assistant professor at the Vrije Universiteit, also in Amsterdam. It’s a two-year position, but I really hope there might be more after that. It is a great job, with research time and enthusiastic colleagues. I am going to be teaching a BA-course on Shakespeare and a master course called Theories of Gender and Culture next semester.

And to top it all, I just got back from a wonderful holiday on the Italian and French Riviera (pictures below). We lived in a beautiful cottage, walked in the mountains, swam in a the most bluest sea I have ever swam in, had great meals, saw cities and villages, and (as the bottom photo of a crash barrier says) ‘read like a monster’.

And now it’s back to work. In August, I will be focusing on the gender theory course and an article on gender and revenge in The Spanish Tragedy, and I’ll be exploring ideas for a new research project. I am going to use this place as a research laboratory, and I am going to become a regular commenter and blogger again. The sticker’s there to prove it: I am going to be a hard bloggin’ scientist!